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A brother who was sick, and was thrown out of that house, writes this and bears witness to it.
7
HOW HE WANTED TO DEMOLISH A HOUSE THE PEOPLE OF ASSISI HAD BUILT AT SAINT MARY OF THE PORTIUNCULA
As a general chapter was approaching, which in those days was held annually at Saint Mary of the Portiuncula, the people of Assisi considered that the brothers were daily increasing Acts 2:47 in number and that each year they gathered there. Yet they had nothing but a poor and small dwelling, with a roof of straw and walls of branches and mud. After they summoned a general meeting, within a few days, with haste and the greatest fervor, they built there a large house constructed of stone and cement without the consent of blessed Francis while he was away.
When blessed Francis returned from a certain province, and came to that place for the chapter, he was very amazed at the house that they had constructed. He feared that, upon seeing this house, the other brothers would build or have built great houses in the places where they now stayed or where they would stay in the future. And especially because he wanted this place always to be a model and example for all the other places of the Order,a before the chapter ended, he climbed on the roof of that house, and ordered the brothers to climb up with him. And, together with these brothers, he began to throw the tiles covering that house to the ground intending to destroy it to its very foundation.
Some knights of Assisi, who were there to protect that place against the large number of outsiders who came to see the brothers' chapter, saw that blessed Francis and the other brothers intended to destroy that house. They immediately went to him and said: "Brother, this house belongs to the Commune of Assisi and we are its representatives. We forbid you to destroy our house." When he heard this, blessed Francis said: "If the house belongs to you, I do not want to touch it." He and the other brothers immediately came down.
That is why from that time the people of the city of Assisi decreed that the podestà of the city, whoever he is, would be bound to make
- When adding phrases to the AC, the editor consistently uses the word ordo [order] in contrast to the earlier, more frequently used term, religio [religion]. Thus in the early fourteenth century, Order became the more common way of referring to Franciscan religious life. For explanations of the words religio and ordo, cf. FA:ED II 34 a.
Speculum Perfectionis, Fontes Franciscani, p. 1858-1861
3Et frater existens infirmus, qui de eadem domo tunc fuit eiectus, testimonium perhibet de iis et scripsit haec.
Qualiter voluit destruere quamdam domum quam fecerat populus Assisii apud Sanctam Mariam de Portiuncula.
Caput 7.
1Appropinquante tempore capituli generalis, quod fiebat omni anno apud Sanctam Mariam de Portiuncula, considerans populus Assisii quod fratres quotidie multiplicabantur et omnes quolibet anno ibi conveniebant, - quia non habebant nisi unam parvam casellam, coopertam de palea, cujus parietes erant ex viminibus et luto, - 2habito consilio suo, in paucis diebus, cum festinatione et devotione maxima fecerunt ibi magnam domum ex lapidibus et calce constructam, sine consensu beati Francisci et ipso absente.
3Cumque rediret beatus Franciscus de quadam provincia et venisset illuc ad capitulum, miratus est valde de illa domo ibidem constructa; et timens ne occasione illius domus alii fratres, in locis in quibus morabantur et moraturi erant, facerent similiter fieri magnas domos, 4et quia volebat quod ille locus semper esset forma et exemplum omnium aliorum locorum ordinis, antequam finiretur capitulum, ascendit super tectum domus illius, et praecepit fratribus ut ascenderent. 5Et simul cum ipsis fratribus coepit projicere in terram lastas ex quibus erat cooperta domus illa, volens illam usque ad fundamenta destruere.
6Quidam autem milites Assisii, qui erant ibi ad custodiam loci, propter multitudinem forensium qui convenerant ad videndum capitulum fratrum, 7videntes quod beatus Franciscus cum aliis fratribus volebat dissipare domum illam, statim iverunt ad ipsum et dixerunt ei: « Frater, haec domus est de communitate Assisii; et nos sumus hic pro ipsa communitate. Unde interdicimus tibi ne destruas domum nostram ». 8Audiens hoc, beatus Franciscus dixit illis: « Ergo, si vestra est domus, nolo tangere eam ». Et statim ille et alii fratres descenderunt de ea.
9Quapropter ex tunc populus civitatis Assisii statuit ut quicumque esset potestas civitatis teneretur ipsam facere reparari.