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76 q Chapter 2 Studying as Evangelical Perfection The story told in the preceding chapter shows that by the time the leadership of the Order passed from Haymo of Faversham to Crescentius of Jesi in 1244, the backbone of an educational framework and the formation of an administrative culture that favored the pursuit of learning as a good and useful activity was complete. This speedy change in the value system as well as daily routine was not welcome to the entire Order. Feelings ranging from skepticism to bitterness were expressed in the written texts of the period after 1244: learning was compromising the quintessential Franciscan virtue of simplicity. A New Policy of Recruitment The front flyleaf of MS 106 in the Biblioteca Comunale Lorenzo Leonii of Todi contain some statutes written in faded ink in a thirteenth-century Umbrian script.1 They contain some of the oldest statutes of the Franciscan Order, made either at the General Chapter of 1239 or at the first and last Chapter of 1. Todi, Biblioteca Comunale, 106ir–iv. I have had the chance to examine personally these two folios. They are edited by Cesare Cenci in “Fragmenta priscarum.” STUDYING AS EVANGELICAL PERFECTION 77 Diffinitors that was summoned on May 19,1241.2 Among these statutes we find the following curious entry that regulates admission to the Order: No one is to be received into our Order unless he is such that has taught in arts or [illegible]...in medicine or canon law or civil law or he is a solemn responsor in theology, or a very famous preacher, or a very famous and commendable lawyer, or he has taught grammar laudably in famous cities and fortified towns, or he is a cleric or layman of the sort whose entry shall bring renown and edify people and clergy alike.3 The Rule had left the reception of the postulants to the discretion of the ministers , and this remained so until 1241. On June 19, 1241, only a month after the Chapter of Diffinitors, Pope Gregory IX amended the Rule in order to allow ministers to delegate to guardians and custodians their authority to receive new recruits.4 Gregory issued the bull to facilitate the reception of new members in the convents located in the university towns. The pope specifically referred in the bull to “the various parts of the world and chiefly in the places to which secular churchmen and laymen of diverse nations come in order to obtain the knowledge of letters.”5 However, he added a caveat: “Admit only those who are useful to the Order, and who can edify others by the example of their conversion.”6 Just like Gregory, the friars sitting at the Chapter of Diffinitors must have had in mind the setting of the university towns, since the disciplines mentioned in the statute cited above—arts, medicine, canon and civil law, and theology—constituted the four typical faculties that could be found in a medieval university. Francis had no recruitment policy, nor did he make one while composing the Rule. This statute is remarkable in its specificity:a friar desirable to the Order is one who teaches, or who is a notable preacher, or who knows law or Latin really well. These qualifications are unmistakably reminiscent of the skills 2. The chapter had met on Whitsun 1241, which corresponds to May 19. Since it excluded provincial ministers, it created a scandal in the Order and was abolished altogether in the General Chapter of 1242, in Bologna. See Eccleston, 70. The fragments in Todi 106 contain statutes regulating the Chapter of Diffinitors, whence it can be safely assumed that they must have been written before the General Chapter of 1242. 3. “Item, nullus recipiatur in ordine nostro nisi talis qui rexerit in artibus, vel qui [illegible]...aut rexerit in medicina,in decretis aut legibus,aut sit sollempnizatus responsor in theologia,seu valde famosus predicator, seu multus celebris et approbatus advocatus, vel qui in famosis civitatibus vel castellis laudabiliter in gramatica rexerit, vel sit talis clericus vel laycus, de cuius ingressu esset valde celebris et famosa edificatio in populo et clero” (Cenci, “Fragmenta priscarum,” 298). 4. Gloriantibus vobis, June 19, 1241, BF , no. 344, 1:298. Cf. RB, chap. 2. 5. Gloriantibus vobis, BF, no. 344, 1:298. See Landini, “Causes of the Clericalization,” 67. 6. “Ita tamen, ut non passim admittantur converti volentes, sed illi soli, qui et Ordini utiles, et alii aedificari valeant suae conversationis exemplo” (Gloriantibus vobis, BF...

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