The Story of Assisi Part 5

"Beata Anonima," a chronicler recounts, "being already a Cistercian nun in the convent of S. Cerbone of Lucca at the time of the siege of that city by the Florentines, when the said nuns, for valid reasons, were transferred to the convent of Sta. Christina inside the city. Now this most fervent servant of G.o.d took this opportune time and fled by stealth, disguised as a man, and went, or rather flew, to a.s.sisi; there, fired with an ardent desire to fight under the seraphic standard, she breathlessly climbed the steep slopes of Mount Subasio, and having found the horrible cavern of Santa Maria delle Carceri fervently entreated those good Fathers to admit her amongst them and to bestow on her their sacred habit, for which her longing was extreme. At length, having overcome all resistance, believing her to be a man as appeared from her dress, and not a woman which in reality she was, they admitted her to the convent and gave her the habit of religion." She edified all by the holiness of her life and the rigid penances she performed, but her health soon suffered and only upon her death-bed, surrounded by the friars chanting the psalms for the dying, the Blessed Anonima confessed to the fraud she had practised in order to dwell in the hermitage rendered so dear because of the memory of the Poverello d'a.s.sisi.

RIVO-TORTO[53]

A straight and stony road, the old Roman one, now overgrown in many parts with gra.s.s and trails of ivy and bordered by mulberry and oak trees, leads out of the Porta Mojano to two little chapels in the plain. Set back from the main road in the midst of the fields few people find them, and the peasants know nothing of their story and can only tell of a miraculous well in which a youthful saint met his death. When his body was brought to the surface a lily had grown from his mouth and upon its petals was written in letters of gold the one word, _Veritas_, for he had died in the cause of truth. Since then, as the peasants recount with pride, many come from afar to drink of the waters of this well for it cures every ill. It is over-grown with ferns and close by stands an ancient sarcophagus where the children sit to eat their midday meal. A piece of old worn sculpture still ornaments the chapel of the young martyr, and the feeling of the place is very charming, but the pilgrim who comes to a.s.sisi to visit St.

Francis, has a different picture to recall with another kind of beauty belonging to it than that of holy wells and flowering banks and meadows.

It is difficult, when looking on San Rufino d'Arce, with its cl.u.s.ter of vine-shaded peasant houses, and then on Santa Maria Maddalena, narrow windowed, the small apse marking it as a primitive Umbrian chapel of the fields, to realise that in the Middle Ages this was a leper village separated from a.s.sisi by a little more than a mile of open country. And yet here, without doubt, we have Rivo-Torto where, even before his famous interview with Innocent III, St. Francis had stayed with those three first a.s.sisan companions, Bernard di Quintavalle, Peter Cataneo and Egidio. Then in the autumn of 1210, when he returned from Rome after the rule of poverty had been sanctioned by the Church, but before he was ready to begin his mission as preacher, he came to live among the lepers, forming with his disciples a little family which we may call the beginning of a first franciscan settlement.

The leper village was divided according to the social rank of the outcasts, the richer living together near the chapel of Sta. Maria Maddalena and forming quite a community with the right of freely administering their own goods. As M. Sabatier observes, it was therefore not "only a hospital, but almost a little town near the city with the same social distinctions of cla.s.ses."

Those tended by St. Francis were the poorest of the lepers, whose wretched hovels lay near the chapel of San Rufino d'Arce; and Celano must be referring to this settlement when he tells us how Francis in his early days, even if he chanced to look down from a.s.sisi upon the houses of the lepers in the plain, would hold his nostrils with his hand, because his horror of them was so great.

But as the grace of G.o.d touched his heart, making him take pity upon all things weak and suffering, he turned the force of his strong nature to overcoming this repugnance, and there is a beautiful story telling of the first victory gained shortly after his conversion.

While riding one day near a.s.sisi he met a leper, and filled with disgust and even fear at the sight, his first impulse was to turn his horse round, but, remembering his new resolutions to follow the teaching of Christ, he went forward to meet the poor man, and even kissed the hand extended to him for alms. "Then," says St.

