SHCT 117 Roest - Franciscan Literature of Religious Instruction Before The Council of Trent PDF

FRANCISCAN LITERATURE OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION
BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
OF
CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS
FOUNDED BY HEIKO A. OBERMAN †
EDITED BY
ROBERT J. BAST, Knoxville, Tennessee
IN COOPERATION WITH
HENRY CHADWICK, Cambridge

SCOTT H. HENDRIX, Princeton, New Jersey
BRIAN TIERNEY, Ithaca, New York
ARJO VANDERJAGT, Groningen
JOHN VAN ENGEN, Notre Dame, Indiana
VOLUME CXVII
BERT ROEST
FRANCISCAN LITERATURE OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

FRANCISCAN LITERATURE
OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION
BY
BERT ROEST
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2004
Cover Illustration: Ludwich von Preußen, Trilogium animae non salum religiosis verum etiam saccula-
ribus, praedicatoribus, confessoribus, contemplantibus, et studentibus lumen intellectus et ardorem affectus
amministrans (Nürnberg: Anton Koberger, 1498).
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roest, Bert, 1965-
Franciscan literature of religious instruction before the Council of Trent / by Bert Roest.
p. cm. — (Studies in the history of Christian traditions ; v. 117)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes.
ISBN 90-04-14026-3
1. Monasticism and religious orders—Rules—History. 2. Catholic
Church—Catechisms—History and criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
BX3606.3.R64 2004
268’.82’09—dc22
2004050328
ISSN 1573-5664
ISBN 90 04 14026 3
© Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

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CONTENTS
Abbreviations .............................................................................. vii

Introduction ................................................................................ ix
Chapter One Franciscan Preaching as Religious Instruction 1

a. Franciscan sermon collections from the thirteenth
century .............................................................................. 6
b. Franciscan sermon cycles from the fourteenth century 39
c. The Observant homiletic output in Italy ...................... 52
d. The Observant homiletic output outside Italy .............. 78
e. The Conventual contribution after 1400 ........................ 101
f. The emerging Capuchin contribution ............................ 117
Chapter Two Religious Instruction in Rules,

Rule Commentaries and Constitutions .................................... 120
a. Interpreting the Regula Bullata .......................................... 125
b. General constitutions ........................................................ 140
c. Provincial constitutions and convent statutes .................. 164
d. Rules and regulations for the Poor Clares .................... 169
e. Rules and regulations for Tertiaries ................................ 191
Chapter Three Rules and Treatises for Novice Training .... 206
a. The emergence of novice training treatises .................... 209
b. Late medieval developments ............................................ 222
c. Novice training in the budding Capuchin order .......... 226
Chapter Four Franciscan Catechisms .................................... 230

a. Early Franciscan catechistic texts .................................... 241
b. Franciscan catechisms in fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century Italy ...................................................... 250
c. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century catechisms outside
Italy .................................................................................... 253
d. Capuchin catechisms ........................................................ 269
e. Religious poetry as a medium for catechistic instruction:
Italy .................................................................................... 275
vi contents
f. Religious poetry as a medium for catechistic instruction:

the British Isles .................................................................. 287
g. Franciscan religious poetry in the German and Spanish
provinces ............................................................................ 301
Chapter Five Confession Handbooks .................................... 314

a. Franciscan Summae ............................................................ 315
b. Dottrine, Specula and Confessiones Generales .......................... 338
c. Large Franciscan confession handbooks after ca. 1450 347
d. Interrogatoria ........................................................................ 353
Chapter Six Instructory Works for the Mass and the

Divine Office .............................................................................. 356
a. Instruction manuals for the clergy .................................. 360
b. Instruction manuals for the laity .................................... 366
Chapter Seven Works of Religious Edification .................... 374

a. Edificatory manuals .......................................................... 375
b. Spiritual letters .................................................................. 444
c. Texts of passion devotion ................................................ 472
d. Encompassing handbooks of religious education ............ 515
e. Political education ............................................................ 531
Chapter Eight Prayer Guides ................................................ 540

a. Franciscan prayer guides in the thirteenth century ...... 542
b. Late medieval Franciscan prayer guides ........................ 549
c. Early Capuchin prayer guides ........................................ 556
Bibliography of secondary sources ............................................ 561

Index of authors ........................................................................ 623
Index of works .......................................................................... 647
ABBREVIATIONS
AF Analecta Franciscana (1885–).

AFH Archivum Franciscanum Historicum (1908–).
AHMA Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, ed. Guido Maria Drèves et al., 50 Vols.
(Leipzig, 1886–1907).
AIA Archivo-Ibero-Americano (1914–).
AISP Archivio Italiano per la Storia della Pietà (1951–).
BF Bullarium Franciscanum, Romanorum Pontificum Constitutiones, Epistolas ac
Diplomata Continens Tribus Ordinibus S.P.N. Francisci Spectantia, ed. J.H.
Sbaralea, 3 Vols. (Rome, 1759–1768).
BGPMN Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis van de Provincie der Minderbroeders in de Nederlanden
(1947–1966).
BUF Juan de S. Antonio, Bibliotheca Universa Franciscana, 3 Vols. (Madrid,
1732–33/Reprint, Farnsborough, 1966).
Catholicisme Catholicisme, Hier-Aujourd’hui-Demain, ed. G. Jacquemet & G. Mathon
(Paris, 1948–).
CF Collectanea Franciscana (1931–).
CHUP Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. H. Denifle & E.L.M. Chatelain,
4 Vols. (Paris, 1889–1897).
Copinger, Supplement
W.A. Copinger, Supplement to Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum: or collec-
tions towards a new edition of that work, 2 Vols. (Milan, 1950).
CrSt Cristianesimo nella storia: Ricerche storiche, esegetiche, teologiche (1980–).
DBI Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (Rome, 1960–).
DHGE Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. A. Baudrillart, A. de
Meyer, E. Van Cauwenbergh & R. Aubert (Paris, 1912–).
DSpir Dictionnaire de Spiritualité ascétique et mystique: doctrine et histoire, ed. M. Viller,
Ch. Baumgartner, F. Cavallera & J. de Guibert (Paris, 1932–1995).
DThC Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant, E. Mangenot & E. Amann
(Paris, 1907–1972).
EF Études Franciscaines (1899–1939; 1950–1976).
EsFrns Estudis Franciscans (1906–).
EsFr Estudios Franciscanos (1906–).
FS Franciscan Studies (1941–).
FrSt Franziskanische Studien (1914–).
Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum
Ludwig Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum: in quo libri omnes ab arte typo-
graphica inventa usque ad annum MD: typis expressi ordine alphabetico vel sim-
pliciter enumerantur vel adcuriatus recensentur, 4 Vols. (Stuttgart, 1826–1838).
IF L’Italia Francescana (1926–).
JMH Journal of Medieval History (1975–).
LFF La France Franciscaine (1912–).
LMA Lexikon des Mittelalters, 9 Vols. (Stuttgart, 1983–1999).
LThK 2 Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. J. Höfer & K. Rahner, 2nd Ed.
(Freiburg i.Br., 1957–1967).
viii abbreviations
LThK 3 Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. W. Kasper & Konrad Baumgartner,
3rd Ed. (Freiburg i. Br., 1993–2001).
MF Miscellanea Francescana (1886–).
MLN Modern Language Notes (1886–).
MSGV Mitteilungen der schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde (1902–).
OGE Ons Geestelijk Erf (1927–).
PS Picenum Seraphicum (1915–1919; 1969–1984/87; 1999–).
RHE Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique (1900–).
RHF Revue d’histoire franciscaine (1923–).
RSCI Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia (1947–).
RThAM Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale (1929–).
RThPh Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie (1868–).
Sbaralea, Supplementum
J.H. Sbaralea, Supplementum et Castigatio ad Scriptores Trium Ordinum S.
Francisci a Waddingo aliisve descriptos, 2nd Ed., 3 Vols. (Rome, 1908–1936).
Schneyer, Repertorium
J.B. Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit
von 1150–1350, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie
des Mittelalters, 43–54 (Münster, 1969–1990).
SF Studi Francescani (1914–).
VL2 Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, ed. Burghart Wachinger
et al. 2nd Ed. (Berlin, 1970–2000).
Wadding, Annales Minorum
Lucas Wadding, Annales Minorum seu Trium Ordinum a S. Francisco Institutorum
(1208–1540), 3rd Ed., 16 Vols. (Quaracchi (Florence), 1931–1934).
Wadding, Scriptores
Lucas Wadding, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum. 3rd Ed. (Rome, 1906).
W&W Wissenschaft und Weisheit (1934–).
ZdAdL Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur (1841–).
INTRODUCTION
In the prefatory letter to the 1518 edition of his Enchiridion Militis

