The Story of Assisi Part 6

In this simple story, told us in the chronicle of Lanercost, how true rings the franciscan note struck by Francis in those early days at the Portiuncula. He was for ever telling the brethren not to show sorrowful faces to one another, saying, as recorded by Brother Leo: "Let this sadness remain between G.o.d and thyself, and pray to Him that of His mercy He may forgive thee, and restore to thy soul His healthy joyance whereof He deprived thee as a punishment for thy sins."

It is all so long ago, and yet in reading those ancient chronicles the big church of the Angeli is for a time forgotten, and only the vision of the Portiuncula and the mud huts, with the brethren ever to and fro upon the road, remains with us as a strange picture in our modern hurried life.

But although the brethren lived so quietly in this retreat of still repose, St. Francis, ever watching over the welfare of his flock, was careful that prayer and meditation should never be an excuse for idleness, which of all vices he most abhorred. Therefore he encouraged each friar who in the world had followed some trade, to continue it here; so we hear of Beato Egidio, on his return from one of his long journeys, seated at the door of his hut busily employed in making rush baskets, while Brother Juniper, in those rare moments when he was out of mischief, would pa.s.s his time in mending sandals with an awl he kept up his sleeve for the purpose. Besides these individual occupations there was much to attend to even in such humble dwellings as those round the Portiuncula. Sometimes there were sick friars to nurse, or vegetables had to be planted in the orchard and provisions to be obtained, while the office of doorkeeper, as "Angels" came perpetually to ask pertinent questions of the brethren, became quite a laborious task. When it fell to Brother Ma.s.seo to answer the door he had little peace. Upon one occasion he went in haste to see who was making such a noise and found a "fair youth clothed as though for a journey," so he spoke somewhat roughly, and the youth enquired how knocking should be done. "Give three knocks," quoth Brother Ma.s.seo, little dreaming he was instructing an angel in the art of knocking, "with a brief s.p.a.ce between each knock, then wait until the brother has time to say a paternoster and to come unto thee; and if at the end of that time he does not come knock once again."

Things went smoothly enough when left to the management of such friars as Leo, Ma.s.seo or Rufino, but when one day the office of cook fell to Juniper, that dear jester of the brotherhood, we get a humorous picture of what his companions sometimes had to endure, and of the kindness with which they pardoned all shortcomings. The brethren had gone out, and Juniper being left alone devised an excellent plan whereby the convent might be supplied with food for a fortnight, and thus the cook have more time for prayer. "With all diligence," it is related in the _Fioretti_, "he went into the village and begged for several large cooking-pots, obtained fresh meat and bacon, fowls, eggs and herbs, also he begged a quant.i.ty of firewood, and placed all these upon the fire, to wit, the fowls with their feathers on, the eggs in their sh.e.l.ls, and the rest in like fashion." When the brethren came home, one that was well acquainted with the simplicity of Brother Juniper went into the kitchen, and seeing so many and such large pots on a great fire, sat down amazed without saying a word, and watched with what anxious care Brother Juniper did this cooking. Because of the fierceness of the fire he could not well get near to skim the pots, so he took a plank and tied it with a rope tight to his body and sprang from one pot to the other, so that it was a joy to see him.

Contemplating all with great delight, this brother went forth from the kitchen and finding the other brothers, said: "In sooth I tell you, Brother Juniper is making a marriage feast."

Then in hurried Juniper, all red with his exertions and the heat of the fire, explaining the excellent plan he had devised; and as he set his mess upon the table he praised it, saying: "Now these fowls are nourishing to the brain, this stew will refresh the body, it is so good"; but the stew remained untasted, for, says the _Fioretti_, "there is no pig in the land of Rome so famished that he would eat of it."

At the end of any foolish adventure Brother Juniper would always ask pardon with such humility that he edified his companions and all the people he came in contact with, instead of annoying them with his childish pranks. His goodness was manifest, and St. Francis was often heard to say to those who wished to reprove him after one of his wildest frolics, "would that I had a whole forest of these junipers."