Bonaventure, "having mounted his horse, he looked around him over the wide and open plain, but the leper was nowhere to be seen. And Francis being filled with wonder and gladness, devoutly gave thanks to G.o.d, purposing within himself to proceed to still greater things than this." Certainly the event heralded a life of holiness, and was the means of rousing his latent energies and the feelings for self-sacrifice which drove him from the wild and solitary places he loved into the very midst of the world, there to work strenuously, in every part of Italy, at first among lepers and then among the wealthy, the ignorant and the sorrowful.

For the life at Rivo-Torto led by "these valiant despisers of the great and good things of this world" we cannot do better than turn to the Three Companions (Brothers Ma.s.seo, Ruffino and Leo) who knew by personal experience the hardships and roughness of the place.

Feelingly they describe: "a hovel, or rather a cavern abandoned by man; the which place was so confined that they could hardly sit down to repose themselves. Many a time they had no bread, and ate nought but turnips which they begged for here and there in travail and in anguish. On the beams of the poor hut the man of G.o.d wrote the names of the brethren, so that whoso would repose or pray might know his place and not disturb, by reason of the cramped and limited s.p.a.ce in the small hovel, the quietude of the night." Even the appearance of Otto IV, close to their hut seems in no way to have disturbed the peaceful course of their lives, but only gave St. Francis the opportunity of bestowing a timely warning upon the Emperor. Celano, ever delighting in the picturesque details of ceremonies and pageants, tells us how "there came at that time with much noise and pomp the great Emperor on his way to take the terrestrial crown of the Empire; now the most holy father with his companions being in the said house near the road where the cavalcade was pa.s.sing, would neither go out to see it, nor permit his brethren to go, save one, whom he commanded fearlessly to announce to Otto that his glory would be short-lived."

Thus, if the tale be true, a German Emperor was the first to listen to Francis' message to a mediaeval world sunk in the love of earthly things, and who knows whether the saint's words did not come back to Otto again in after years.

The Penitents of a.s.sisi only remained until the spring at Rivo-Torto, for even during those few months' sojourn among the lepers their numbers had so increased that it became necessary to think of some surer abode. One day St. Francis called the brethren to tell them how he had thought of obtaining from one of his various kind friends in a.s.sisi, a small chapel where they could peacefully say their Hours, having some poor little houses for shelter close by built of wattle and mud.

His speech was pleasing to the brethren, and so, following the master they loved and trusted, all went to dwell at the Portiuncula, where, as we shall see, a new life was to begin for them.

THE PORTIUNCULA

"Holy of Holies is this Place of Places, Meetly held worthy of surpa.s.sing honour!

Happy thereof the surname, 'Of the Angels,'

Happier yet the name, 'The Blessed Mary.'

Now, a true omen, the third name conferreth 'The Little Portion' on the Little Brethren, Here, where by night a presence oft of Angels Singing sweet hymns illumineth the watches."

(_The Mirror of Perfection_, translated by Sebastian Evans.)

Those who want to realise the charm of the Portiuncula and of the memories that cling about it, must try to forget the great church which shuts out from it the sunlight, and with the early chroniclers as their guides, call up the image of St. Francis with his first disciples who in an age of unrest came here to seek for peace.

Make your pilgrimage in the springtime or in the early summer, when pink hawthorn and dogroses are flowering in every hedge and the vines fill the valley with a delicate green light. Looking at cities and villages so purely Umbrian, some spread among cornfields close to a swift clear river, others set upon heights which nearly touch the sky on stormy days, we forget that beyond these hills and mountains encircling the big valley of Umbria stretch other lands as fair. We forget, because it is a little world which during long centuries has been set apart from all else, and where man has but completed the work of nature herself. During the long hours of a summer's day, when the sense of remoteness in the still plain is most intense, it brings to us, as nothing else can ever do, some feeling of that early time when four hermits came from Palestine and found a quiet retreat in the oak forests of a.s.sisi.

It was in the year 352, as St. Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem, relates, when a cross had been seen stretched from Calvary to the Mount of Olives and to shine more brightly than the sun, that four holy men, impelled by a feeling that some great crisis was at hand, determined to visit the shrines of Rome. Having performed their devotions and offered many precious relics to Pope Liberius, they expressed a great desire to find some hermitage where, each in a silent cell, they could meditate upon the marvellous things they had seen in the Eternal City.

