272 Franciscan order
BIRTH OF THE MOVEMENTFrancis’s first band of followers were engaged in preach-
ing and tried to lead model lives as examples of how to
gain salvation, but they had only been verbally and
vaguely authorized by Pope INNOCENT III in 1209.
Despite that, they multiplied in Umbria and all over cen-
tral Italy. As part of their commitment to poverty, they did
not establish convents but lived in private and religious
institutions, where they worked with the sick. Asserting
complete orthodoxy and obedience only to the papacy,
they were, from a canonical point of view, still institu-
tionally ambiguous, since they lived without a clear and
approved rule. Innocent III, however, grasped how useful
they might be as a counterweight to contemporary
heretics, one of whose main points was an objection to
the great wealth of the church. In their early years, the
Franciscans raised only indirect criticism of the clergy
along those lines while offering an alternative clerical
lifestyle. By 1219, they had received papal approval, and
they were recommended to the authorities of the local
churches and dioceses by 1219.
EXPANSION AND INSTITUTIONALIZATIONIn the meantime, Francis continued to organize “mis-
sions” to various parts of Europe and elsewhere, including
SYRIAin 1217, France in 1219, and Germany in 1221.
Francis’s intention to attempt the conversion of Muslims
led him to join the Fifth Crusade (1219–20). He was at
the disastrous siege of Damietta, and his journey to the
Levant and the Crusade itself were failures. During it
Francis had his legendary encounter with a Muslim ruler
who listened to him and let him continue on his way but
was not at all inspired to convert. Francis returned to Italy
seriously ill. Suspicious that his religious family was
rapidly being transformed into an institutional order, he
renounced the direction of the order, seeking only a role
as spiritual and charismatic guide, while his successors,
especially the eventually deposed Elias of Cortona (d.
1253), forwarded the process of institutional compromise.
By 1223, the Holy See had approved a rule after
questioning the first attempt. This because the basis for
the institutionalization of the order by permitting the
acquisition of permanent urban residences, genuine
and clear incorporation into traditional ecclesiastical
structures, and an ever-increasing engagement in preach-
ing, education, and pastoral care. This change was not
approved by some members of the nascent order who
wished to maintain an organization more consonant with
the ideals of apostolic poverty first enunciated by Francis.
He was still alive but was unable to influence in a con-
crete way the direction of the order, which he viewed in
his Testamentas changed from what he had intended. He
died in 1226 and was canonized very quickly in 1228.
After the order expanded all over Europe and
entered into the university system, Pope GREGORYIX
decreed that the Testamentwas only a moral exhortation,
and that only the much more practical Rule had true
normative value. In the 1250s the order had to face the
attacks of the secular clergy, who felt that the friars were
poaching on their incomes and rights. This led to ques-
tions about ideals of the order and the role of the friars
in the university system.
The Franciscans elected the reliable and prestigious
leader BONAVENTURE (Giovanni di Fidanza) as master
general. He was already a master of theology at Paris who
had defended the order against the secular clerics and
was full of reforming zeal. He revised the study of theol-
ogy to affect a much closer relationship with the apostolic
function of the Franciscans, who were now explicitly
called on to preach by their very vocation. He also spon-
sored or wrote a new, more conservative biography of the
founder. All this contributed to a temporary pacification
and consolidation of the Friars Minor during Bonaven-
ture’s generalship. Communities of Franciscan Friars
became permanently incorporated in towns, often in
large and rich convents. Study was deemed necessary for
carrying out the tasks of pastoral care and ensuring that
the friars were true guardians of orthodoxy.PROBLEMS
A few years after Bonaventure’s death in the late 13th cen-
tury, internal dissentions about poverty and about fidelity
to Francis’s intentions exploded into open dissent. They
were led by the theologian Peter John OLIVI; the best
known among the others, the SPIRITUALFRANCISCANS,
were Angelo Clareno (1247–1337) and UBERTINO da
Casale. They were condemned, especially the Italian
group called the FRATICELLI, but their ideas were only
suppressed with considerable difficulty. Such problems
surfaced again in the late 14th century but were again
diverted into another reform of the order that produced
the great preachers of the Observance, Saints BERNARDINO
OFSIENA ANDJOHN OFCAPISTRANO. They were character-
ized by an aversion to urban life as full of temptations for
the friars and the laity and a certain obstacle to a perfect
observance of the Rule by the members of the order. The
popular and standard themes of their sermons were
usury, vain luxury, and factional animosity. These preach-
ers often had great, but short-lived, success in the Italian
cities. Despite the reforms of the Observants and the
prestige and obvious holiness of a few saints, from the
14th century the friars had a dubious reputation as legacy
hunters and as sexual predators in popular literature.
See alsoANTHONY OFPADUA;CLARE OFASSISI, SAINT;
DUNS SCOTUS,JOHN; MENDICANT ORDERS;PREACHING;
SALIMBENE DEADAM;WILLIAM OFOCKHAM.
Further reading:Rosalind B. Brooke, ed., The Com-
ing of the Friars(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975);
John V. Fleming, An Introduction to the Franciscan Litera-
ture of the Middle Ages(Chicago: Franciscan Press, 1977);
C. H. Lawrence, The Friars: The Impact of the Early Men-
dicant Movement on Western Society(New York: Longman,