Between the men who lived at the Portiuncula with the saint, and those who in later times ruled large convents in the cities, the contrast is so great that we would wish to draw still further from these inexhaustible chronicles which reveal so charmingly the life of these Umbrian friars. But to tell of all the events connected with the Portiuncula would mean recounting the history of the whole franciscan brotherhood, and we must now pa.s.s over many years to that saddest year of all, when St. Francis was brought to die in the place he had so carefully tended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: a.s.sISI FROM THE PLAIN]

Knowing that he had but a few more weeks of life, he begged the brethren to find some means to carry him away from the Bishop's Palace at a.s.sisi where he had been staying some time. "Verily," he told them pathetically, "because of my very infirmity I cannot go afoot"; so they carried him in their arms down the hill to the plain, and when they came to the hospital of San Salvatore dei Crociferi they laid him gently down upon the ground with his face towards a.s.sisi, because he desired to bless the town for the last time before he died.

The blind saint, lifting his hand in blessing, p.r.o.nounced these words dear to the hearts of the a.s.sisans to this day: "Blessed be thou of the Lord, O city, faithful to G.o.d, because through thee many souls shall be saved. The servants of the Most High shall dwell in great numbers within thy walls, and many of thy sons shall be chosen for the realms of heaven."

Then they carried him to the hut nearest the Portiuncula which was the infirmary, and here his last days were pa.s.sed.[58] Although he suffered acutely, they were days of marvellous peace and joy. It is beautiful to read how, with his usual tenderness, he thought of the brethren he was leaving to carry on the work without him, encouraging them all as they stood weeping round his bed. Like Isaac of old, the Umbrian patriarch blessed his first born, Bernard of Quintavalle, saying: "Come my little son that my soul may bless thee before I die,"

while he enjoined upon all to love and honour Bernard, who had been the first to listen to his words now so many years ago. With all his sons near him St. Francis dictated his will, wherein he describes the way of life they were to lead, and which, coming from him at this solemn moment, must always remain as a precious message from the saint, in many ways of more importance than the Rule approved in his life-time by Pope Honorius. When this was done he commended once again to their special care the chapel of the Portiuncula. "I will," he said to them, "that for all times it be the mirror and good example of all religion, and as it were a lamp ever burning and resplendent before the throne of G.o.d and before the Blessed Virgin."

The farewells to those of his immediate circle had been made and a letter written to St. Clare, and now he wished to bid "the most n.o.ble Roman matron, Madonna Giacoma dei Settesoli," one of his most devoted followers, to come and take leave of him at a.s.sisi. The letter had only just been written when knocking at the door and the sound of horses trampling was heard outside, and the brethren going out to discover the cause of such unwonted noise found that Madonna Giacoma, accompanied by her sons, two Roman senators, had been inspired to come and visit the dying saint.

The brethren, somewhat averse to allow a woman, even one so renowned for holiness as Madonna Giacoma, to enter their sacred precincts, called to St. Francis in their doubt: "Father, what shall be done?

Shall we let her enter and come unto thee?" And the Blessed Francis said: "The regulation is to be set aside in respect to this lady whose great faith and devotion hath brought her hither from such far-off parts." So Madonna Giacoma came into the presence of the Blessed Francis weeping bitterly, and she brought with her the shroud-cloth, incense, and a great quant.i.ty of wax for the candles which were to burn before his body after death. She had even thought of some cakes made of almonds and sugar, known in Rome by the name of _mostaccioli_, which she had often made for him when he visited her. But the saint was fast failing, and could eat but little of the cakes.

As the end came nearer his thoughts were drawn away from earth, and true to the last to his Lady Poverty, he caused himself to be laid naked on the ground as a token of his complete renouncement of the world. His face radiant with happiness, he kept asking his companions to recite the Canticle of the Sun, often joining in it himself or breaking forth into his favourite psalm _Voce mea ad Dominum Clamavi_.

With words of praise and gladness the Blessed Francis of a.s.sisi, the spouse of Poverty, died in a mud hut close to the shrine he loved, on the 3rd of October of 1226 in the forty-fifth year of his age.