The Pope gave them most excellent advice when he told them to go to the Spoletan valley. With his sanction to choose any part of it they liked, they pa.s.sed over the mountains dividing Umbria from the Campagna, and by many towns until, when about a mile from a.s.sisi, they determined to build their dwellings in the plain, thinking, as indeed they might, to find no other spot so suited for a quiet retreat. Close to four huts of rough hewn stone and brushwood they erected a tiny chapel with a pent roof and narrow window which, perhaps in memory of their native valley, they dedicated to St. Mary of Jehosaphat. But after a few years, forsaking the life of hermits, they again took up their staves and returned home to Palestine by way of the Romagna, leaving beneath the altar of the chapel they had built a relic of the Virgin's sepulchre.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIDE DOOR OF THE PORTIUNCULA BUILT BY ST. BENEDICT]

At different times other devout hermits, charmed by the lonely chapel, took possession of it for a time, but it was often deserted for many years. Its preservation is due to St. Benedict who, pa.s.sing through Umbria during the early part of the sixth century, was inspired to restore the ruined chapel and dwell near it for awhile. He not only repaired the walls, but built the two large round arched doors we see to this day, and which many declare to be quite out of proportion to the rest of the building, but their unusual size is accounted for by a charming legend. Once when St. Benedict was praying in the chapel he saw a marvellous vision as he knelt wrapt in ecstasy. A crowd of people were praying around him to St. Francis, singing hymns of praise and calling for mercy on their souls, while outside still greater mult.i.tudes waited for their turn to come and pray before the shrine.

St. Benedict, understanding from this that a great saint would one day be honoured here, made the two doors in the chapel, and made them large enough for many to pa.s.s in and out at a time. Thus was the feast of the "Pardon of St. Francis" prepared for some seven hundred years too soon.

St. Benedict obtained from the a.s.sisans the gift of a small plot of ground near the sanctuary, which suggested to him the name of St. Mary of the Little Portion--Sta. Maria della Portiuncula. When a few years later St. Benedict founded his famous order at Monte Ca.s.sino, he did not forget the Umbrian chapel he had saved from ruin, and sent some of his monks to live there and to minister among the people. Like the first hermits they lived in poor huts, saying their Hours in the little chapel, until in the eleventh century they built a large monastery and church upon the higher slopes of Mount Subasio to the east of a.s.sisi, and the Portiuncula was again deserted. But although no one lived near, and ma.s.s was never celebrated there, it still remained in the keeping of the benedictines who occasionally must have seen to its repair, and thus preserved it for the coming of St.

Francis.

It has been suggested to me that the spot selected by the four holy pilgrims in the fourth century may have been even then the site of a sacred shrine, for the custom of erecting tabernacles over the graves of distinguished persons reaches back to very early times. Originally designed as a mortuary cell such a structure might, being duly oriented, come to be used as a chapel for service.

The subject of "Sepulchral Cellae" will be found treated of by the late Sir Samuel Fergusson[54] in a memoir in which he figures some of the burial vaults and early oratories of Ireland, some of which are in shape identical with Sta. Maria della Portiuncula, with the same pent roof, round arched door, and perfectly plain walls. A building thus erected over a grave was called _Porticulus_, and any who pillaged "a house made in form of a basilica over a dead person" had to pay a fine.

From an archaeological point of view there is much to be desired in the published descriptions of the Portiuncula. A great part of its exterior walls is now covered with frescoes which hide all detail, but perhaps a minute examination of the interior walls might reveal portions of the foundations built upon by St. Benedict, and we sincerely hope that these few words may attract attention to so interesting a subject.

But even if the shrine said to have been built by the hermits from Palestine for Our Lady's Girdle turns out to have been an ancient tomb, the later legends are by no means destroyed. It is not unlikely that St. Benedict, attracted as much by lonely places as St. Francis, took possession of the Umbrian tomb, and perhaps little thinking what it was, rebuilt and used it as a chapel. Whatever may be the true story, it is very certain that the Portiuncula, from earliest times, has possessed a strange attraction for all who pa.s.sed by, each one thinking a tiny chapel situated so charmingly in the woods, within sight, though not within sound, of the Umbrian towns, to be a perfect spot for prayer.