Christiani, Erasmus suggested that until then not a single theologian
had provided the faithful with accessible works of religious instruc-
tion. Instead, theologians had lost themselves in the production of
sterile scholastic summae, which did not serve the conversion of new-
comers to the faith nor helped the Christian population to acquire
true piety. This enormous void, Erasmus was eager to point out,
was the major motivation for republishing his Enchiridion, this little
handbook for the Christian soldier, a ‘dagger’ of religious instruction
to pierce the heart and bring the common man to true conversion
and veritable piety.1
In that same year, in his inaugural lecture De Corrigendis Adolescentium
Studiis at Wittenberg university, the German humanist and future
reformer Philipp Melanchthon, in typical humanist fashion, lamented
the ‘steady decline’ of education from biblical times onwards. After the
brilliant times of Christ, the apostles, and the Church fathers, the dark
ages of the medieval period had obscured learning and religiosity
alike, as could still be seen in the religious failures and the igno-
rance rampant in Melanchthon’s own day and age. Yet, the present
times saw the rediscovery of antiquity’s true legacy as well as the
restoration of a true Christian religiosity.2
Not long afterwards, Martin Luther, in much the same spirit, pre-
sented his German catechesis as a landmark of religious instruction.
Previous generations of theologians, he claimed, had neglected to
provide the common flock with the proper religious nourishment.
They had wasted their time with impenetrable doctrinal squabbles
and, out of malice, ignorance or superstition, had even denied the
general populace access to the basic texts and elements of faith.
Although Erasmus, Melanchthon and Luther did not end up in
the same camp, in their own quest to provide the Christian flock
1
Desiderius Erasmus, Collected Works of Erasmus LXVI (Toronto-Buffalo-London,
1988), 9.
2
Robert Stupperich, Philipp Melanchton. Gelehrter und Politiker, Persönlichkeit und
Geschichte, 151 (Zürich, 1996), 37.
x introduction
with materials of religious instruction, they all univocally denounced

the negligence of these previous generations of medieval theologians.
Their message took hold. Later generations of religious scholars and
historians have embraced the idea that these reformers and human-
ists cast off the dusty cloaks of medieval learning and, for the first
time since the patristic age, provided solid religious instruction to
Christianity at large. It proved to be a very popular message among
Protestants, who were able to use this representation of the medieval
past in order to bolster their claim that the onset of the Reformation
had ended centuries of popish religious barbarism. For a long time
this representation of the medieval past also had an impact on
Catholic scholars, who looked on the Council of Trent, with its cat-
echistic programme and liturgical reforms, as a new beginning, and
who neglected the period immediately prior to it. When they again
took up the medieval heritage, it was the twelfth- and thirteenth-
century theological synthesis emblematised by figures like Bernard
de Clairvaux and Tommaso d’Aquino that received most attention.
Modern medievalists have offered their own contributions to this
narrative of change. French, German, Italian, and Dutch scholars,
affected by the histoire des mentalités of the Annales school and the
various continental neo-romantic traditions of cultural history, have
devised their own versions of the ‘pagan’ and superstitious Middle
Ages, emphasising the chasm between the world-view of the learned
theologians and the magical and heterodox world-view of the people.3
In their turn, early modernists like to point out the fundamental
changes in religious life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
by focusing on the thorough confessionalisation process that is said
to have taken place during this period. This process, which is sup-
posed to have brought a large part of the public and private spheres
under the yoke of religious and religiously inspired moral discipline,
3
For balanced reflections on this approach, expressing both its considerable merits
and its heuristic limitations, see: Volksreligion im hohen und späten Mittelalter, Quellen und
Forschungen aus dem Gebiet der Geschichte, ed. P. Dinzelbacher & Dieter R. Bauer, Neue
Folge, Heft 13 (Paderborn-Munich-Vienna-Zürich, 1990); Klaus Schreiner, ‘Laien-
frömmigkeit—Frömmigkeit von Eliten oder Frömmigkeit des Volkes? Zur sozialen
Verfaßtheit laikaler Frömmigkeitspraxis im späten Mittelalter’, in: Laienfrömmigkeit im
späten Mittelalter. Formen, Funktionen, politisch-soziale Zusammenhänge, ed. Klaus Schreiner
& Elisabeth Müller-Luckner, Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 20 (Munich,
1992), 1–78; Jean-Claude Schmitt, Medioevo ‘superstizioso’, Universale Laterza, 743
(Rome-Bari, 1997).
introduction xi
is presented as the outcome of the Reformation and Counterreforma-

tion, movements which themselves had been fuelled by the late
fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century humanist-inspired reform attempts.
The most outspoken champions of the early modern confessionali-
sation thesis, like Jacques Delumeau (especially in his earlier works),
maintain that later medieval Europe can hardly be called Christian,
as the great majority of people of that epoch would not have received
a proper introduction to the basic tenets of Christian faith. In doing so,
these historians turn the later Middle Ages into a non-confessional
and semi-pagan backdrop to the fundamental changes that took place
during the early modern period.4
This picture of early modern confessionalisation has been subject
to fundamental criticism. First of all, the relationship between Protestant
and Catholic confessionalisation has come under scrutiny. It is now
clear that the Catholic confessionalisation movement of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries cannot be presented as a mere reaction
to Protestant threat. Many scholars now agree that, for a good under-
standing of Catholic confessionalisation activities, it is necessary to
take into account older Catholic reform initiatives that started as
early as the twelfth century. In the process, scholars like Natalie
Zemon Davies and Kaspar von Greyerz have attacked the very core
of the confessionalisation thesis.5 On top of this, many German schol-
ars since the 1960s have exhibited a renewed interest in the medieval
roots of the Protestant movement. It has become fashionable to trace
the roots of reformation criticisms back to early fifteenth-century ini-
tiatives and to the programmes of religious reform as formulated by
Jean Gerson in the context of the large conciliar movements.6
4
Delumeau has changed his stance considerably in the course of his scholarly
career. His confessionalisation thesis is most strongly formulated in the first edition
of his Naissance et affirmation de la Réforme (Paris, 1965) and in La peur en Occident: XIV–
XVIII e siècles, une cité assiégée (Paris, 1978). In his later works, starting with Le péché
et la peur: la culpabilisation en Occident, xiii e–xviii e siècles (Paris, 1983), he demonstrates
an awareness of a greater continuity between the later medieval and early modern
period.
5
This criticism has been excellently worded by Kaspar von Greyerz, Religion und
Kultur: Europa 1500–1800 (Göttingen, 2000).
6
Some aspects of this are dealt with in Heribert Smolinsky, ‘Kirchenreform als
Bildungsreform im Spätmittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit’, in: Bildungs- und schul-
geschichtliche Studien zu Spätmittelalter, Reformation und konfessionellem Zeitalter, ed. Harald
Dickerhof, Wissensliteratur im Mittelalter. Schriften des Sonderforschungsbereichs
226 Würzburg/Eichstätt, Band 19 (Wiesbaden, 1994), 35–51.
xii introduction
In this process of re-evaluation, the later medieval Franciscan tra-

ditions have come under scrutiny as well. In this regard we may point
to the seminal works of Kurt Ruh and Georg Steer. These scholars
have charted the impact of the large Bonaventurian and pseudo-
Bonaventurian corpus (including the works of like-minded Franciscan
authors, such as David von Augsburg) in the German vernaculars,
its reception in female religious and Carthusian communities, and its
influence on late medieval theologians like Jean Gerson and Heinrich
von Langenstein.7
Thanks to these very diverse scholarly endeavours, the late medieval
religious world has emerged from the obscurity to which it had been
condemned by Luther and Erasmus. Even at a time when many
Renaissance and Reformation scholars still vigorously acclaim the
originality of their humanist and reformist heroes and hail the nov-
elty of their writings, more informed specialists do agree, with McGrath,
that the late medieval religious crisis, insofar as it did exist, was a
crisis of ecclesiastical authority, and not a crisis of religious life and
learning.8 These specialists also note that the late medieval period
shows a high production of practical theological texts. The age-old
denial of this production, or the uninformed verdict that such texts
were epigonal or barren, and hence not worthy of our scholarly
attention, thus may both be dismissed as mere signs of prejudice.9
This present volume has been written to facilitate further forays
into this field of late medieval practical theology, by providing a new
overview of the Franciscan contribution to the production of texts
of religious instruction. The available surveys dealing with late medieval
religious instruction literature either pay sole attention to the August-
inian contribution (as the tradition leading up to Luther) or, to the
7
See for instance Kurt Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch (Bern, 1956); Georg Steer, ‘Die
Rezeption des theologischen Bonaventura-Schrifttums im Deutschen Spätmittelalter’,
in: Bonaventura. Studien zu zeiner Wirkungsgeschichte, ed. Ildefons Vanderheyden OFM,
Franziskanische Forschungen, 28 (Werl, 1976), 146–156.
8
Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Oxford, 1987),
9ff.
9
Hartmut Boockmann, ‘Wort und Bild in der Frömmigkeit des späteren Mittelalters’,
in: Idem, Wege ins Mittelalter. Historische Aufsätze, ed. Dieter Neitzert, Uwe Israel &
Ernst Schubert (Munich, 2000), 239–256, 242: ‘Das 15. Jahrhundert hat eine
unübersehbare und bis heute ganz üeberwiegend unbekannte Masse an theologi-
sche Literatur hervorgebracht. Herkömmlicherweise gilt dieses Jahrhundert in the-
ologiegeschichtlicher Hinsicht als unfruchtbar oder bestenfalls epigonal. Das ist ein
auf Unkenntnis beruhendes Vorurteil . . .’
introduction xiii
extent that they deal with Franciscan materials, limit themselves to