His soul was seen to ascend to heaven under the semblance of a star, but brilliant as the sun, upon clouds as white as snow. It was sunset, the hour when in Umbria after the stillness of a warm autumn day an unusual tremor pa.s.ses through the land and all things in the valley and upon the hill-sides are stirred by it, when a flight of larks circled above the roof of the hut where the saint lay at rest. And these birds of light and gladness "seemed by their sweet singing to be in company with Francis praising the Lord G.o.d."

FOOTNOTES:

[51] It has sometimes happened that visitors, who have not read their Murray with sufficient care, thinking "Le Carceri" are prisons where convicts are kept, leave a.s.sisi without visiting this charming spot.

"Carceri" certainly now means "prisons," but the original meaning of the word in old Italian is a place surrounded by a fence and often remote from human habitation.

[52] It is perhaps an insult to the Tescio to leave the traveller in Umbria under the impression that this mountain torrent is always dry.

Certainly that is its usual condition, but we have seen it during the storms that break upon the land in August and September overflow its banks and inundate the country on either side; but with this wealth of water its beauty goes.

[53] The large modern church of Rivo-Torto, on the road from Sta.

Maria degli Angeli to Spello, built to enclose the huts that St.

Francis and his companions are supposed to have lived in while tending the lepers, has been proved without doubt by M. Paul Sabatier to have no connection whatever with the Saint. In these few pages we have followed the information given in a pamphlet which is to be found in the Italian translation of his _Vie de S. Francois d'a.s.sise_. It is impossible here to enter into all the arguments relating to this disputed point, but I think the authority of the best, and by far the most vivid of the biographers of St. Francis can be trusted without further comment, and that we may safely believe the hut of St.

Francis, known as Rivo-Torto, lay close to the present chapels of San Rufino d'Arce and Sta. Maria Maddalena. See Appendix for information as to their exact position in the plain and the nearest road to them.

_Disertazione sul primo luogo abitato dai Frati Minori su Rivo-Torto e nell'Ospedale dei Lebbrosi di a.s.sisi._ di Paul Sabatier (Roma, Ermanno Loescher and Co., 1896).

[54] See _The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. xxvii.

Nov. 1882.

[55] _Speculum Perfectionis_, cap. lv., edited by Paul Sabatier.

[56] This custom ceased in the fifteenth century; but in the year 1899, through the piety of the Rev. Father Bernardine Ibald, it was revived. Once again the franciscans take a small basket of fish to the abbot and his monks who now live at S. Pietro in a.s.sisi, where the benedictines went when their mountain retreat was destroyed by order of the a.s.sisan despot, Broglia di Trino.

[57] This ill.u.s.tration is from a print to be seen in the somewhat rare edition of the _Collis Paradisi Amoenitas, seu Sacri Conventus a.s.sisiensis Historiae_, published in 1704 at Montefalco by Padre Angeli, and it may even have been taken from an earlier drawing. In it there is the true feeling of a franciscan convent, such as the saint hoped would continue for all time, and though there are some points which are incorrect (the Church of Sta. Chiara, though curiously enough not the convent, is represented, which was built several years later than San Francesco), we get a clear idea of both a.s.sisi and its immediate neighbourhood. All the ancient gates of the town can be made out, the Roman road from Porta Mojano to San Rufino d'Arce, a faint indication of the path to the Carceri, and also the old road from a.s.sisi to the plain out of the gate of S. Giacomo, pa.s.sing not very far from the Ponte S. Vittorino. The wall round the Portiuncula and the huts did not exist in the time of St. Francis, which, together with the wooden gate, may have been added by Brother Elias. The largest hut a little to the right of the chapel was the infirmary where St. Francis died (now called the Chapel of St. Francis), and the one behind it was his cell (now known as the Chapel of the Roses, see chapter xi. for its story), whence he could easily pa.s.s out through the woods to San Rufino d'Arce hard by.

[58] For fuller account see _The Mirror of Perfection_, translated by Sebastian Evans, caps. 107, 108, 112, and _The Little Flowers of St.

Francis_, translated by J. W. Arnold (Temple Cla.s.sics), chap. vi.

CHAPTER IV

_The building of the Basilica and Convent of San Francesco. The Story of Brother Elias_

"O brother mine, O beautiful brother, O brother of love, build me a castle which shall have neither stone nor iron. O beautiful brother, build me a city which shall have neither wood nor stone."--BEATO EGIDIO.

