While its actual text is unknown, according to Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure, this primitive rule was little more than some passages of the Gospel heard in 1208 in the chapel of the Portiuncula.
[2] In 1215, Canon 13 of the Fourth Council of the Lateran forbade the establishment of new religious orders and required those who wished to found a new house to choose an existing approved rule.
[1] Jacques de Vitry, in a letter written at Genoa, in 1216 says that the rule of 1209 was successively improved at the annual general chapter at Portiuncula by new statutes, the fruit of ever-growing experience.
During the years 1219-1220 in the absence of the holy founder in the East, some events happened which determined Francis to recast his rule, in order to prevent similar troubles in the future.
And the blessed Francis seeing that brother Caesarius [of Spires] was learned in holy letters, he charged him to embellish with texts of the Gospel the Rule which he himself had written with simple words."
Bonaventure relates that when the order had greatly increased, St. Francis had a vision which determined him to reduce the rule to a shorter form.
Chapter the third prescribes for the clerics "the Divine Office according to the order of the holy Roman Church, with the exception of the Psalter; wherefore (or, as soon as) they may have breviaries."
However, the ministers and custodes have to take the greatest care of their subjects through spiritual friends, according to places and times and other circumstances, saving always that, as has been said, they shall not "receive coins or money" (c. iv).
In chapter xi the brothers are forbidden to have suspicious intimacy with women, nor are they allowed to "enter monasteries of nuns, except those to whom special permission has been granted by the Apostolic See."
It is strictly hierarchical, the convents being grouped into provinces which are governed by the provincials, who in turn are under the jurisdiction of the minister general, the head and ruler of the whole order.
): "Let the clerics perform the Divine office according to the order of the holy Roman Church with the exception of the Psalter," have had a singular result.
The principles concerning preaching as laid down by St. Francis in c. ix of his Rule contain the secret of the great Franciscan preachers who have always been among the most successful and popular.
There can be no doubt that the great impulse given to foreign missions in the thirteenth century is due to St. Francis, who was himself a missionary in the East and saw some of his brethren martyred for the Faith.
But the number of the friars rapidly increasing, and on the other hand, some being received into the order who had not the pure intentions and the great zeal of Francis, the rule gave rise to many controversies, and, as a consequence, to many declarations and expositions.
Doubts about the meaning and the observance of the rule having risen at the general chapter of Assisi (1230), a deputation of prominent men was sent to Gregory IX, to obtain a papal decision.
The brothers may appoint a messenger (nuntius), who may receive money from benefactors and in the latter's name either spend it for the present needs of the friars, or confide it to a spiritual friend for imminent wants.
The order received the disposition of Martin IV at the chapter of Milan, 1285, but warned at the same time against the multiplication of legal actions (see Franz Ehrle, Archiv für Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte, VI, 55).
Nicholas III, against the enemies of the order, states that complete expropriation, in common as well as in particular, is licit, holy, and meritorious, it being taught by Christ Himself, although He, for the sake of the weak, sometimes took money.
Whilst Angelo Clareno, the head of the Spirituals, rejects all papal declarations on the rule, he speaks well of the Bull "Exivi," "which is among the others like a flying eagle, approaching nearest to the intention of the Founder" (Archiv für Litteratur-und Kirchengeschichte, II, 139).
Franc., V, 233), renounced on behalf of the Apostolic See the proprietorship of the goods of which the order had the use, declaring (according to the Roman law) that in many things the use could not be distinguished from the property.
The most important is that of the Four Masters, edited at least six times in old collections of Franciscan texts, under the names of Monumenta, Speculum, Firmamenturn (Brescia, 1502; Salamanca, 1506, 1511; Rouen, 1509; Paris, 1512; Venice, 1513).
Eccleston (c. xii, alias xiii, Analecta Francisc., I, 244) speaks of the short but severe exposition which the friars in England sent to the general, beseeching him by the blood of Jesus Christ to let the rule stand as it was given by St. Francis.
We have, however, that of the province of Paris, issued on the same occasion by four masters of theology, Alexander of Hales, Jean de la Rochelle, Robert of Bastia, and Richard of Cornwall.
This interesting exposition of the rule, and the most ancient, for it was written in the spring of 1242, is short and treats only some dubious points, in conformity with the Bull "Quo elongati" and two later decisions of Gregory IX (1240, 1241).
They propose doubts, resolve them, and sometimes leave the questions to the superiors, or invoke a decision of the pope, although they speak twice (c. ii, ix) of the possible danger for the pure observance of the rule, if too many papal privileges are obtained.
1512, IV, f. xciv, v; 1513, III, f. lxxii, r. David of Augsburg's sober explanation, written before the Bull "Exiit," is edited in great part by Lempp in "Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte," vol.
These treatises, comprised under the name "De perfectione evangelica" are not yet printed in their entirety [see Ehrle, "Archiv für Litteratur-und Kirchengeschichte," III, 497, and Oliger, "Archivum Franciscanum Historicum" (1908), I, 617].
The theories of poverty taught by Olivi exercised great fascination over the Spirituals, especially over Angelo Clareno (d. 1337), whose exposition of the rule will shortly published by the present writer.
Fourteenth century: Ubertino of Casale, Gundisalvus of Vallebona, Petrus Aureoli, Bartholomew of Pisa, Bartholo di Sassoferrato (a lawyer).
Finally, Bonaventure Dernoye (Medulla S. Evangelii per Christum dictata S. Francisco in sua seraphica Regula, Antwerp, 1657) and Ladislas de Poris (O.Cap.