a comparatively small, though influential, part of the surviving
Franciscan sources (namely those assigned to the (pseudo-) Bonaven-
turian tradition). By singling out this comparatively small group of
Franciscan texts and presenting it as all-representative, scholars have
established a ‘populist’ Franciscan devotional and mystical profile,
which they set against the more intellectual mystical strands of the
Dominicans and the proto-Lutheran traditions present in the Frömmig-
keitstheologie of the late medieval Augustinians.
The available works dealing solely with ‘Franciscan literature’ suffer
from other shortcomings. Important as they are, these studies, such
as Fleming’s 1977 monograph An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature
of the Middle Ages, tend to follow ingrained trends in Franciscan schol-
arship,10 trends that are heavily influenced by the perennial ‘Franciscan
question’. This question found its most classical formulation in the
ideologically motivated editorial and hagiographical recovery efforts
of Paul Sabatier at the turn of the twentieth century. Sabatier intended
to rediscover the original Franciscan ideals in the order’s pristine
legal, hagiographical and historiographical texts. Sabatier’s polemic
stance, as well as the reaction to his views by a host of Franciscan
scholars between the late nineteenth and the late twentieth century,
have had a profound influence on the historiographical discussions
and editorial decisions that took place in the twentieth-century com-
munity of Franciscan scholars. A relatively small set of Franciscan
texts has been continually re-edited and perused to establish the ‘true’
nature of the pristine Franciscan order, thus using up much of the
available scholarly energy in Franciscan studies.11 Other texts, notably
many of the late medieval texts that are central in this volume, there-
fore do not figure prominently in most works dealing with Franciscan
literature. And if some of them do figure, as in Stanislao da Cam-
pagnola’s 1974 study Le origini francescane come problema storiografico, and
10
J.V. Fleming, An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages (Chicago,
1977).
11
For a first introduction to this issue, see M. Causse, ‘Question Franciscaine.
Du Speculum Perfectionis aux “rotuli” de frère Léon’, Revue d’histoire et de philosophie
Religieuses 69 (1989), 285–307; F. Accrocca, La ‘Compilatio Assisiensis’ nella ‘Questione
Francescana’, AFH 86 (1993), 105–110; J. Dalarun, La malavventura di Francesco d’Assisi.
Per un uso storico delle leggende francescane, Fonte e ricerche, 10 (Milan, 1996); M. Zanot,
‘La Questione Francescana alle soglie del terzo millennio’, Analecta TOR 27/158
(1996), 187–230.
xiv introduction
in Maria Teresa Dolso’s 2001 study ‘Et sint minores’. Modelli di vocazione
e reclutamento dei frati Minori nel primo secolo francescano, the basic tenets
of the Franciscan question and the scholarly reactions to them still
function as a primary interpretive matrix.12
In this volume, the so-called ‘Franciscan question’ and its after-
math are kept at arm’s length. Instead, I intend to present a more
comprehensive overview of late medieval and Renaissance Franciscan
texts of religious instruction. In a sense, therefore, this work sup-
plements my book on Franciscan education, published in 2000, which
touches upon some aspects of Franciscan religious instruction in chap-
ters four and seven, but which predominantly deals with these aspects
within the constraints of Franciscan school education. As Marjorie
Woods and Rita Copeland have shown in their excellent 1999 arti-
cle ‘Classroom and Confession’, the late medieval period saw a close
connection between school education and religious instruction, partly
due to the exhortations of the Fourth Lateran Council, which had
made annual confession universal and compulsory (if only theoretically
so) and which had renewed older demands for establishing schools
to provide comprehensive pastoral training for the clergy. These
authors observe a significant overlap between classroom genres and
genres of religious instruction, the connecting link between them
being the idea of disciplina, which during the later medieval and
Renaissance period stood for the regulation of knowledge and the
regulation of the (bodily and mental) self under the auspices of the
religious teacher-confessor.13
My book on Franciscan education did not explore this link, but
predominantly limited itself to the classroom setting. In a way, this
present volume takes the obvious next step, by focusing on all those
Franciscan texts of religious instruction that were previously left out,
and that were not sufficiently covered by the—by now rather out-
dated—encyclopaedic surveys of Wadding and Sbaraglia (Sbaralea).
12
Stanislao da Campagnola, Le origini francescane come problema storiografico (Perugia,
1974); Maria Teresa Dolso, ‘Et sint minores’. Modelli di vocazione e reclutamento dei frati
Minori nel primo secolo francescano, Fonti e ricerche, 14 (Milan, 2001). This being said,
I do not want to question the importance of these two brilliant studies.
13
Marjorie Curry Woods & Rita Copeland, ‘Classroom and confession’, in:
Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge, 1999),
376–406 (376–377).
introduction xv
I hope to present a massive amount of material that should be taken

into account if we want to understand the importance of late medieval
and Renaissance Franciscan religious instruction, both within the
order itself, and in late medieval society as a whole.
Having stated my ambitious general objectives, I should now define
more clearly what I mean by ‘texts of religious instruction.’ At first
sight, the subject matter may seem rather straightforward. Starting
from a post-medieval perspective and taking the post-medieval cat-
echism as the point of departure for determining which medieval
texts should be taken into account, it ought to be possible to arrive
at an identifiable corpus of Franciscan source materials. However,
late medieval texts that address core-issues of the post-medieval cat-
echetical tradition frequently deal as well with matters that were
taken out later and, more often than not, are found together with
texts that we might not associate directly with religious instruction.
Hence, a post-medieval vantage point seems anachronistic and exclu-
sive, and not very helpful in learning to understand concepts and
practices of later medieval religious instruction and pastoral theology.
Yet, if we fully rely on medieval conceptions and practices of reli-
gious instruction, the text corpus could become totally unmanage-
able, as nearly all available texts were used in the manifold contexts
of medieval religious instruction. Franciscan preachers, like their non-
Franciscan colleagues, had recourse to the large archive of popular
culture to drive their message home. They did not hesitate to use
proverbs, songs, scatological jokes, poems, and images to flesh out
their message of religious instruction to the laity. In addition, they
had recourse to theological manuals, summae of canon law, florilegia
of classical authors, chronicles, vitae and legendaries, to furnish them
with proper arguments and exempla. In short, without a few dis-
criminatory demarcations I would have to include everything ever
written or used by Franciscan religious teachers.
Hence, some limitations are called for, if only to avoid writing a
volume that, to use Roger Bacon’s verdict on the work of one of
his colleagues, is ‘as heavy as a horse.’ Luckily, I have been able
to learn from other medievalists who have tackled comparable prob-
lems. Among these, three approaches to the inclusion and generic
distribution of texts for religious instruction seem to provide some
initial foothold. One approach has been put forward by Bernadette
Patton, in her study Preaching Friars and the Civic Ethos: Siena, 1380–1480.
xvi introduction
Patton, who was looking for materials of interest to the ‘social his-
torian,’14 distinguished between several genres ‘which parallel the
mendicants’ three most common pastoral activities as preachers, con-
fessors, and moral counsellors to the community. The first group of
literature, designed for the edification of large congregations, includes
such materials as homilies, sermons, and moral exemplars. Through
them, the collective civic conscience could be publicly castigated (. . .).
The second category comprises penitential, devotional, and confes-
sional treatises, which were directed towards the individual and made
use of a rhetoric of personal, intimate persuasion. Similar in tone,
but more concerned with practical than spiritual issues (. . .) were the
simple vernacular treatises on moral theology, in which the friars
offered general recommendations and advice on all aspects of the
individual’s existence, from marriage to dress and finance. Paralleling
these, but intended for the edification of clerics rather than laymen,
is the prescriptive literature in which were set out the basic doc-
trines of the moral theologians, and practical information on legal
and administrative problems likely to be encountered by secular
priests in the everyday conduct of their duties.’15
This categorisation enabled Patton to single out those texts that
allowed her to sketch a convincing narrative of the friars’ contribu-
tion to the formation of the Sienese civic ethos in the Quattrocento.
Although this approach does not amount to a proper generic stratifi-
cation, it does give a guideline for in- or exclusion. One could imag-
ine that, from a social historian’s perspective, a volume on Franciscan
texts of religious instruction could make use of a comparable target
audience-oriented categorisation.
A more systematic and also more ambitious proposal has been
put forward by Leonard Boyle, based on his extensive knowledge of
medieval monastic and mendicant pastoral materials. In his 1982
article on the Summae Confessorum, Boyle presented a ‘tree’, made up
of what he called pastoralia, elucidating this term as follows: ‘By
‘Pastoralia’ I mean any and every aid to the Cura animarum. (. . .) the
term embraces any literary aid or manual which can be of help to
the priest in the Cura animarum, whether with respect to his own edu-
cation as pastor or to the education of the people in his charge.’16
14
Bernadette Patton, Preaching Friars and the Civic Ethos: Siena, 1380–1480, Westfield
Publications in Medieval Studies, 7 (London, 1992), 39.
15
Ibidem, 37.
16
Leonard E. Boyle, ‘Summae Confessorum’, in: Les genres littéraires dans les sources
introduction xvii
Boyle’s chosen pastoralia cover a wide range of texts for religious

instruction, many of which should not be overlooked in this present
volume on Franciscan texts of religious instruction. As such, it seems
a clear vantage point from which to start. At the same time, his
proposal also includes strictly theological and theologico-canonical
treatises, calendars and computus etc., which seem to be aimed at the
(higher) theological education of the clergy rather than concerned
with religious instruction in the strict sense of the word. Moreover, in
Boyle’s ambitious ‘tree’ of pastoralia, the devotionalia and mystica are not
dealt with, although several of these could arguably be subsumed under
the heading of religious instruction literature properly speaking.
A third approach has been put forward by Dieter Harmening in
the context of his studies of catechetical materials in the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek. He distinguishes between: 1.) Lehr- und Studientexte;
2.) Unterrichtstexte; 3.) Prüfungs- und Beichttexte; 4.) Merktexte; 5.) Begriffs-
und Artikelschemata; 6.) Bildtexte. To his first category Harmening assigns
texts that aim to impart catechetical knowledge to the faithful. His
second category comprises the more comprehensive works of ‘Element-
arkatechese’, and the various auxiliary texts helpful for confession
instruction and confession practice. His third category contains the
larger confession manuals, mirrors and guides meant for a mixed
audience of confessors and religious teachers. More often than not,
texts assigned to this group survive together with texts from the first
two categories. A fourth category is formed by the texts that, in
rhythmical and/or lyrical fashion, deal with virtues and vices, the ten
commandments, and confession. Harmening’s fifth category comprises
the more systematically organised schematic explanations of the Pater
Noster and the articles of faith, as well as schematic explanations of
the virtues and vices, embellished with allegorical significations. The
works of this category amount to mnemotechnic teaching aids. Finally,
Harmening proposes a category of catechetical iconography, both
inside and outside the church.17
théologiques et philosophiques médiévales. Définition, critique et exploitation. Actes du Colloque

international de Louvain-la-Neuve 25–27 mai 1981 (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982), 227–237,
230.
17
Dieter Harmening, ‘Katechismusliteratur. Grundlagen religiöser Laienbildung im
Spätmittelalter’, in: Wissensorganisierende und wissensvermittelnde Literatur im Mittelalter.
Perspektiven ihrer Erforschung. Kolloquium 5.–7. Dezember 1985, ed. Norbert Richard Wold,
Wissensliteratur im Mittelalter. Schriften des Sonderforschungsbereichs 226 Würzburg/
Eichstätt, Band 1 (Wiesbaden, 1987), 91–102.
xviii introduction
Although none of these approaches has given me a blueprint for