One of the strangest characteristics of mediaeval Italy was the rivalry between different towns to gain possession of the bodies of holy people. They did not even wait for the bull of canonisation to arrive from Rome, but often of their own accord placed the favoured being in the Calendar of Saints, and papal decrees merely ratified the choice of popular devotion. We have an example of this with the Perugians.

Ever on the alert to increase the glory of their city, they hovered near the road St. Francis was to follow during his last illness when borne from Cortona to a.s.sisi, meaning to carry him off by force so that he might die in Perugia.[59] Never at a loss for a way out of any difficulty Elias hastily changed the itinerary for the journey, and instead of the short way by lake Thrasymene he took the much longer and more difficult road by Gualdo and Nocera, far back in the mountains to the north of a.s.sisi. He warned the a.s.sisans of the peril run by the little company of friars with their sick father, and soldiers were immediately sent to escort them safely to the Bishop's Palace where St. Francis stayed until carried to the Portiuncula when he knew that he was dying.

They were sad days at a.s.sisi when St. Francis was borne through the city blind and ill; and as he stretched out his hands to bless the people they bowed their heads and wept at the sight of so much suffering. Now that the end had come and they knew he lay safely in the little shrine of the Portiuncula, their mourning was changed into rejoicing, and as though they were preparing for a great festival, strange sounds of busy talk, of laughter and of singing were heard in the streets. Had a stranger found himself at a.s.sisi that Sunday morning he might well have asked: "What victory have you gained to merit all this show of gladness, or what emperor are you going forth to greet?" And the answer would have been: "Francis, our saint, the son of Bernardone, returned to us when he was nigh to death, and now that he is dead we possess his body which will bring great honour and fame to our city by reason of the many miracles to be wrought at his tomb."

The sun had not yet risen when the a.s.sisans left their houses and thronged down the hill to the Portiuncula to bring the precious burden to rest within the more certain refuge of their walled town. "Blessed and praised be the Lord our G.o.d who has entrusted to us, though unworthy, so great a gift. Praise and glory to the ineffable Trinity,"

they sang as they hurried along in the cold dawn. Trumpeters blew loud and discordant notes, nearly drowning the voices of the priests who vainly in the din tried to intone the canticles and psalms. The n.o.bles came from their castles with lighted torches to join the procession, the peasants from the hills brought sprigs of olive, and those from the forests stripped the oaks of their finest branches which they waved above their heads, while children strewed the ground with flowers.

Amidst all this stirring show of joy a kindly thought had been taken of St. Clare and her nuns, so that when the body of St. Francis had been laid in a coffin, and the long line of friars, priests and townsmen turned to climb the hill, they took a path skirting just below the town, through the vineyards and olive groves, to the convent of San Damiano. The sound of chanting must have warned the watchers of their approach long before they came in sight. An artist has pictured the nuns like a flock of timid sheep in his fresco, trooping out of an exquisitely marbled chapel, with St. Clare endeavouring to suppress her grief as she bends over the dead Francis, while the sisters press close behind her. This is how it ought to have been; but, alas, only an iron lattice, through which the nuns were wont to receive the Holy Communion, was opened for them, and the friars lifting the body of St.

Francis from the coffin, held it in their arms at the opening as one by one the nuns came to kiss the pierced hands. "Madonna Chiara's"

tears fell fast as she gazed on him who had brought such joy into her cloistered solitude. "Oh father, father," she murmured, "what are we to do now that thou hast abandoned us unhappy ones? With thee departs all consolation, for buried here away from the world there is none to console us." Restraining the lamentations which filled her heart she pa.s.sed like a shadow out of sight to her cell, and when all the sisters had bidden farewell to St. Francis, the small window was closed "never again to open upon so sad a scene."

The people, who until now had wept bitterly, began to sing again as the procession went on its way up the hill towards the Porta Mojano.

