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189 q Chapter 4 Paradise Lost When scholars from Paris joined the Franciscan Order and, to the best of their conviction, integrated the study of theology into the Franciscan mission, they made a genuine effort to emphasize at every stage the importance and necessity of humility and charity. This was a significant part of the discourse of the Franciscan scholars who reflected on the Order’s association with learning. This emphasis on humility was there precisely to act as a counterweight to the general association of learning in the medieval world with prestige,respectability,and pride. However,the culture of the Order,which was affected by social norms, allowed and encouraged practices such as giving privileges to lectors and showing obvious preference for lectors when making appointments to ministerial positions. Even when these things were done with good intentions, the social and political culture in the Order that resulted from the pursuit of learning and the preference for learned ministers was not conducive to the essential Franciscan virtues of humility, minoritas, and simplicity. Both some friars and outsiders saw these problems, and either tried to propose solutions or denounced them outright. The first instance of an openly and publicly articulated criticism of the Franciscans ’ chosen way of life was the publication by the Parisian secular master William of Saint-Amour of De periculis novissimorum temporum in 1255. William attacked the theoretical basis of some Franciscan premises such as absolute poverty , begging, and the absence of manual labor. By the late thirteenth century, however, this was followed by other types of criticism heard from different 190 CHAPTER 4 quarters,even from Franciscans themselves. These later criticisms were not concerned with the evangelical legitimacy of the tenets of Franciscanism,but rather with the failure of the friars to observe these tenets. Also, while earlier external testimonies were generally in praise of the Franciscans,later ones adopted a more skeptical tone toward the Friars Minor, as toward those who preach high ideals but do not live up to them. The famous French poet Rutebeuf, at the beginning of his career around 1248,wrote in favor of the Franciscans,but displayed a change of heart in his later work,Chanson des ordres, suggesting that the Franciscans had turned out to be like the Dominicans, whom he criticized harshly.1 In England,Matthew Paris’s Chronica majora reflects the changing reputation of the friars. Although initially Matthew Paris was quite impressed by the friars’ideals, from the 1240s onward he criticized friars, after witnessing or hearing of many occasions when friars had violated their vows of humility and poverty.2 This criticism of friars, particularly with regard to their perceived hypocrisy—their failure to put into practice the high ideals they preached—is also well known from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the fourteenth century. There was no shortage of friars who agreed with these critics. A perceived fall from the high standards that the Rule set out disturbed many friars in the Order. In the early 1250s, in a letter he sent to his provincial minister, we find the famous English Franciscan theology master Adam Marsh lamenting bitterly the grandiosity of friars’ buildings and the worldliness of the novices.3 Roger Bacon complained of the fall of the new religious orders from their initial dignity, and he did not exclude his own.4 In 1257, in the first circular letter he wrote after his election as minister general, Bonaventure made a list of all the scandalous practices in the Order and pleaded for them to stop: So get the lazy brothers to work; restrain the ones who are wandering. Call a halt to the importunate begging. Put down the ones who want to put up big houses. Send off to a hermitage those looking for suspicious familiarities. Bestow the offices of preaching and hearing confessions with great care. See to it that the old constitutions on wills and burials are observed more strictly. Do not allow anyone to change the site of a friary before the general chapter. In this last matter, taking the advice of discrete 1. See J. Batany, “L’image des Franciscains dans les ‘revues d’états’ du XIIIe au XIVe siècle,” in Mouvements franciscains et société française XIIe–XXe siècles: Études présentées à la table ronde du CNRS 23 Octobre 1982, ed. A. Vauchez (Paris: Beauchesne Religions, 1984), 64, which presents the image of Franciscans in the French-speaking part of Europe. 2. Thomson, “Image...

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