Peter Olivi: On Poverty and Revenue

PETER OLIVI: ON POVERTY AND REVENUE I. Historical Introduction Peter OUvi's question on poverty and revenue1 forms part of a larger collection, his Quaestiones de Perfectione Evangélica. Franz Ehrle Usted and described the questions in this collection as he found them in codex Vaticanus latinus 4986.a Most modern scholars have followed his lead in accepting the number and order found in that manuscript.3 There the question on poverty and revenue is the sixteenth of seventeen. Peter OUvi faced a basic issue of the Franciscan Order in this question. The issue arose out of the Order's peculiar position in society and dependence on others for sustenance. In the first years of the Order, Francis and his brothers asked for what they needed while clearly refusing property rights. They held to that position in the rule of 1223, although they enlisted "spiritual friends" to help them cover their needs. The "spiritual friends" grew into an institutional means to abide by the rule's exclusion of property. In the 1220S, a change occurred in the Order's relationship to Research for this edition was partly financed by a grant from the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society. 1 More precisely: "An professio paupertatis evangelicae et apostolicae possit licite ad talem modum vivendi reduci quod amodo sufficienter vivat de possessionibus et reditibus a papa vel mundanis principibus certis procuratoribus commissis." * F. Ehrle, "Petrus Johannis Olivi, sein Leben und seine Schriften" in Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, III (Berlin, 1887), 497-5338 See. D. Flood, Peter Olivi's Rule Commentary (Wiesbaden, 1972), pp. 76-80. D. Pacetti prefers the number and order found in codex Vat. Borgh. 357, which he considers to be "the definitive redaction" of the Quaestiones de Perfectione Evangélica: see Petrus Johannis Olivi, Quaestiones Quatuor de Domina (Quaracchi , 1954), PP- 2I*-24*. Peter Olivi: On Poverty and Revenue19 its social context. The number of brothers who envisaged the Order as the communal base for their pastoral activities increased. As a result, the Order began understanding itself as a service agency of the Church; it reinterpreted its practices as ascetical restraint recommending the catechetical and sacramental activities of its members . The Order's peculiar poverty distinguished its ascetical model. Yet that poverty entailed a discrepancy which made Franciscans uneasy. The new relationship between the Order and society meant that the Order had property and revenue in fact, although its origins and its public claims obliged it to explain appearances away and to exercise discretion. This gave rise to a long series of determinations and discussions on possessions and attendant questions, to which OUvi contributed, among other things, the treatise on poverty and revenue. Papal buUs from Quo Elongati in 1230 to Exiit Qui Seminal in 1279 estabüshed the basic terms in which the discussions took place. Quo Elongati described the roles agents (nuntii) could play. They were the middlemen of either suppUers or benefactors in seeing to the Franciscans' needs.4 As the Order prospered, the determinations and commentaries on the peculiarities of Franciscan non-possession grew. Ordinem Vestrum (1245) wanted the Order's members to live comfortably while remaining technicaUy possessionless.5 Within the area defined by the market on which the Order drew to cover its needs, by the pope who answered both for the Order's possessions and its theories, and by the men themselves who had needs to cover, there arose different activities and a vocabulary to fix them. In this area the nuntii and the amici spirituales, the procuratores and the syndici played their various roles. Some Franciscans looked askance at such favor shown them by Innocent IV in Ordinem Vestrum. During the generalates of John of Parma (1247-1257) and Bonaventure (1257-1274), they stood behind the effort to avoid using the privileges awarded in recent papal bulls. The provincial ministers of England and Ireland argued at the general chapter of 1251 that the Order should eschew the practice of receiving money through procurators.6 They lost that particular 4 Quo Elongati in Arch. Franc. Hist., 54 (1961), 21-22, lines 55-76. 6 Ordinem Vestrum in Bull. Franc, I, 400-402, especially 400b. • Thomas of...