The Franciscan Institute Medal

CITATION THE FRANCISCAN INSTITUTE of SAINT BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY is privileged to honor as the third recipient of its medal for outstanding contributions to scholarship in Franciscan Studies THE REVEREND SERVUS GIEßEN, O.F.M.Cap. Fr. Servus has been associated with the Capuchin Institute of History in Rome since 1953, first as a Resident Fellow and subsequently as its Director and Curator of its renowned Franciscan Museum. In each of these capacities he has labored to maintain the high level of scholarship initiated by his distinguished predecessors, Cuthbert of Brighton and Melchior a Pobladura. A Fellow of the Franciscan Academy of the Netherlands , a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Franciscan Studies, and Editor-in-chief of the Bibliographia Franciscana, his scholarly accomplishments have earned him an international reputation in the field of Franciscan Studies. His more than sixty articles have appeared in Dutch, German, French, English, and Italian journals. His works on the life and writings of Robert Grosseteste, the first teacher of the Franciscans after their arrival at Oxford in 1224, have won the acclaim of medievalists on both sides of the Atlantic; his pioneering studies on Franciscan art and icongraphy have aroused interest in a previously-neglected area; and his contribution to the history of the lay Franciscan movement have assisted Secular Franciscans in rediscovering the original inspiration of their branch of the Franciscan Family. Surely Father Servus exemplifies the type of friar Grosseteste was describing when, in a letter to Gregory IX, he wrote: "The light of their learning illumines the land." SERVUS GIEßEN, O.F.M.Cap. Third Recipient of the Franciscan Institute Medal July 14, 1989 THE FRANCISCAN INSTITUTE MEDAL THE SILVER MEDALLION bears the legend "Scholarship in Franciscan Studies " and the effigies of the four great Franciscan teachers: St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. Completing the circle of the four doctors is the name of the honorée and the year of the award. SS^ BONAVtNTURh SCOTUS ANTHONY FR. SERVUS GIEßEN O.F.M. CAP 1989 SPIRI VITA ON THE REVERSE SIDE of the medal is the seal of The Franciscan Institute bearing the Tau-cross-signature of St. Francis and the Institute motto, "Spirit and Life." SERVUS GIEßEN, O.F.M. Cap. Born in 1925 in the village of Sint Antonius in the Netherlands , Father Servus received much of his primary and secondary education in the schools of the Premonstratensians. In 1942, during the German occupation of his homeland, he joined the Dutch province of Capuchins and, after ordination to the priesthood in 1949, was sent to Rome to study philosophy at the Gregorian University which in 1953 granted him the doctorate for a thesis titled De metaphysica lucis apud Robertum Grosseteste. His appointment the same year to the staff of the Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, then located in Urbe, has been his only assignment since completion of his doctoral studies. Father Servus* continued interest in Grosseteste is evidenced by the fact that by 1971 he had published no less than 11 articles on that eminent Bishop of Lincoln and first teacher of the Franciscans at Oxford, and that in 1982 a critical edition of Grosseteste's Hexämeron, prepared in collaboration with Professor Richard C. Davis of the University of Southern California, was published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press. Most of his later scholarly writings—in six languages—have appeared in Collectanea Franciscana, the respected organ of the Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, and over the years he has contributed innumerable abstracts and notices to that journal's companion publication, Bibliographia Franciscana, which he presently edits. His bibliographical skills are further demonstrated by his now standard bibliographies on Robert Grosseteste , Peter John Olivi and contemporary Scotistic studies. Our medalist's scholarly pursuits have extended far beyond his early research on Grosseteste. Franciscan iconography is one of the topics to which he directed his attention in later years. His published studies on St. Francis and the Franciscans in art have stirred interest in that somewhat neglected area of Franciscan studies. The Secular Franciscan Order has also been the beneficiary of Father Servus' scholarly industry...