A History of the Franciscan Order from Its Origins to the Year 1517 [Hardcover]

Moorman's work offers a thourough and accessible account of the development of the Franciscan Order. He weaves together biographical, historical, and theological considerations almost seemlessly. The appendicies and the bibliography are also very helpful. If you had to buy just one book on Franciscan History, this is it.

For four decades Bishop John Moorman's history of the Franciscan Order, from the early days of Francis to the division of the Order in 1517, has remained a reliable standard text for students of medieval religious life. The Franciscans were not the first religious order to appear in Christendom, nor was Francis the Church's only inventive founder. When the young Francis visited Pope Innocent III in 1209 to seek papal approbation for his little movement, the practice of the time would have been to consign these young idealists to the safety and credibility of an existing order--the Augustinians, perhaps--and specifically to an established and orthodox rule of life. However, Francis had his own ideas about a rule: he proposed a lifestyle drawn literally from Christ's preaching and example. Moorman, surprisingly, does not treat extensively of Francis himself, probably because it was the rule itself and its interpretations and enforcements that would shape the Franciscan story for years to come.

The early Franciscan rule put the Church in an awkward position. It was hard to criticize a desire to live the absolute poverty of Jesus and perfect trust in the Father. And yet later popes and curial officials no doubt worried that such ideals could not be maintained, that men and women were vowing the unattainable and putting themselves at risk of despair and heresy. Moreover, Francis's primacy of poverty, fiercely defended by his survivors, would run headlong into another pressing demand, ministry of the Church. Friars needed vestments and vessels for Mass, scholars needed books for their studies. Ironically, many in the Order even felt that a magnificent church was needed for the body of the father of vowed absolute poverty.

A pivotal character at this juncture was St. Bonaventure, Minister General of the Order [1257-74] who subtly but permanently established much of what would be recognized today as typically Franciscan. Bonaventure sensed that the friars could not maintain Francis's standard--he had only to open his eyes to see that--but that even the "noble effort" was winning respect from the Catholic populace of Europe. Bonaventure advocated strong clerical identity. The typical friar would be priest, not a lay brother. Bonaventure commissioned an official biography of Francis to reinforce this mainstream vision. Whatever one thinks of Bonaventure, his emphasis upon pastoral ministry, education, and missionary work brought inestimable spiritual riches to the medieval Church.

Moorman, I believe, is comfortable with this Bonaventurian tectonic shift. The hard line conservatives of the Order, including the surviving contemporaries of Francis, regarded these evolving tendencies as an utter betrayal of Francis, and worse for them, as an indication that the Church itself--which naturally approved such development-- was corrupted and unworthy of allegiance. Such friars and their sympathizers rallied around the writings of the brilliant but extreme Franciscan Peter John Olivi. Olivi's admirers, Angelo of Clareno and Ubertino of Casale, would fuel the tragic struggle of the "spiritual Franciscans" versus the Order and the Church itself, notably the controversial John XXII, over the nature of Gospel poverty. It is hard not to get swept up in this drama, but Moorman labors to keep his eye on the bigger picture.

Despite major questions about the plausibility of the Order itself, the Franciscan Order grew and diversified. Perhaps because Franciscanism is at heart an idea, the friars enjoyed an independence of mission; no ecclesiastical work was technically out of bounds for friars [though local clergy, bishops, and universities certainly disputed that.] The friars felt no reluctance to enter traditional parochial ministry, such as hearing confessions and burying the dead. Most of the popes in the three hundred year range of this book protected and endorsed the friars in the face of attacks of secular clergy, and with some exceptions, parish life in Italy and elsewhere was the richer for Franciscan presence.

As early as 1224 the friars targeted the universities of western Europe as fertile ground for propagation of the Franciscan ideals and the attraction of new members. Moorman observes that considerable care was given to the assignment of exemplary friars to Oxford and other universities. The simplicity and evangelical fervor of these first friars encouraged famous, well-established professors to join the Order and establish tuition-free lectures and ultimately award degrees. John Peckham and Haymo of Faversham, among others, brought credit to the Order in the thirteenth century. Later friar scholars would prove to be more controversial--Duns Scotus, Olivi, and particularly the nominalist and political philosopher William of Ockham.

Another ministry of particular interest was missionary work, which Francis himself had attempted with the Saracens in a somewhat Quixotic venture. Curiously, as Moorman devotes considerable attention to this work, the missions of the friars after Francis were every bit as dramatic and courageous as those of the founder--and at times equally Quixotic. The spectacular work of Ramon Lull, John of Piancarpino, William Rubruk and John of Montecorvino, for example, brought the message of Christianity as far as China, though in many cases without wholesale conversions. Moorman also provides valuable and insightful accounts of the Clarisses or Poor Clares, as well as the lay Franciscans. The author has little use for the beguines and other marginalized but fervent lay communities of reformers; more recent scholarship understands the relationship between the Order and the beguines as more complex.

The forces of reform pressing the gates of Catholicism in the fifteenth century could hardly leave the friars untouched. A new idealism for the Rule of the Order, unsullied by the Olivi-John XXII bloodbath of the 1300`s, began to divide the friars more significantly than the old spiritualist battles of two centuries previous. In 1516 Pope Leo X issued "Ite Vos," an encyclical which in essence created two Franciscan Orders, observant and conventuals. Moorman assesses this division with a resigned, philosophic sadness. In one respect, true reform of the Franciscans had been achieved, in a fashion that Bonaventure, at least, could have understood.

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