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have been composed between 1227 and 1235;a the entry for the year 1207 already refers to Francis as “blessed,” so it is hardly contemporary.
Although Alberic was a countryman and admirer of Jacques de Vitry, his references to the new Order are sober, containing none of Jacques’s enthusiasm.b He focuses on the elements of novelty that distinguished the Lesser Brothers from the structures of his own Cistercian life, but says little about their spiritual values. He also intimates that novelty carries with it the risk of aberrant preaching.c
. . . There also began around this time (1207), another order in Tuscany near Assisi; it was the work of a certain religious man by the name of Francis. They are called “Lesser Brothers” because of their humility and their bodily austerities. They have their own rule which was approved by Pope Innocent III, which blessed Francis composed with the help of religious and expert men. As for their custom of reading [Scripture] and chanting the Psalms, he selected the form of the Roman church. They have one superior, whom they call the general minister. . . .
. . . On the fourth of October (1226), blessed Francis, founder of the Order of Lesser Brothers, happily passed on to the Lord; his body was honorably buried in Lombardy in the city of Assisi . . .
. . . In Tuscany, in Assisi, which is near Perugia, the canonization of blessed Francis, the father of the Lesser Brothers, was held (1228). One [brother] of this Order, who publicly preached some heresies in Paris, was seized and imprisoned.d
The Life of Pope Gregory IX (c. 1240)
The biography of Gregory IX, composed about the year 1240, is the work of an anonymous author who was obviously familiar with the Roman court,
- These references are partially cited in Lemmens, Testimonia Minora, pp. 19-20, but this translation contains the full text from the critical edition, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 13, pp. 887-888, 918, 922. According to the editors, Alberic wrote the work in two distinct stages; the entries for the years prior to 1235 were composed between 1227 and 1235; then he returned to this project during the years 1250-52, composing the entries for the years 1235 to 1241, when the chronicle ends (Ibid, pp. 641-47).
- He has full entries on Jacques’s ordination to the episcopate (Ibid., p. 905), his death (p. 948), and burial at Oignies (p. 950).
- Evident not simply in his remark cited below, but in his report of Peter of Boreth, a brother who predicted the imminent coming of the Antichrist (Ibid., 920).
- It is not clear to whom Alberic is referring here. Lemmens thought it might be Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino, but this seems unlikely in light of the chronology given above by the editors. Gerardo was active more than a decade after the chronicle ends in 1241.
Scriptores, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, p. 23: 887-888, 918, 922
Alberic of Trois–Fontaines (c.1227–35)23
Cepit insuper hoc eodem tempore alius ordo novus in Tuscia apud Assisium per quendam virum religiosum, nomine Franciscum, et isti fratres Minores ob humilitatem et abiectionem corporis appellantur. Habent enim propriam regulam et approbatam a papa Innocentio III, quam beatus Franciscus cooperatntibus viris religiosis et peritis edidit, sed et morem legendi et psallendi secundaum ritum ecclesie Romane eis instituit. Superiorem habent, quem ministrum generalem appellant.
Nonas Octobris beatus Franciscus, plantator ordinis fratrum Minorum, feliciter migravit ad Dominum, cuius corpusculum in Lombardia in civitate Assisii honorifice traditur spulture.
In Tuscia apus Assisiam, Perusio proximam, facta est canonisatio beati Francisci confessoris, patris fratrum Minorum. Quidam autem de isto ordine, qui publice quasdam hereses Parisius predicaverat, captus fuit et incarceratus.