my own selection of Franciscan sources, they have been at the back
of my mind when I had to make decisions with regard to the inclu-
sion and stratification of Franciscan texts of religious instruction.
Slightly modifying Bernadette Patton’s problem-oriented source strati-
fication, I have been looking for all those texts that originated in
the context of the Friars Minor’s activities as religious teachers (in-
and outside the order), preachers, confessors, and as moral counsel-
lors to the community at large. With recourse to and in dialogue
with the insights of Leonard Boyle, I have tried to assign these texts
their proper place within the overall pastoral framework, by curtail-
ing and extending Boyle’s own stratification at certain points, leaving
out hard-core theological texts and including some texts with a more
devotional import. Finally, insofar as catechetical instruction and
edification formed the backbone of the Franciscan pastoral endeav-
our, Harmening’s categorisations helped shape my own intuitive
judgements with regard to selecting and ordering the large and varied
legacy of Franciscan catechistic and more wide-ranging edificatory
texts. In my heuristic process, I have discarded his sixth category of
catechetical iconography only. The inclusion of Franciscan icono-
graphical programmes (on church walls, choir screens, altar pieces
and pulpits) would easily have filled a volume in itself, and asks for
an amount of expertise that I do not possess.
Although these three approaches have helped me in my search
for Franciscan texts of religion instruction, they have not been the
determining factors in my final presentation of these materials. The
surprising fluidity of the Franciscan sources frequently defies neat
generic distinctions and does not allow for a strict adherence to the
demarcations developed by Boyle and Harmening in particular.
Instead, I have followed a more pragmatic functional approach.
Because for the Friars Minor preaching by word and example was
the starting point of religious instruction—with Christ’s sermon on
the mount as the archetype and ultimate example—I have chosen
to start this volume with a chapter on Franciscan preaching. Preaching
was a major vehicle of religious instruction within the order, and
the basic medium for catechetical and edificatory instruction of the
laity at large. The first chapter presents an overview of the written
substrate of this activity, namely the most important Franciscan ser-
mon cycles dating from the early Franciscan period up to 1550.
Chapter Two and Three deal with important text corpora for reli-
introduction xix
gious instruction within the order itself. The second chapter presents
the many normative texts that provided guidelines for living the
Franciscan life of evangelical perfection, namely the rules, rule com-
mentaries and constitutions produced in the various branches of the
Franciscan order. In Chapter Three are presented those novice train-
ing manuals by means of which the absolute beginners were to be
acquainted with their chosen Franciscan lifestyle. The careful reader
will notice that this chapter is a reworking and extension of mate-
rials included in my previous book on Franciscan education.
In Chapter Four and Five attention is again focused on the pas-
toral activities of the order in the world at large. Respectively, they
present the medieval Franciscan contribution to catechistic instruc-
tion proper and the complementary production of confession man-
uals for the training of confessors and the preparation of those
expected to shed their sins in the confessional. Both chapters deal
with materials that are closely related to the sermon cycles men-
tioned in Chapter One.
Chapter Six concentrates on the Franciscan output of liturgical
manuals, or rather on the texts written to instruct friars, secular
priests and lay people on the properties of the Mass and attendant
liturgical activities. Many of these texts pay special attention to the
sacrament of the Eucharist, both as the sacrament with which, after
having confessed, sinners may be restored to Divine grace, and as
the symbolisation and re-enactment of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice.
Chapter Seven deals with the many texts that move beyond mere
catechistic instruction to more wide-ranging forms of religious edifi-
cation. For pragmatic reasons and on the strength of my source-
based intuitions I have presented, in five paragraphs, 1.) a set of
straightforward edificatory manuals, 2.) a group of designated spiritual
letters, 3.) texts concerned with the evocative re-creation of Christ’s
life and passion, 4.) large-scale handbooks and encyclopaedia of reli-
gious education, and 5.) some texts that focus on religious and moral
edification in the realms of governance and politics.
Chapter Eight closes with a modest discussion of Franciscan prayer
guides. Although the importance of prayer is clearly apparent in
many texts dealt with in earlier chapters, the activity and meaning
of prayer also gave rise to specific manuals. Some of these took a
more mystical course, which lies beyond the scope of this book. Yet
others remained within the bounds of religious edification and should
not be passed over.
xx introduction
This whole volume is very much the first result of a work in

progress. More in-depth forays into manuscript collections all over
Europe no doubt will uncover sources not or not adequately described
here. In time, a revision will be necessary. I expect that my present
presentation of the wealth of Franciscan materials will facilitate fur-
ther and more creative historical scholarship that increases our under-
standing of the Franciscan initiatives in the field of late medieval
religious life and learning. Moreover, I hope that this inventory will
provide scholars with another tool to develop a more sensitive inter-
pretative template for the religious transitions between the medieval
and the early modern period.
The reader will notice that I have chosen to name the Franciscan
authors according to their country of origin or according to the
region in which they were active as members of the Franciscan move-
ment. Hence, I normally denote English friars by their English names
( John of Wales, Thomas Eccleston etc.), Italian friars by their Italian
names (Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, Bernardino da Siena etc.),
German friars by their German names (David von Augsburg, Berthold
von Regensburg etc.), and so on. In some cases, I have decided to
choose the vernacular version by which an author is most commonly
known (Antonio di Padova, and not Antonio de Coimbra or Antonio
de Lisbon) or to provide alternative names between brackets (Pietro
di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu).
A book like this is heavily dependent upon specialist scholarship
that occupies itself with individual Franciscan authors. The footnotes
should reveal part of this debt, and refer the reader to closer encoun-
ters with the listed sources as often as possible. My indebtedness is
not limited to the specialist scholarly literature that I have been able
to peruse in the university libraries of Groningen, Utrecht, Basel,
Freiburg, Florence, Notre Dame IN, St. Bonaventure NY, and Toronto.
I also owe a lot to The Franciscan Institute (St. Bonaventure University),
where I am currently employed, and to a large community of dear
friends and scholars willing to help me at difficult moments and to
share information on manuscripts, editions and articles that would
have been hard to come by otherwise. Some members of this world-
wide community were particularly gracious in lending me their time
and expertise, or in allowing me insights into their latest scholarship.
Among these, I would like to single out Dr. Marco Arosio, Drs. Renee
Bremer-den Hartog, Dr. Margaret Carney, OSF, Dr. Michael Cusato
introduction xxi
OFM, Dr. Nirit Debby Ben-Aryeh, Dr. David Flood OFM, Dr. Jean-
François Godet-Calogeras, Drs. Maarten van der Heijden, Dr. Robert
Karris OFM, Dr. Lezlie Knox, Dr. Frans van Liere, Anthony LoGalbo
OFM, Dr. Patrick Nold, Chad Taylor MA and last but not least
my beloved partner and learned critic Dr. Nadia elMasry. Without
the generous support of these and many other people, which in some
cases also extended to grammatical and editorial matters, this com-
pilatory work could not have been written.
Bert Roest
Basel-St. Bonaventure, NY
February 2004
CHAPTER ONE
FRANCISCAN PREACHING AS RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION
Throughout the later medieval period and beyond, preaching con-

stituted the core of Franciscan religious instruction, and spoken as
well as written sermons were the primary vehicles with which the
basic message of religious instruction was conveyed to the members
of the order and to the world at large.
The beginnings of Franciscan preaching by word and example go
at least back to 1208 when, according to Tomasso da Celano’s Vita
Prima Beati Francisci, Francesco and his early companions heard in
the Portiuncola chapel the Gospel passage according to which Christ
sent out his disciples two by two into the world to preach penance
and announce the arrival of God’s kingdom.1 Inspired by this bib-
lical message, the young brotherhood decided to emulate this exam-
ple, and began to engage in itinerant preaching. At first, the friars
limited themselves to evocative calls for repentance towards a truly
Christian life, and exhibited their chosen evangelical lifestyle to the
world at large.2
In 1209, Francesco and eleven of his companions succeeded in
obtaining papal authorisation for their way of life and for their mode
1
‘Sed cum die quadam Evangelium, qualiter Dominus miserit discipulos suos ad
praedicandum (. . .) legeretus, et sanctus Dei assistens ibidem utcumque verba evan-
gelica intellexisset, celebratis missarum solemniis, a sacerdote sibi exponi evangelium
suppliciter postulavit. Qui cum ei cuncta per ordinem enarrasset, audiens sanctus
Franciscus Christi discipulos non debere aurum sive argentum seu pecuniam possidere,
non peram, non sacculum, non panem, non virgam in via portare, non calceamenta, non
duas tunicas habere, sed regnum Dei et poenitentiam praedicare, continuo exsultans in
spiritu Dei: Hoc est, inquit, quod volo, hoc est quod quaero, hoc totis medullis cordis
facere concupisco.’ Tommaso da Celano, Vita Prima, Cap. IX, no. 22, AF X (Ad
Claras Aquas, 1926–1941), 19.
2
See on this also the ‘remarks’ of Francesco incorporated in the eulogical Legenda
Trium Sociorum, where he explains to his brothers that God has asked them to go
through the world exhorting the people to do penance. ‘Consideremur, inquit fratres
carissimi, vocationem nostram quia misericorditer vocavit nos Deus, non tantum
pro nostra sed pro multorum salute, ut eamus per mundum exhortando omnes plus
exemplo quam verbo, ad agendam poenitentiam de peccatis suis et habendam
memoriam mandatorum Dei.’ Legenda Trium Sociorum, ed. Théophile Desbonnets
(Grottaferrata, 1974), 116 (no. 36).
2 chapter one
of exhortatory preaching, probably profiting from Innocent III’s

