The Misadventure of Francis of Assisi

Chapter 3: The Opus Celanense: An Illustrated Defense of the First Hagiographer

93 Chapter 3 The Opus Celanense: An Illustrated Defense of the First Hagiographer WE HAVE ALREADY MENTIONED that the expression the “Franciscan Question” appeared in 1902 in an article by Salvatore Minocchi in the aftermath of the Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier, published in 1894. We also said that the Franciscan Question is rooted in the decision by the Paris chapter of 1266 to destroy all the legends prior to that of Bonaventure. Finally, we said that the Franciscan Question is essentially a question about Francis. As we begin this third chapter, the temptation would be to say that the whole Franciscan Question lies exclusively in the work of Thomas of Celano, and that anyone who understands the process that led from the First Life to the Second Life would essentially understand the question and its answer. But all of this can too easily become a word-game. Elsewhere I have spoken of the “shattered mirror” of Franciscan hagiography.1 Indeed, the work of Thomas is already a “shattered” work. Twenty years separate the First Life from the Second Life. During these twenty years the memoirs of the companions were collected, substantial traces of which are preserved in the Anonymous of Perugia, the Legend of the Three Companions 1 J. Dalarun, Francesco: un passaggio, 10. 94 THE MISADVENTURE OF FRANCIS OF ASSISI and the Legend of Perugia. As for Bonaventure’s hagiographic work, the circumstances of its production – not to mention its fate – were different. His legends, the Major Legend and the Minor Legend, were written near each other in time, but neither contributed externally to the other. I believe there are at least three ways of looking at Thomas of Celano’s works. The first is to see them as pieces in a long and elaborate chain of Franciscan hagiography, as stages in an elaborate itinerary or – to use a religious image – as rosary beads: the First Life, the Anonymous of Perugia, the Legend of the Three Companions , the Legend of Perugia, the Second Life, the Major Legend, the Minor Legend. Seen this way, the fact that the same author reappears twice for two different Lives becomes almost incidental . The second possibility is to look first at the coherence of the corpus celanense. In our passionate search, this second option suggests that what creates continuity among Thomas’s works is not just the story of the Order and the hagiography of Francis, but the seal of the author. In other words, these various works form a single work, the work of Thomas, the opus celanense. Therefore we will have to consider the work as a whole, including the Legend for Use in the Choir and the Treatise on the Miracles, and not just the two main legends. Furthermore, we will have to deal with the question of Thomas’s possible authorship of the Legend of St. Clare. The third possibility is to forget the long process of Franciscan hagiography and the author himself. Instead we can look at each of Thomas’s legends as a work in itself to be examined individually. This approach, taken by Francis De Beer, for example , in La conversion de saint François d’Assise selon son premier biographe Thomas de Celano, is no less valid than the others . At least it represents a healthy change of viewpoint. On the one hand, it forces us to redefine the traditional view of the First Life as the only official legend, at least until the Second Life, and probably until the Major Life. On the other hand, it forces us to ask ourselves just what were the limits of the Remembrance ? Will we have to consider only the textual unity of the so-called Second Life, or the indissoluble unity of the Second 95 THE OPUS CELANENSE Life and the Treatise on the Miracles? We will tackle that question in the next chapter. Of the different possibilities, our choice will fall somewhere between the second and the third. Without ignoring the problem of the sources for the Second Life, we will try for now to forget about the Franciscan Question in the more philological sense and focus on Thomas and the opus celanense. The collections of the companions will come into play only when we try to explain the work of Thomas as author of the Second Life. Since we are more interested in the hagiography of Francis, we will...