"Ground to Dust for the Purity of the Order": Pastoral Power, Punishment, and Minorite Identity in the Narbonne Enclosure

293 Franciscan Studies 64 (2006) “Ground to Dust for the Purity of the Order” PASTORAL POWER, PUNISHMENT, AND MINORITE IDENTITY IN THE NARBONNE ENCLOSURE
I say, therefore, what I know of the aforesaid father [Bonaventure ]. He was of the best and most pious inner disposition, and in his words he always endorsed whatever is consistent with perfect purity, as is clear from what has been said above; yet he had a frail body and was perhaps a bit self-indulgent in this respect, as I often heard him humbly confess. For he was not greater than the apostle, who said, “We all offend in many things.” Nevertheless, he so grieved at the widespread laxity of this age that in Paris, in full chapter with me present, he said that there was no time since he became minister general when he would not have consented to be ground into dust if it would help the order to reach the purity of Saint Francis and his companions, which Francis indeed intended his order to attain.1 * This essay is dedicated to Sr. Margaret Carney, whose pastoral leadership and passion for the evangelical life have transformed the lives of women and men around the world. 1 “Dico igitur quod de predicto patre sentio. Fuit enim interius optimi et piissimi affectus, et in doctrine verbo semper predicans ea que sunt perfecte puritatis, sicut ex supradictis ab eo satis liquere potest. Fragilis tamen fuit secundum corpus et forte in hoc aliquid humanum sapiens, quod et ipse humiliter, sicut ego ipse ab eo sepius audivi, confitebatur. Nec enim maior fuit apostolo dicente , In multis offendimus omnes. Nichilominus tamen in tantum dolebat de communibus laxationibus huius temporis quod Parisius in pleno capitulo, me astante, dixit quod ex quo fuit generalis nunquam fuit quin vellet esse pulverizatus ut ordo ad puritatem beati Francisci et sotiorum eius et ad illud quod ipse de ordine suo intendebat perveniret.” Petrus Ioannis Olivi, De usu paupere: The Quaestio and the Tractatus, David Burr, ed. (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1992), 138. The translation is found in David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 59-60. Translations otherwise are by the author, who has often benefited from earlier translations of selected texts found in St. Bonaventure’s Writings Concerning the Franciscan Order, Works of St. Bonaventure Series, 294 TIMOTHY J. JOHNSON Evidently eager to defend Bonaventure from accusations of laxity, Peter Olivi asserts in De usu paupere that as a young student in Paris, he attended a chapter where the erstwhile Master Regent, and then Minister General, claimed that he would gladly be ground to dust to preserve the purity of the Order. This essay asks if the Minorite General, whom Olivi clearly respected and admired, was willing to consign his confreres to a similar fate; it utilizes Michel Foucault’s insights into pastoral leadership and space to offer a nuanced understanding of Bonaventure’s appreciation and application of power within the Franciscan Order. From among numerous works that touch upon this thematic, particular attention is given to Bonaventure’s prologue to the Constitutions of Narbonne, where he erects a literary enclosure of disciplinary regulations intended to safeguard the perfection and purity of the evangelical life. One expression of power within this “Narbonne Enclosure” is the frequent recourse to dispensations and permissions2 while another is the willingness to mete out penances and punishments . Both distinguish the Minorites from the Friars Preacher, whose Constitutions show less interest in the former but more in the later. Bonaventure’s readiness to evoke the specter of penitential punishment and sanction its application in Constitutions of Narbonne and elsewhere is indicative of his pastoral identity and the growing disenchantment with the spiritual state of the Minorite Order that marked his tenure as Minister General. One of his confreres, Salimbene da Parma, notes in his Chronicles that Bonaventure’s efforts to codify earlier community legislation from the Chapter of 1239 in the Constitutions of Narbonne offered little that was novel beyond the introduction of selected penances: “Also at that chapter a large number of constitutions were made, although they were not organized until later when the Minster General, Brother Bonaventure, put them in...