attempts at reconciling a variety of lay religious movements (such as
the Waldensians, Humiliati) with the Church.3 According to the
Franciscan hagiographic tradition, Pope Innocent III approved the
first primitive Franciscan rule, and licensed the Franciscan peniten-
tial preaching activities. To set the new ‘ordo’ of Francesco and his
companions apart from mere lay people, the pope also had the group
tonsured.
From this moment onwards, the Franciscan brotherhood was on
the road to clericalisation. At first, this did not alter much in the
form and content of its religious teachings. With papal approval,
the Friars Minor continued to travel and to preach penitence and
conversion by word and example.4 To a large degree, the hypo-
thetical rule of 1216 and the Regula non Bullata of 1221 still describe
the Franciscan preaching efforts along these lines. The friars took to
the road as poor evangelists, and preached as much with their deeds
as with their words.5
By 1220, however, the nature of the Franciscan order already was
changing significantly, through the steady influx of educated clerics,
some of whom had received a solid theological training and were
accredited to engage in doctrinal preaching. Around that time, the
papacy actively intervened to transform the quickly growing Franciscan
order into an expedient instrument for implementing the programme
3
Bartholomaeus Belluco, De Sacra Praedicatione in Ordine Fratrum Minorum, Studia
Antoniana, 8 (Rome, 1956), 13; G.G. Meersseman, Dossier de l’Ordre de la Pénitence
au XIII e siècle (Fribourg, 1961), 282–286; R. Zerfass, Der Streit um die Laienpredigt im
12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 1974), 211–229.
4
To my knowledge, the best introductory studies for obtaining a good insight
in the beginnings and early development of Franciscan preaching, are: Jean-François
Godet, ‘Le rôle de la prédication dans l’évolution de l’Ordre des Frères Mineurs
d’après les écrits de saint François’, FrSt 59 (1977), 53–64; Carlo Delcorno, ‘Origini
della predicazione francescana’, in: Francesco d’Assisi e francescanesimo. Atti del IV Convegno
della Società internazionale di SF (Assisi, 1977), 125–160; Z. Zafarana, ‘La predicazione
francescana’, in: Francescanesimo e vita religiosa dei laici nel ’200, Atti dell’VIII Convegno
della Società internazionale di Studi Francescani (Assisi, 1981), 203–250; Roberto Rusconi,
‘La predicazione minoritica in Europa nei secoli XIII–XV’, in: Francesco, Il Francescanesimo
e la cultura della nuova Europa, ed. Ignazio Baldelli & Angiola Maria Romanini (Rome,
1986), 141–165. The following pages rely heavily on these survey articles.
5
For the ‘reconstructed’ rule of 1216, see Bernard Vollot, ‘La règle des frères
mineurs de 1216’, Franciscana 2 (2000), 137–151. Cf. also Idem, ‘La vie des frères
mineurs de 1216. Le texte’, MF 99 (1999), 265–319. In this rule, friars were sim-
ply supposed to preach through their works (exemplary way of evangelical life) and
to call for penitence.
franciscan preaching as religious instruction 3
of the Fourth Lateran Council.6 We can infer this from the tone
and content of several papal bulls from Honorius III,7 from the way
in which this pope in 1219 presented the order to various bishops,
and from cardinal Ugolino’s role in shaping the wording of the Regula
Bullata (with its re-orientation of the Franciscan preaching objec-
tives), which received papal approval with the bull Solet Annuere in
November 1223.8
6
The Fourth Lateran Council promoted preaching by accredited preachers, both
to counter the influence of unlicenced itinerant preachers with ‘heretical leanings’,
and to strengthen the infrastructure of pastoral care on the diocesan and parish
level. Most eloquent in this matter is canon 10, De praedicatoribus instituendis: ‘Inter
cetera quae ad salutem spectant populi Christiani, pabulum verbi Dei permaxime
noscitur sibi esse necessarium, quia sicut corpus materiali, sic anima spirituali, cibo
nutritur (. . .) sancimus, ut episcopi viros idoneos ad sanctae praedicationis officium
salubriter exequendum assumant, potentes in opere et sermone, qui plebes sibi com-
missas, vice ipsorum, cum per se idem nequiverint, solicite visitantes, eas verbo
aedificant et exemplo, quibus ipsi, cum indiguerint congrue necessaria ministrent,
ne pro necessariorum defectu compellantur desistere ab incoepto. Unde praecipi-
mus tam in cathedralibus, quam in aliis conventualibus eclesiis viros idoneos ordi-
nari, quos episcopi possint coadjutores et cooperatores habere, non solum in
praedicationis officio, verum etiam in audiendis confessionibus, et poenitentiis inju-
gendis, ac ceteris quae ad salutem pertinent animarum. Si quis autem hoc neglexerit
adimplere, districtae subjaceat ultioni.’ Edited in: Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima
Collectio, ed. J.D. Mansi, Reprint (Graz, 1961) XXII, 998–999. The implementation
of this canon on preaching can be charted in many subsequent synodal and provin-
cial statutes (a.o. statutes of the Council of Rouen (1223), the provincial council
held at Oxford (1222), the synodal statutes of Winchester (1224), and the statutes
of the Council of Trier (1227). Cf. R.H. Rouse & M.A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia
and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland, Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 47 (Toronto, 1979), 58–59. The statutes of
the 1227 Council of Trier make it abundantly clear that parishioners have to be
instructed in the articles of faith and the ten commandments, and that ignorant
and inexperienced priests should not try to preach to their own parishioners. Instead,
they should engage learned preachers, especially from the mendicant orders: ‘. . . in
articulis fidei et de decem praeceptis, Sacerdotes subditos suos instruant, et alias
illiterati, et inexperti Sacerdotes nullatenus populo sibi subdito praedicare prae-
sumant, ne contingat eos fieri magistros erroris (. . .) item praecipimus firmiter et
districte, ut viros religiosos, scilicet fratres Praedicatorum et Minores, cum ad vos
venerint, benigne recipiatis, et caritative pertractetis, et plebes vobis subditas ad hoc
inducatis, ut ab ipsis verbum Dei audiant.’ Edited in: Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et
Amplissima Collectio, ed. J.D. Mansi, Reprint (Graz, 1961) XXIII, 31–32. It shows
that already by 1227, the Friars Minor were widely acknowledged as well-educated
homiletic practitioners.
7
Such as Pro Dilectis Filiis (29 May 1220) and Cum Secundum Consilium (22 September
1220).
8
B. Belluco, De Sacra Praedicatione in Ordine Fratrum Minorum (Rome, 1956), 13.
The bull of approval (Solet Annuere, 19–11, 1223) can be found in: Bullarium Franciscanum
I, 15b–19a. For subsequent papal privileges to stimulate the Franciscan preaching
efforts during the medieval period, see Belluco, De Sacra Praedicatione, 14–20. At least
4 chapter one
We can surmise from all this that, by the early 1220s, the char-
acter of Franciscan preaching was undergoing a significant change.
The original evocative and hortatory calls for repentance and pen-
itence continued to exist. But alongside of this exhortatio, the better
trained clerical friars now were supposed to engage in praedicatio: the
regulated instruction of religious doctrine and morals with recourse
to the biblical text and the teachings of the Fathers.9
The period in which the Franciscan order obtained a firm foothold
in France, England, and the German lands not only saw the influx of
many educated friars, well-equipped to perform these homiletic tasks,
but also witnessed the establishment of a Franciscan school network,
geared towards the training of Franciscan lectors and preachers,10 a
development that later would receive a rationalisation in the writ-
ings of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio.11 Hence, from the early 1220s
from 1223 onwards, the goal was to have well-trained and examined Franciscan
preachers, who were to engage in a well-defined preaching effort: ‘Fratres non
praedicent in episcopatu alicuius episcopi, cum ab eo illis fuerit contradictum. Et
nullus fratrum pupulo penitus audeat praedicare, nisi a ministro generali huius fra-
ternitatis fuerit examinatus et approbatus, et ab eo officium sibi praedicationis con-
cessum. Moneo quoque et exhortor eosdem fratres, ut in praedicatione, quam faciunt,
sint examinata et casta eorum eloquentia, ad utilitatem et aedificationem populi,
annuntiando eis vitia et virtutes, poenam et gloriam cum brevitate sermonis; quia
verbum abbreviatum fecit Dominus super terram.’ Regula Bullata, Cap. IX.
9
On the distinction between exhortatio and praedicatio, which became very impor-
tant in early thirteenth-century discussions about the validity and scope of public
religious expression by lay people, see M. Lauwers, ‘Praedicatio-Exhortatio. L’église, la
réforme et les laïcs (xie–xiiie siècles)’, in: La parole du prédicateur v e–xv e siècle, Collection
du centre d’étude médiévale de Nice 1 (Nice, 1997), 187–231; J.M. Powell, ‘The
Prefatory Letters to the Sermons of Pope Honorius III and the Reform of Preaching’,
RSCI 33 (1979), 95–104.
10
See on this Bert Roest, A History of Franciscan Education (Leiden, 2000), chap-
ters I and II.
11
‘Cum praedicationis officium ex regulari professione Ordini annexum sit et
confessionis quae notitiam requirunt sacrae Scripturae, quae subtili indiget in plerisque
locis expositione, ne ex imperitia errores pro veritate doceamus, necesse est nos
sacrae Scripturae habere studium et magistros.’ Bonaventura, Determinationes Quaestionum
III, in: Idem, Opera Omnia Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 339b. Cf. Belluco, De Sacra
Praedicatione, 10. For Bonaventura’s defense of Franciscan learning and Franciscan
preaching, see also his Quare Fratres Minores Praedicent et Confessiones Audiant, in:
Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 375–385. Cf. B. Thiel, ‘St.
Bonaventura über ausserordentliche Seelsorge’, Theologie und Glaube 45 (1955), 49–52.
Roberto Rusconi, ‘La predicazione minoritica in Europa nei secoli XIII–XIV’, in:
Francesco, il Francescanesimo e la cultura della nuova Europa, ed. Ignzio Baldelli & Angiola
Maria Romanini (Florence, 1986), 141–165 argues (p. 155) that in Bonaventura da
Bagnoreggio’s time appears ‘una linea pastorale il cui fine è integrare ceti sociali e
comportamenti individuali e collettivi all’interno di un modello totalizzante, di cui
sono articolazione da un lato i sermones ad status e dall’altro le summae penitenziali arti-
colate secondo le ripartizioni giuridiche dei casus.’ This totalising aspect of mendi-
onwards, an increasing number of Franciscan friars had sufficient