The trumpets sounded louder than ever, and "with jubilation and great exultation" the sacred body was brought to the church of San Giorgio, where it was carefully laid in a marble urn covered with an iron grating, and guarded day and night from the prying eyes of the Perugians. If Francis had worked miracles during his life, those chronicled at his tomb are even more marvellous; in recounting some which read like fairy tales, a biographer recounts with pride that, "even from heaven, the Saint showed his courtesy to all."

Devotion to St. Francis was not confined to Umbria or even to Italy, for we read how his fame spread throughout France, and how the King and Queen with all the barons of the land, came to Paris to kiss one of his relics. "People journeyed from the east and from the west,"

enthusiastically exclaims Celano with a total disregard of detail, "they came from the north and from the south, even the learned and the lettered who abounded in Paris at that time."

But while France was being stirred by the news of perpetual miracles and prodigies wrought through the intercession of the saint, and a.s.sisi in consequence was fast growing into a place of great importance in the world, Pope Gregory IX, who had been lately elected upon the death of Honorius III, spent many hours in the Cannonica at Perugia wrestling with his doubts concerning the truth of the greatest miracle of all, the miracle of the Stigmata. While in this state of uncertainty and perplexity St. Francis, the _Fioretti_ relates, appeared to him one night, and showed him the five wounds inflicted by the Seraph upon his hands, feet and side. The vision, it seems, dispelled all doubt from the mind of Pope Gregory, for in conclave with the cardinals he proclaimed the sanct.i.ty of his friend, the Poverello d'a.s.sisi, and determined to set the final seal of the church upon his miracles and fame.

This vision was the prelude of a great ceremony held a few days later in San Giorgio for the canonisation of Francis, at which all Umbria seems to have been present. Pope Gregory, clothed in vestments of cloth of gold embroidered with precious stones, his tiara "almost as an aureole of sanct.i.ty about his head," sat stiffly on his pontifical throne like some carved image, surrounded by cardinals in crimson garments and bishops in white stoles. All eyes were fixed upon this splendid group, and it is not improbable that among the spectators stood Pietro Bernardone and Madonna Pica, and many who had reviled Francis in his early days of sanct.i.ty, and now, within two years of his death, witnessed him placed among the greatest of the saints.

Gregory had prepared an eloquent address, which he delivered in a sonorous voice occasionally broken by sobs of emotion. Becoming more and more enthusiastic as he proceeded, he compared Francis to a full moon, a refulgent sun, a star rising above the morning mists, and when he had finished the pious homily, a sub-deacon read out a list of the saint's miracles, and a learned cardinal, "not without copious weeping," discoursed thereon, while the Pope listened, shedding "rivers of tears," and breaking forth every now and then into deep-drawn sighs. The prelates wept so devoutly that their vestments were in great part wet, and the ground was drenched with their tears.

The ceremony ended when the Pope rose to bless the people, and intoned the _Te Deum_, in which all joined with such good will that the "earth resounded in great jubilee."

Had St. Francis foreseen how his humility would be rewarded? This we know, that he in part had realised how his order would slip away from his ideal, and there is a deep note of sadness in many pages of his life, showing us how fully he realised the pitfalls his disciples were likely to fall into when he was no longer there to watch over them with tender care. Often while he was absent for only a little time the brethren forgot his simple rule, building cells and houses too s.p.a.cious and pretentious for the home of the Lady Poverty. This had been one of the signs to him that his earnest prayers to G.o.d, his example and admonitions to his followers, which come to us through his letters and the pages of Brother Leo like the cry of one who bravely fought against the inevitable, were all to be in vain. It is a tragic story, and rendered still more so by the fact that the Saint's last years should have been saddened by this knowledge of coming events.

Only a little while and the teaching of poverty and obscurity which he had so deeply implanted in the hearts of his followers was to be completely swept away; upon the ruins of that first franciscan order, guarded jealously for a time by a faithful few, arose the new franciscan spirit which Elias Buonbarone, inspired by the will of Gregory IX, brought into being almost before the echo of his master's words had died away. It is not for us in this small s.p.a.ce to trace the many changes that crept into the young community, but we simply note as a fact, what to some may appear exaggerated, that the order St. Francis founded, and prayed would continue as he left it, ceased at his death, while the order that grew up afterwards bore the unmistakable stamp of Elias and the Vatican.