The country people treasure the legend that Madonna Pica often came to pray at the Portiuncula, and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin obtained a son after seven years of waiting, and this son of prayer and patience was St. Francis of a.s.sisi.

Half ruined and neglected as the chapel was, Francis learned, even as quite a child, to love it, and kneeling therein by his mother's side would pray with all the fervour of his childish faith. Later in life when he had turned from the mad follies of his youth to follow in the footsteps of Christ, he remembered the shrine he had loved in childhood, and would pa.s.s many nights there in prayer and bitter meditation upon the Pa.s.sion. At last touched by the sight of its crumbling walls, he set himself the task of repairing them, working so busily with stones and mortar that the chapel soon regained its former simple beauty. The Benedictines of Mount Subasio, touched by his ungrudging labour and piety, arranged with an a.s.sisan priest to celebrate ma.s.s at the Portiuncula from time to time, and this fact drew the young saint there still oftener.

Then followed his time of ministry among the lepers of San Rufino d'Arce, when day by day so many disciples came to enlist in this new army of working beggars that the little hut in the leper-village could no longer hold them, and Francis had to think of some means of housing the brethren, and obtaining, what he had often desired, a chapel wherein they could say the Hours. (The saint, we may be sure, always said his office in the woods.) But evidently he had no particular place in his mind, not even his beloved Portiuncula, for he went first to his friend Guido, Bishop of a.s.sisi, and then to the canons of San Rufino to ask if they could help him. They only answered that they had no church to dispose of, and could offer no advice upon the subject.

Then sorrowfully, like a man begging from door to door, St. Francis climbed Mount Subasio to lay his request in piteous terms before the benedictine abbot, where he met with more success. Brother Leo tells us that the abbot was "moved to pity, and after taking counsel with his monks, being inspired by divine grace and will, granted unto the Blessed Francis and his brethren the church of St. Mary of the Little Portion, as being the smallest and poorest church they possessed. And the abbot said to the Blessed Francis, 'Behold Brother, we grant what thou desirest. But should the Lord multiply thy brotherhood we will that this place shall be the mother-house of thy Order.'"[55]

With a willing heart Francis promised what the abbot asked, and further insisted upon paying rent for the Portiuncula, because he wished his followers always to bear in mind the point of his rule, which he so often dwelt upon, namely, that they owned no property whatever, but were only in this world as pilgrims. So every year two of his brethren brought to the gate of the benedictine monastery a basket full of roach caught in the Chiaggio which flows at no great distance from the Portiuncula, and the abbot, smiling at the simplicity of Francis, who had imagined yet another device for humility, gave back a vessel full of oil in exchange for the gift of fish.[56]

With great rejoicing St. Francis set to work building cells of a most simple pattern, with walls of wattle and dab, and thatched with straw, each brother inscribing his name upon a portion of the mud floor set apart for him to rest in. "And no sooner had they come to live here,"

writes Brother Leo, "than the Lord multiplied their number day by day, and the sweet scent of their good name spread marvellously abroad throughout all the Spoletan valley, and in many parts of the world."

It was thus that St. Mary of the Little Portion, henceforth to be the nucleus of the franciscan order, and a place familiar to pilgrims from far and near for many succeeding centuries, came into the keeping of St. Francis in the year 1211, about nine months after Innocent III had sanctioned his work among the people of Italy.

St. Francis and the brethren had been but a year in their new abode when a figure pa.s.sed in among them for a moment and then was gone, leaving, as a vision to haunt them to their dying day, the memory of her beauty and soul's purity.

Never in the history of any saint has there been so touching and wondrous a scene as when the young Clare left her father's palace in a.s.sisi to take the vows of perpetual and voluntary poverty at the altar of the Portiuncula. Followed by two trembling women, she pa.s.sed swiftly through the town in the dead of night, across the fields by the slumbering village of Valecchio, and through dark woods made more sombre by the starry Umbrian sky which at intervals gleamed between the wide-spreading branches of the oak trees. The hurrying figure of the young girl, swathed in a long mantle, seemed like some spirit driven by winds towards an unknown future. One thing alone was clear to her, she was nearing the abode of Francis Bernardone whose preaching at San Giorgio only a month before had so thrilled her, inspiring her in this strange way to seek the life he had described in such fiery words. And just as she came in sight of the Portiuncula the chanting of the brethren, which had reached her in the wood, suddenly ceased, and they came out with lighted torches in expectation of her coming. Swiftly and without a word she pa.s.sed in to attend the midnight ma.s.s which Francis was to serve.