training to engage in praedicatio properly speaking and, with papal
support, in many regions received episcopal permission to preach
and hear confessions.12
As was made clear in Bonaventura’s later comments, the task of
preaching over and above mere exhortatio made it necessary to control
and correct the doctrinal message. This also became an issue in
Franciscan general chapter meetings and their resulting constitutions,
nearly all of which indicate that Franciscan preachers should not be
on familiar terms with heretics, that they had to denounce these
cant pastoral care was facilitated by the privileges given to the mendicant friars by
subsequent popes. Hence, late 1281, Martin IV sanctioned in his Ad Fructus Uberes
an almost total mendicant monopoly in the fields of preaching and confession. With
some mitigations, this was confirmed in Super Cathedram of Boniface VIII. See on
the sermones ad status and their aspects of social control D.L. D’Avray, ‘Sermons to
the Upper Bourgeoisie by a Thirteenth-Century Franciscan’, in: The Church in Town
and Countryside (Oxford, 1979), 187–199; Servus Gieben, ‘Preaching in the Thirteenth
Century. A Note on Ms. Gonville and Caius 439’, CF 32 (1962), 310–324, and
Z. Zafarana, ‘La predicazione ai laici dal secolo XIII–XV’, in: I frati Minori ed il
Terzo Ordine: problemi e dicussioni storiografiche, Todi, 17–20 ottobre 1982 & in Studi Medievali
3rd Series 24 (1983), 265–275. On the summae and their aspects of social control,
see especially J. Le Goff, ‘Mestiere e professione secondo i manuali dei confessori
nel Medioevo’, in: Tempo della Chiesa e tempo del mercante (Torino, 1977), 1143–152;
T.N. Tentler, ‘The ‘Summa’ for Confessors as an Instrument of Social Control’,
in: The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion, ed. C. Trinkaus &
H. Oberman (Leiden, 1974), 103–126 & 137; T.N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the
Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977).
12
Hence, in 1223, bishop Conrad II of Hildesheim asked Giovanni da Pian del
Carpine to preach to the clergy of the city. After the sermon was done ‘. . . domi-
nus episcopus fratrem Johannem et fratres ordinis sui clero et populo recommen-
dans ipsis et predicandi et confessiones in sua dyocesi audiendi auctoritatem dedit.’
Chronica Fratris Jordani, ed. H. Boehmer, Collection d’études et de documents, VI
(Paris, 1908), 34. Likewise, in his Flores Historiarum, Roger of Wendover wrote between
1219 and 1235: ‘Sub his diebus praedicatores qui appellati sunt minores (. . .) Diebus
autem dominicis et festivis de suis habitaculis exeuntes praedicaverunt in ecclesiis
parochialibus evangelium Verbi . . .’, Roger of Wendover, Liber qui Dicitur Flores
Historiarum, ed. Henry G. Hewlett, Rerum Brittannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores,
84 (London, 1886). On the preparation of Franciscan preachers (training at the
custodial school levels, oral examination, and the preparation of praedicabilia for the
use of beginning preachers), and the qualities a good preacher should possess (intel-
lectual virtue, rhetorical abilities, exemplary behaviour, physical stamina etc.), see
Mariano D’Alatri, ‘La predicazione francescana nel due e trecento’, PS 10 (1973),
7–23 (10); Mariano D’Alatri, ‘Predicazione e predicatori francescani’, in: Idem, La
Cronaca di Salimbene. Personaggi e tematiche, Bibliotheca Seraphico-Capuccina, 35 (Rome,
1988), 159–189 (170ff.); B. Roest, A History of Franciscan Education (Leiden, 2000),
chapter VII. In the course of the thirteenth century and after, the friars received
additional papal privileges, which in the course of time caused a lot of opposition
from the secular clergy. Belluco, De Sacra Praedicatione, passim; E. Feyaerts, ‘De evo-
lutie van het predikatierecht der religieuzen’, Studia Catholica 25 (1950), 177–190,
225–240; Rusconi, ‘La predicazione minoritica’, 156–157.
6 chapter one
heretics and their errors publicly (without sketching in too much

detail the fundamental tenets of heretical thought, in order to pre-
vent temptation), that Franciscan preachers should steer free from
vane and dangerous arguments, and should not spoil their homiletic
teachings with extravagant visions and subtle questions. In short, they
were supposed to present sound doctrine (doctrina solida et communiter
approbata), and to maintain a total correspondence between their mes-
sage and their own appearance, bearing, and behaviour.13
A. Franciscan sermon collections from the

thirteenth century
The spoken word leaves no trace. For an insight into the Franciscan
message of religious instruction preached from the pulpit and on the
marketplace, we need the testimony of surviving written traces. Luckily
for historians, these are not scarce. Schneyer’s Repertorium der lateinischen
Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150–1350 alone lists ca. 13000
Latin Franciscan sermons and sermon outlines.14 To this number
should be added the many surviving vernacular texts and the mas-
sive output of Minorite sermons during the fifteenth and early six-
teenth centuries not included in Schneyer’s survey.
The Franciscan output of written sermons and related auxiliary
materials started early.15 Not surprisingly, a relatively large part of
13
Belluco, De Sacra Praedicatione, 76–84; Bogdan Fajdek, La vocazione apostolica
dell’Ordine dei Frati Minori secondo Gli Opuscoli di San Bonaventura, Studia Antoniana, 30
(Rome, 1987). In this respect it is also interesting to look at the following remarks
in Dictum XVI by Egidio d’Assisi: ‘De scientia utili et inutili et de praedicatoribus
verbi Dei: Praedicator verbi Dei positus est a Deo, ut sit candela, speculum et vexil-
lifer populo Dei. Beatus est ille, qui sic dirigit alios per viam rectam, quod ipse
non cesset ire per eam, et sic invitat alios ad currendum, quod ipse currere non
desistat (. . .) Credo, quod bonus praedicator magis loquitur sibi quam aliis (. . .)
videtur mihi, quod per solum visum, loquelam et auditum non salvatur homo.’ Dicta
Beati Aegidii Assisiensis, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica, III (Ad Claras Aquas-Florence,
1939), 56f. Hence words should be accompanied by deeds.
14
M. D’Alatri, ‘La predicazione francescana nel due e trecento’, PS 10 (1973), 11.
15
See on this phenonenon also J.B. Schneyer, ‘Die überraschende Fülle der
lateinischen Sermonesliteratur im frühen Franziskanerorden’, FrSt 58 (1976), 122–141.
Except for model sermon collections and closely related collections, more technical
homiletic adiutoria (distinctiones, concordances etc.) are not listed here. See on those
for instance Jacques Berlioz & Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu, ‘Les prologues des
recueils d’“Exempla”’, in: La predicazione dei frati dalla metà del ’200 alla fine del ’300,
Atti del XXII Convegno internazionale Assisi, 13–15 ottobre 1994 (Spoleto, 1995),
267–299, 286. In that article are mentioned four Franciscan exempla collections.
this production originated in the context of centres of higher learning,

such as the University of Paris. In line with the late twelfth- and
early thirteenth century objective to make the study of theology a
bedrock foundation for homiletic and (anti-heretical) missionary work,
the Parisian university had become a bulwark of homiletic activities.
The mendicant orders arriving at Paris quickly took their share of the
preaching duties within and outside the academic community, appro-
priating the new techniques of the sermo modernus developed in this
scholarly world, as well as the custom of producing model sermons
and sermon aids.
By the time the Franciscans became involved in university life and
learning at Paris, it was common for university teachers and students
to attend morning sermons at Sun- and feast days (when there were
no normal courses in the faculty).16 In addition, mendicant students,
monastic students and many of their teachers were exposed to evening
collations that took up the (biblical) theme addressed in the morn-
ing sermon, and during certain periods in the academic year would
listen to extensive public evening collations or academic sermon con-
ferences.17 University statutes stipulated that degree students and
teachers of the theology faculty not solely had to listen to sermons on
16
It would seem that, from early onwards, the Sunday sermons for the Parisian
university community were held at the Dominican church, whereas the sermons on
obligatory feast days were held at the Franciscan church. Such sermons could be
performed by the magistri, formati, sententiarii, biblici, and cursorii from the university
population, but also by friars from the Parisian convents renowned for their homiletic
prowess. Jacqueline Hamesse, ‘La prédication universitaire’, in: La predicazione dei
frati dalla metà del ’200 alla fine del ’300, Atti del XXII Convegno internazionale
Assisi, 13–15 ottobre 1994 (Spoleto, 1995), 47–79 (53).
17
Ibidem, 51: ‘Collationes qui ne sont pas les collations obligatoires faites le soir
sur le même thème que les sermons du matin, mais une série de conférences
officielles données par des maîtres sur un thème choisi, soit pendant le Carême,
soit avant la Pentecôte. Dans cette catégorie, saint Bonaventure nous a laissé trois
séries de conférences de type universitaire.’ & Ibidem, 64–65: ‘Les conférences de
Carême que saint Bonaventure a faites pendant l’année académique 1267–1278 et
qui ont été intitulées Collationes de septem donis Spiritus Sancti ne peuvent pas être con-
siderées stricto sensu comme universitaires, puisqu’elles ne sont pas prononcées coram
universitate. Ce sont des prédications universitaires au sens large, qui s’adressent de
toute évidence à un public d’universitaires. Comme, pendant cette période de l’an-
née, il n’y avait pas de cours le samedi après-midi, une conférence avait lieu le
samedi soir chez les Frères Mineurs pour occuper les étudiants et les faire réfléchir
à propos d’un sujet théologique ou religieux. (. . .) Ce cycle n’est pas le seul qu’ait
fait saint Bonaventure. Pendant le Carême de l’année 1267, il avait prêché sur le
Décalogue: ce sont les Collationes de decem praeceptis. En 1274, saint Bonaventure
recommencera, après Pâques, une nouvelle série de conférences sur l’Heraëmeron,
en préparation à la fête de la Pentecôte. Ce dernier cycle restera inachevé à cause
de la mort de l’auteur.’
8 chapter one
a regular basis, but also were expected to preach regularly themselves,

