Editorial

1 Franciscan Studies 62 (2004) Editorial Ecclesiastes may opine that “nothing under the sun is new” but even he couldn’t dispute the reality of change. Change has come upon us here at the Franciscan Institute with the inauguration of Sister Margaret Carney OSF as President of St. Bonaventure University and Michael Cusato OFM stepping ably into her shoes as director of the Franciscan Institute and dean of the School of Franciscan Studies. It seemed an opportune time to evaluate our journal, Franciscan Studies, with an eye to its place in our family of publications and in the world of Franciscan scholarship at large. In the past, Franciscan Studies has served a specific platform of scholars interested in the history and development of the order in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with special attention to matters pertaining to Franciscan scholastic thought and spirituality. While this rich tradition will always stay with us, it appears that the moment is ripe to enhance the impact of Franciscan Studies on other aspects of Franciscan scholarship and on the wider fields of medieval ecclesiastical, cultural and intellectual history. Ideally speaking, we would like Franciscan Studies to become a thermometer for signalling interesting new trends, to such an extent that scholars from very different backgrounds will come to regard Franciscan Studies as an important instrument to keep abreast of new developments. To reach these ambitious objectives, we have rethought the editorial architecture of our journal. First of all, a new team of editors has been given responsibility for developing five specific sections, thus to cover in a more systematic fashion the scholarly areas we think should be under the purview of Franciscan Studies. These five sections are Early History and Sources (ca. 1200-1330), Late History and Sources (ca. 1330-1620), Franciscan Women and Laity, Philosophy, and Theology. Although the wording of several of these sections will sound familiar to readers of our journal, it will also make them recognize that we are broadening our scope significantly, showing a commitment to time periods and issues that thus far have suffered from relative neglect. Second, the newly appointed section editors will be drawing on a select group of associate editors from various countries and with different scholarly backgrounds. This, we trust, will help them to enlist innovative contributions for all the major areas of attention. Moreover, 2 EDITORIAL it will be of tremendous assistance in drawing out scholarly resources that are otherwise difficult to reach. Finally, to stimulate awareness of important trends in scholarship, we have enlisted the support of an exquisite group of senior scholars for our Advisory Board. Just as we count on our associate editors to signal possible contributions from scholars in their neighborhood, we rely on the members of our Advisory Board to keep us abreast of desirable focal points for editorial attention. The articles published in this volume do already reflect some of our new concerns. To boot, we believe that these articles will testify to the ongoing quality of Franciscan scholarship, and draw out new discussions on issues central to our understanding of the history of the Franciscan movement. Over the past decades, the quality of Franciscan scholarship has profited from some outstanding scholarly endeavors. To honor some of these, the Franciscan Institute established in 1987 a special medal. On July 16, 2004, this medal was bestowed on Professor Giovanni Miccoli, Professor emeritus of the Università di Trieste. Due to the relevance of Miccoli’s works for Franciscan scholarship today, the proceedings of this celebration are published here as well, opening with an encomium on Miccoli and his contribution to Franciscan scholarship by Jacques Dalarun, the Joseph A. Doino Visiting Professor of Franciscan Studies for the academic year 2004-2005, and Jean François Godet-Calogeras, of the Franciscan Institute and new general editor of Franciscan Studies. In their encomium, the two scholars explain that Miccoli’s penetrating insights concerning Francis, the Franciscan movement, and wider church history are based on an extremely accurate reading of the primary sources. Yet Miccoli’s perfect rigor in reading and interpreting the sources in order to recreate the past has gone beyond a mere professional performance. For Miccoli, historical heuristics have always been...