The ceremony was simple, wherein lies the charm of all things franciscan. The service over and the last blessing given, St. Francis led Clare towards the altar and with his own hands cut off her long fair hair and unclasped the jewels from her neck. But a few minutes more and a daughter of the proud house of Scifi stood clothed in the brown habit of the order, the black veil of religion falling about her shoulders, lovelier far in this nun-like severity than she had been when decked out in all her former luxury of silken gowns and precious gems.

It was arranged that Clare was to go afterwards to the benedictine nuns of San Paolo near Bastia, about an hour's walk further on in the plain. So when the final vows had been taken, St. Francis took her by the hand and they pa.s.sed out of the chapel together just as dawn was breaking, while the brethren returned to their cells gazing half sadly as they pa.s.sed, at the coils of golden hair and the little heap of jewels which still lay upon the altar cloth.

Those early days at the Portiuncula were among the most important of Francis' life; dreams which had come to him while he spent long hours in the caves and woods near a.s.sisi were to be fully realised, and the work he felt inspired to perform was to be carried out in the busy villages and cities of Italy and even further afield. All this was now very clear to Francis, and more than ever anxious to keep the simplicity of his order untouched, he taught his followers, in words which fell so gently yet so earnestly from his lips, that they were to toil without ceasing, and restlessly and without pause to wander from castle to castle, from city to city, in search of those who needed help. It may therefore at first seem strange that the "Penitents of a.s.sisi" owning nothing but the peace within their hearts, desiring no better place for prayer than a cavern in some mountain gorge, should establish themselves near a chapel which, if not nominally their own, was practically regarded as the property of the Friars Minor. But in this again we feel the wisdom and tenderness of the saint for his little community. With all the fervour and fire of enthusiasm which impelled him like a living force to seek his end, he well knew that without some place in which to meet together and rest awhile, his followers, who however much imbued with his ardent spirit were but mortal men, would very likely fall away from the high ideal he had set before them.

Thus the Portiuncula became to the brethren as a nest, where like tired birds that long had been upon the wing, they could return after much wandering to peaceful thoughts, to prayer and quiet labour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PORTIUNCULA IN THE TIME OF ST. FRANCIS (FROM THE "COLLIS PARADISI").]

It is not very difficult, with the print from the "Collis Paradisi"[57] before us, and the remembrance of the large oaks which still mark the ancient Roman roads leading from a.s.sisi to the plain, to call up the picture of the strange franciscan hamlet cl.u.s.tering round a pent-roofed chapel, and with only trees for a convent wall. What a life of peace in the mud huts! what a life of turmoil and angry strife raging in the city just in sight!

The spirit of those days, when monachism meant all that was purely ideal and beautiful, seems to live again. Then, day and night, each brother strove to fit himself for the work he had in view, drawing into his soul the peace and love he learned from nature herself as the forest leaves rustled above his cell or the nightingales accompanied the midnight office with their song. And when his turn came to take up the pilgrim's staff and follow the lead of Francis, he went with cheerfulness to bring to the people some of that child-like joy and lightness of heart which marked the Little Brethren through whatever land they wandered as the disciples of St. Francis.

Let us for a moment leave the Umbrian valley for the country near Oxford, where on a bitter Christmas Day, two friars were journeying upon their first mission to England.

"Going into a neighbouring wood they picked their way along a rugged path over the frozen mud and hard snow, whilst blood stained the track of their naked feet without their perceiving it. The younger friar said to the elder: 'Father, shall I sing and lighten our journey?' and on receiving permission he thundered forth a Salve Regina misericordiae.... Now, when the hymn was concluded ... he who had been the consoler said, with a kind of self congratulation to his companion: 'Brother, was not that antiphonal well sung?'"