both in front of the university community and outside of it, in neigh-
bouring parishes.18 On top of all this, Franciscan non-degree lectorate
students—who did not go up for the baccalaureate or the magisterium
in theology but studied long enough to return to their home province
with sufficient theological expertise to function as teachers in the
provincial school network—received homiletic training in their own
study house under the supervision of lectors and repetitors.19
The circumstance that many surviving Franciscan sermons origi-
nate in these and comparable ‘academic’ contexts should not entice
us to think that they were vehicles of speculative theology devoid of
more straightforward doctrinal and moral instruction. As the studies
of David D’Avray, Richard and Mary Rouse, Jacqueline Hamesse,
and Nicole Bériou have shown, the ‘university sermon’, or at least
its surviving written substrate, is not very different from sermons
preached in other contexts. To quote Richard and Mary Rouse:
‘The overview (. . .) reveals, above all, that the type of sermon evolved
at the University of Paris through the course of the thirteenth cen-
tury was an admirable instrument for routine preaching to laymen.
(. . .) The sermons we have examined are not pedantic, if one uses
that term in the pejorative sense of an esoteric learned coterie busily
talking to itself; but they are didactic, in the best sense of the word,
and deliberately so. The purpose of the sermon was to instruct one’s
hearers in matters of faith and morals.’20
Surviving early Franciscan sermons held at Paris seem to confirm
this. A good source in this respect is MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
Nouv. Acq. 338, which contains 84 reportationes of sermons held at
various Parisian churches during the academic year of 1230–1231.
18
The statutes of the University of Paris provide straightforward requirements
about the preaching by degree students and teachers, both to the academic com-
munity and in local Parisian churches. See: H. Denifle & E. Chatelain, CHUP, 4
Vols. (Paris, 1889–1897) II, 692–699. Cf. also: P.B. Roberts, ‘Medieval University
Preaching: The Evidence in the Statutes’, in: Medieval Sermons and Society: Cloister,
City, University, Proceedings of International Symposia at Kalamazoo and New York, ed.
Jacqueline Hamesse, Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Debra L. Stoudt, Anne T. Thayer
(Louvain-La-Neuve, 1998), 317–328.
19
Roest, A History of Franciscan Education, chapters I & VII.
20
R.H. Rouse & M.A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus
florum of Thomas of Ireland, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts,
47 (Toronto, 1979), 84. Subsequent studies by David L. D’Avray, Jacqueline Hamesse
and Nicole Bériou have come to the same conclusion.
In between sermons by secular masters and Dominican friars, we

encounter in this manuscript 16 sermons by at least five and maybe
even fifteen different Franciscan friars.21 Among these Franciscan ser-
mons, we can point out two sermons by Gregorio da Napoli (provin-
cial minister of the French province between 1223 and 1233),22 one
sermon by Richard de Cournouailles,23 one by Jean de Blois,24 and
one by Martin Lombard.25 In most cases we are dealing with sermones
ad clerum, following the rules of the sermo modernus, as described in
the artes praedicandi, and showing that by 1231 the friars had fully
mastered the new preaching techniques.
In her survey of late thirteenth-century university sermons from
Oxford, Beryl Smalley remarked that the academic audience present
at such homiletic occasions not necessarily was in need of basic
instruction on the creed and the sacraments (which would seem more
suitable for a lay audience). The Oxford preachers she studied said
little about the sacraments (though penance would come up in Lenten
sermons).26 Nevertheless, it would appear that the Franciscan sermons
held at Paris during the academic year of 1230/1231 did not spurn
counsel on elementary moral and religious issues, even when they
passed over the most basic teachings on the sacraments and the creed.
Two surviving sermons by Gregorio da Napoli, given at Holy
Thursday (20 March) 1231 and at the Vigil of Easter (22 March) 1231,
can elucidate this. The first sermon, based on II Kings 5, 10 (vade,
lavare septies in Jordano) teaches the clerical audience to leave sin behind
and go to the light. In other words, the clerics should leave behind
exterior concerns, concupiscence and attachment to the world, provide
an example to others by leading an exemplary life, and show readiness
to convert. After shedding exterior impediments, the clerics must wash
21
This sermon manuscript found its first analysis in M.M. Davy, Les sermons uni-
versitaires parisiens de 1230–1231. Contribution à l’histoire de la prédication médiévale (Paris,
1931). See also A. Callebaut, ‘Le calendrier parisien des prédicateurs universitaires
de l’année scolaire 1230–1231’, AFH 26 (1933), 541–548; Rouse & Rouse, Preachers,
Florilegia and Sermons, 72f.
22
MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouv. Acq. 338 ff. 148r, 159r.
23
Ibidem, f. 51v.
24
Ibidem, f. 109v.
25
Ibidem, f. 74r. Franciscan sermons by as yet non-identified friars can be found
on ff. 80v, 82v, 103v, 133v, 155v, 162v, 170r, 192v, 195v, 205v, and 249v.
26
Beryl Smalley, ‘Oxford University Sermons 1290–1293’, in: Medieval Learning
and Literature. Essays presented to R.W. Hunt, ed. J.J.G. Alexander & M.T. Gibson
(Oxford, 1976), 307–327.
10 chapter one
‘their feet’, that is the affections, thus cleansing the soul’s impurities
in the river Jordan, which is Christ, and Who is the source and
judge of mankind. The repenting clerics must wash themselves seven-
fold in the Jordan river, so to obtain proper humility, justice, conti-
nence, charity, love of purity, spiritual devotion, and (at last) eternal life:
‘Sic ergo debemus lavari septies, ut sic, lavati et purgati, ad septimum
rivulum, scilicet ad vitam aeternam pervenire valeamus.’ The second
sermon, based on Leviticus 26:5 (Apprehendet messium tritura vindemiam, et
vindemia occupabit sementem, et comedetis panem vestrum in saturitate), teaches its
audience that the bread that nourishes us is threefold. It is the bread
of absolution from our sins; it is the bread of the reparatio animae in
the contemplative and the active life; and it is the salvific body of
Christ in the Eucharist.27 Comparable messages are put forward in the
sermons held by anonymous Franciscan friars before the university
community at the feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December 1230),
and on the third Sunday of Lent (23 February 1231).28 These preach-
27
Gregorio da Napoli was provincial minister of the French province (1223) and
an acclaimed preacher. See on this esp. Thomas Eccleston, Tractatus de Adventu
Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed. A.G. Little, 2nd Edition (Manchester, 1951), 28–29.
His surviving sermons, given in front of the University of Paris, can be found in
MS Paris, BN Nouv. Acq. Lat. 338 f. 148r, 159r. They have been edited in Davy,
Les sermons universitaires Parisiens de 1230–31, 349–369. See on Gregorio also A. Calle-
baut, ‘Essai sur l’origine du premier Couvent des Mineurs à Paris et sur l’influence
de Grégoire de Naples’, LFF 11 (1928), 298ff.
28
The first sermon is based on the theme ‘Innocentes adhaeserunt mihi quia
sustinui te.’ It comes with a clear moral message of religious instruction: ‘Si gratia
infantes qui loqui non poterant, et lactantes erant, et debiles, Dominum sanguine
suo laudaverunt, quanto magis nos qui usum linguae et vigorem habemus ipsum
laudare debemur, scilicet corde, ore, opere et etiam proprii sanguinis effusione. Nihil
enim valet laudatio nisi vitae concordet operatio: haec est ergo laus quae a nobis
exigitur scilicet laus sanguinis et martyrii ut possimus dicere illud Psalmi [Ps. 43,
28]: ‘Propter te mortificamur tota die, etc.’ This is followed by a castigation of the
sins to which clerics and students are prone: fornication and adultery, sodomy, etc.
Davy, Les sermons universitaires Parisiens de 1230–31, 378ff. The other sermon, based
on the theme ‘Estote imitatores Dei sicut filii carissimi etc.’ (Eph. 5, 1), deals at
length with the question how clergymen can show themselves to be loving sons of
the Heavenly Father by means of seven tokens: ‘Septem sunt signa quae ostendunt
filium legitimum bonum et non degenerum boni patris et nobilis. Primum est si ad
haereditatem patris adspiciat; secundum est si paternis jussionibus filialiter obtem-
peret; tertium si amoribus paternis non degeneret; quartum est si patris honorem
ubique in quantum in ipso est, procuret; quintum si patris amet praesentiam; sex-
tum est si patris humiliter suscupiat disciplinam; septimum est si cum fratribus suis
ejusdem patris debitam teneat concordiam.’ The remainder of the sermon works
ers, preaching before a mixed public of students, teachers and inter-

ested lay people, might have passed over the most elementary cat-
echistic issues, yet routinely addressed important elements of moral
and religious instruction.29
Moreover, a remarkably large number of these academic practi-
tioners were keen to produce model sermon collections for their
fellow friars preaching outside the realm of higher education, and
such collections frequently did include elements of catechistic instruc-
tion. The popularity of these latter works was mainly due to the
fact that they provided attractive sermon outlines and ample mate-
rial for religious edification at all occasions.30 In this regard, we can
out how God’s true sons should express their willingness to step in God’s heritage:
by being obedient to His commands, living pure and chaste, keeping God’s hon-
our by refraining from sin, receiving rebuke and chastisement with humility, and
by being in concord with fellow men. Ibidem, 408ff.
29
This is also visible in the MSS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 16481 and
16482, compiled in 1272 and 1273 by Raoul de Châteauroux, a theology student
from Sorbonne College (Raoul visited Parisian churches and convents to hear cel-
ebrated preachers, and made complete reportationes of no less than 216 of their ser-
mons). These manuscripts contain 53 sermons by mendicant friars (30 by Dominicans,
18 by Franciscans (a.o. Bonaventura, William of Falgar, Matteo d’Aquasparta, Eudes
de Rosny, Jean de Mons, Jean de Châtillon, Dreux de Provence and Jean de
Samois), and five by unidentified friars). These sermons are central in Nicole Bériou,
L’avènement des maîtres de la Parole: La prédication à Paris au XIII e siècle, 2 Vols (Paris,
1998). For a lengthy review of this magisterial work, see: Robert E. Lerner, ‘Preaching
in Paris in the Thirteenth Century: A Review of Nicole Bériou, “L’avènement des
maîtres de la Parole”’, Franciscana 2 (2000), 185–200. One of Bériou’s conclusions
was that the preachers present in these manuscripts (predominantly university preach-
ers and other highly trained practitioners) only rarely delivered sermons designed
to address one specific social group or class. Sermones ad status do not appear. Hence
it would seem that the genre of ad status sermons, made famous through the col-
lections of Jacques de Vitry, Guibert de Tournai and Humbert de Romans, do not
reflect preaching practice in the churches of Paris and the surrounding parishes.
Instead, the ad status cycles were carefully made model sermon collections for use
at other occasions. Another conclusion of Beriou is that the university sermons fre-
quently exhort their audiences to engage in interior conversion and to steer free
from sin. They contain straightforward doctrinal and moral instruction and only
seldom encourage meditation on the divine mysteries. One sermon by Dreux de
Provence found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 16481, f. 3r (Sermo fratris
Froconis de Provins gardiani minorum ad Sanctum Anthonium. In festo apostolorum Symonis et
Iude) has been described in Rouse & Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons, 78–82.
30
D.L. D’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Diffused from Paris before 1300
(Oxford, 1985), 78: ‘. . . there can be no doubt about the influence of model sermon
collections, which may probably be regarded as the most important single genre of
preaching aid.’
12 chapter one
specifically point to the sought-after model sermon collections made

