The Spiritual Franciscans: from Protest to Persecution in the Century after Saint Francis

Church History, Dec, 2002 by Paul Lachance

By David Burr. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001, xii 427 pp, $45.00 cloth.

Two recent scholars on the history of early Franciscanism characterized it as the story of a "difficult heritage" (R. Lambertini and A. Tabarroni, Dopo Francesco: l eredita difficile, Torino: Edizioni gruppo Abele, 1989). David Burr's book on the Spiritual Franciscans finds its place among the burgeoning number of studies, especially of Italian origin, that are in the process of revaluating the turbulent years of the century after the death of the Poverello. Dark clouds of the ensuing conflict concerning the founding intent already loomed during Francis's lifetime, especially during the later years as witnessed by the alarm sounded in his Testament. The issue at hand: how to remain faithful to the ideal set forth by the holiness of Francis (the polysemia of his image) and his companions in the midst of the booming number of adherents, increasing clericalization and learning, expanding geographical spread, and constantly changing ecclesial and social conditions. Until fairly recently historians have tended to paint the controversy in fairly neat and contrasting categories: the majority of the friars, the so-called "community," made the accommodations from the primitive ideal deemed necessary to changing times and conditions while a recalcitrant minority, the so-called "spirituals," resisted them, disobeyed established authority, were more or less justly persecuted, and are best left in the dust bins of history; or, in other equally facile terms, those who were faithful to the original ideal on one side and those who betrayed it on the other. One of the great merits of Burr's book is to make clear that such interpretive grids no longer hold, and the distinctions between the leaders, the various factions, the issues involved--and at various moments of their evolution--are much more blurred than they have seemed until now. It is only with great caution, as Burr repeatedly asserts, that one is to use the terms "spiritual" and "community," which, as he also indicates, are historical categories of quite recent coinage.

Availing himself of the most recent scholarship but also capping a lifetime of research and publications, Burr, with great finesse and lilting prose, traces the prehistory and evolution of this complex and turbulent story, indicating its initial defining moments in the 1270s, when leaders and factions first surfaced, and pursuing its variegated trajectory and diverse plots in southern France and Italy up to its culminating stages when, in 1318, four dissidents were burnt at the stake in Marseilles, and around the 1330s, Angelo of Clareno, one of the main protagonists, with Pope John XXII in hot pursuit, "fled to the mountains," ending his days in a hermitage in the kingdom of Naples. What Burr does so very well and irenically is to track this story into its nooks and crannies, unfold its various phases, delineate the commonalities but also the divergences among the major protagonists. As to be expected, the three major leaders of the resistance, Olivi, Ubertino da Casale, and Angelo of Clareno receive privileged attention, but members of the Franciscan Third Order and the laity such as Na Prous Boneta, the first women to lead a resistance movement, receive balanced appraisals as well.

The study of history depends in great part on one's perspective. Most recent historians of the early Franciscan movement, including Burr to some extent, use the Testament of Francis as the launching pad for the order's subsequent and contested self definition: Francis's embrace of the leper as emblematic of his evangelical conversion to follow the Christ who was poor. The practical implications of this choice, simply put, catapulted the debate over the poverty issue. There is certainly a great deal to be said about this perspective for it is certainly on the debate and the praxis over usus pauper and variations thereof that, on the surface, the battle was waged. If one, however, starts from a different perspective, namely, to see the profound meaning of the choice of poverty as an emancipation for a new way of experiencing God, his kenosis in Christ, and a liberation for a different way of relating to power and the goods of this world, then one can give the story a different read. Francis, in his rule, makes the priority of the contemplative dimension, to which all other activities must be subordinated, quite clear (Regula non bullata, 5,2). He further enjoins, as a beatitude, not to say anything of its experience (Admonition XVIII). Using this prism one cannot help but notice that for at least two of the major spokesmen for the resistance, Ubertino and Angelo, the hermitage, as for Francis, was a primary base of operations. As for Olivi his mystical interest is well documented. All three, moreover, were revered for their holiness. In the light of this different perspective, Ubertino, for instance, should perhaps not be remembered mostly for his fierce polemics against the decline of the order or his vitriolic attacks on Boniface VIII, but rather as one of the most eminent representatives of medieval and Franciscan mysticism, which is surprising only if one has not read his masterpiece, Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu, and become aware of his deep contemplative yearnings. This contemplative dimension of the resisters is, to be sure, duly noted by Burr, and to his credit he grants special attention (in an appendix) to the close ties with the Spirituals of three Franciscan women mystics, Clare of Montefalco, Margaret of Cortona, and Angela of Foligno. But in his account, the mystical dimension of the story remains in the background, and, admittedly, it would make for a much longer book. Similarly, but in a different vein, what needs further amplification in this complex history is how ultimately at issue are contrasting ecclesiologies not only between the mendicants and the secular masters in its early stages, but also, and subsequently, between the Spirituals and the papal court and its theologians. In other words, perhaps only implicitly, the battle that was waged entailed an opposition and an alternative vision to the centralization of power and wealth in the church and its political alliances--an aspiration always and at present, devoutly to be hoped for. What is still largely undetected, also, is the involvement of the Spirituals with the poor of their time. A final note: to write the story of the Spirituals remains a risky enterprise given that even if vastly more of their writings are now available, still a great deal await critical editions or discovery. Nonetheless, towards a more complete and less one-dimensional view of this important historical moment, Burr's book remains an invaluable stepping-stone.