The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition: Tracing Its Origins

PART FOUR: THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRANCISCAN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION

PART FOUR THE GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRANCISCAN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION T here were only twelve Franciscan brothers in 1208/1209. By 1250 there were thirty thousand Franciscan friars.1 This was a remarkable growth for any religious order in the Catholic Church. Both the spiritual and intellectual training of the applicants, novices and young friars became an immediate necessity, given the large numbers of men entering the ranks of the Franciscan community. From almost the very beginning, Franciscan formation, Franciscan mission and Franciscan study were linked in the emerging Order’s identity. How were young friars to be trained? How were they to be intellectually formed? How could the tools of the intellectual world of the universities be brought to converge with the profound spiritual insights and vision of Francis and Clare of Assisi? How could study support evangelization? Hidden in these issues confronting the community , we can discern the outlines of the development of the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition and its profound desire to be faithful to the intuitions of the Saints of Assisi. It is not surprising that the intellectual formation of Franciscans became an issue of immediate concern. Internally, in the decades immediately after 1208/1209, the Franciscans did not have within their ranks a large number of men qualified to educate and form the growing number of applicants, novices and recently vowed Franciscans. Within a very short time, the early friars began to live in two of the major university cities of the era—Oxford and Paris.At first, they did not establish schools, but simply friaries in which those in formation could live. The cities were places where the friars could evangelize. Eventually, especially after the entrance of some learned clerics, those in formation began to attend classes at the university itself. These students , at the beginning of their academic work, studied under the masters in the faculty of arts (philosophy). Only after successfully matriculating through the arts program did they move 31 32 Kenan B. Osborne, O.F.M. on to instruction by the faculty of theology. At that time, the study of theology was reserved to clerics. Lay men and women could not enroll in the theological programs of the universities. All the early Franciscan theologians, then, were clerics— seminarians at first and then ordained priests. Student friars at the University of Paris arrived as early as 1219. They lived at first with the Benedictines at St. Denis, but soon after acquired their own Franciscan residence. Student friars arrived at the University of Oxford around 1224 and established a Franciscan residence. From this perspective, we will look at the gradual development of the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition by moving in the following way: I. We will reflect on the very foundation for the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition, namely, the spirituality and vision of St. Francis and St. Clare. II. We will consider the lineage of the first Franciscan theologians at the University of Paris and at the University of Oxford. III. We will identify other important and highly educated Franciscans whose careers did not culminate in teaching positions at either Oxford or Paris. I. The Franciscan Foundation: The Spirituality and Vision of St. Francis (1181/82-1226) and St. Clare (1193-1253) The spirituality and vision of Francis and Clare found its theological expression in the teachings of Franciscan scholars at the Universities at Paris and Oxford. Without this spirituality and vision there would be no Franciscan Intellectual Tradition. One of the major Franciscan scholars in the first half of the twentieth century was Éphrem Longpré, a Friar Minor from the French-speaking province in Québec. It was his view that one of most important core elements of the spiritual vision of St. Francis was his astounding insight into the depth and height, the width and length of the incarnation. In this introductory volume, we build our synthesis around this insight . Longpré writes: 33 The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition The spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi can neither be described nor delineated on the one hand, or, on the other hand, it can neither be interpreted nor thought through independent of the religious experience which was a revelation to Francis, after he had left his more worldly ways, the mystery of Jesus Christ, especially the crucified Lord, (Bonaventure, Legenda maior, 1:5, 13:10) for this revelation had made of him a “new evangelist” (I Celano, 89) and the “herald of Christian perfection” (Legenda...