by Jean de la Rochelle (d. 1245),31 Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio
(d. 1274),32 Guibert de Tournai (d. 1288),33 Matteo d’Aquasparta,34
31
Bernard de Besse called him a ‘maximus praedicator’. Cf. Liber de Laudibus
B. Francisci, in: AF III (1905), 686. Jean’s Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis (at least
221 sermons) have survived in many manuscripts. See for instance MSS Troyes, Biblio-
thèque Municipale 816, 1215, 1760, 1965; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat 3559,
3579, 1219, 13583, 15568, 15661, 15939, 15940, 16477, & 18188; Rome, Biblioteca
Angelica 823; Oxford, Merton College 237; Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 547;
Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 7776; Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. 2° 80 ff.
75v–76v (15th cent.: Sermo in Die Cinerum); Hamburg, S. Petruskirche MS Petri 49
ff. 287v–288r (15th cent.: Sermo de Circumcisione); Stuttgart, Würtembergische Landes-
bibliothek Cod. Asc. HB I 29 (Weingarten E 44) ff. 193vb–194vb (Sermo de dedicatione);
Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale IV 227 (ca. 1300). Jean also produced an influential
Ars Praedicandi/Processus Negociandi Themata Sermonum. See especially G. Cantini (ed.),
‘Processus negociandi themata sermonum di Giovanni di Rupella OFM’, Antonianum
26 (1951), 247–270; Balduinus ab Amsterdam (ed.), ‘Tres sermones inéditi Ioannis
de Rupella in Honorem S. Antonii Patavini’, CF 28 (1958), 33–58; K. Lynch (ed.),
‘Three Sermons on the Doctor Evangelicus by John de la Rochelle’, FS 23 (1963),
213–237.; John de la Rochelle O.F.M. Eleven Marian Sermons, ed. K. Lynch (St. Bonaventure,
NY, 1961); Italo Fornaro (ed.), ‘Assunzione della Beata Vergine Maria. Sermone
di Giovanni da Rupella’, Vita Minorum 59 (1999), 127–141.
32
Rouse & Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons, 76–77: ‘Saint Bonaventure’s ser-
mons, as printed in the Quaracchi edition of his collected works, survive in vary-
ing forms including the briefest of reportationes and outlines (. . .). An interesting aspect
of this collection is that it contains, and distinguishes whenever possible, both ser-
mons preached to exclusively clerical audiences and popular sermons, so that one
may compare the effect of the audience on sermon form. For our part, we found
the differences to be less than expected.’ Some of Bonaventura’s most successful
sermon cycles have appeared in new editions: Sermones Dominicales, ed. J.G. Bougerol,
Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi, 27 (Grottaferrata, 1977); Sermones
de Tempore. Reportationes du manuscrit Milan, Ambrosienne A 11 sup., ed J.-G. Bougerol
(Paris, 1990); Sermones de Diversis, ed. J.-G. Bougerol, 2 Vols. (Paris, 1993). In the
introductions to these new editions, which are to be preferred over the corresponding
texts found in Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s current Opera Omnia edition, Bougerol
offers much information about the manuscript traditions and about Bonaventura’s
preaching techniques. For other sermons by Bonaventura the reader still has to rely
on the Quaracchi edition, except for the sermon Unus est Magister Vester, which
recently has seen two new editions: La metodologia del sapere nel sermone di san Bonaventura
‘Unus est magister vester Christus’, con nuova edizione critica e traduzione italiana, ed. & trans.
R. Russo (Grottaferrata, 1982) & Le Christ maître. Edition, traduction et commentaire du
sermon universitaire ‘Unus est magister noster Christus’, ed. & trans. G. Madec (Paris, 1990).
33
Guibert is one of the most successful Franciscan academically-schooled preach-
ers of the thirteenth century. His Sermones Dominicales, Sermones de Sanctis, Sermones ad
Varios Status have survived in many manuscripts. See on this Schneyer, Repertorium
II, 282–318 and Benjamin De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Ante
Saeculum XVI, I (Nieuwkoop, 1974), 15–43. Most well-known among present-day
historians are Guibert’s Sermones ad Varios Status, which rely heavily on the Sermones
ad Status by Jacques de Vitry. Guibert’s Sermones ad Varios Status were rather popu-
lar throughout the later medieval period and saw several early editions (a.o. Louvain,
1473 & 1483; Lyon, 1477 & 1511; Paris, 1513). For the incunable editions, see
and John of Wales,35 as well as to the surviving sermons of Pierre

de St. Benoit,36 John Pecham,37 Raymond Gaufredi,38 and François de
Meyronnes.39 This listing only mentions some of the more prominent
L. Mees, Bio-bibliographia franciscana neerlandica ante saeculum XVI, II (Nieuwkoop, 1974),

70–71 & Bio-bibliographia franciscana neerlandica ante saeculum XVI, III (Nieuwkoop, 1974),
78–80. For the sixteenth-century editions, see: B. De Troeyer, Bio-bibliographia fran-
ciscana neerlandica saeculi XVI, II (Nieuwkoop, 1970), 366–367. As a matter of fact,
these early editions seem to contain four groups of sermons: 1.) sermones de diversis
statibus et officiis (90 sermons); 2.) sermones de praeceptis divinis (2 sermons); 3.) sermones
de sacramentalibus et ministris (8 sermons); 4.) sermones de poenis et gaudiis (3 sermons).
To all apearances, Guibert gathered these sermons to include them in his Rudimentum
Doctrinae, in order to function as the part ‘. . . de doctrina hominis pertinente ad
praedicatores secundum experimentum practicae.’ Five Sermones ad Status (three
Sermones ad cruce signatos et ad cruce signandos, a sermo ad peregrinos, and a sermo ad potentes
et milites) have been edited by M. Papi, in SF 73 (1976), 384–409. Another sermon,
addressed to regular canons (Ad canonicos regulares sermo), has been edited (with recourse
to manuscripts Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 15943, 15953, 14943; Marseille,
Bibliothèque Municipale 392; Rome, BAV, Borgh. Lat. 107, 217 and 241) by
J. Longère, in Revue Mabillon 64/3 (1992), 109–115. Three Sermones ad leprosos et
abiectos from this collection have been edited and studied in Nicole Bériou & François-
Olivier Touati, Voluntate Dei Leprosus: les lépreux entre conversion et exclusion aux XII ème
et XIII ème siècles (Spoleto, 1991), 43–48, 84–88, 129–155. Editions and translations
of three sermons Ad crucesignatos et crucesignandos have appeared in Christoph T. Maier,
Crusade Propaganda and Ideology: Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross (Cambridge,
2000), 176–209. Sermons for unmarried women, married couples, a sermon ad vid-
uas, one of his nine sermons ad virgines et puellas, and his single sermon ad moniales
et religiosas have appeared in Italian translation in: Carla Casagrande, Prediche alle
donne del XIII: testi di Umberto da Romans, Gilberto da Tournai, Stefano di Borbone (Milan,
1978), 93–112. In these sermons on family life, and especially in his Sermo ad coni-
ugatas, Guibert (not unlike John of Wales (in his Communiloquium) and Franciscan
exempla collections, such as the Speculum Laicorum and the Fasciculus Morum) pays
specific attention to the education of young children and the responsibility of par-
ents to instruct their children in the catechistic basics. See on this J. Swanson,
‘Childhood and Childrearing in ad status Sermons by Later Thirteenth-Century
Friars’, JMH 4 (1990), 314, 317f.; D.L. d’Avray & M. Tauche, ‘Marriage Sermons
in Ad Status Collections of the Central Middle Ages’, in: Modern Questions about Medieval
Sermons. Essays on Marriage, Death, History and Sanctity, ed. Nicole Bériou & David
d’Avray, Biblioteca di ‘Medioevo Latino’ 11 (Spoleto, 1994), 88, 94–134; Jussi
Hanska, ‘La responsibilité du père dans les sermons du XIIIe siècle’, Cahiers de
Recherches Médiévales (xiii e–xve s.) 4 (1997), 81–95. On comparable catechistic elements
in medieval sermons, see also S. Vecchio, ‘Il decalogo nella predicazione del XIII
secolo’, Christianesimo nella Storia 10 (1989), 43–44. However, even more important
than the ad status sermons are Guibert’s Sermones Dominicales et de Sanctis, which prob-
ably were largely completed before 1255 and received a final revision in 1261.
These survive in almost twice as many manuscripts as Guibert’s ad status collection.
Schneyer lists no less than 117 manuscripts containing the collection as a whole,
with a large number of additional manuscripts containing individual sermons or
small groups of sermons. They were repeatedly printed under the name of Tommaso
d’Aquino: Sermones Dominicales et de Sanctis (Paris, 1518/Naples, 1870–71/Mondovi,
1872). The full cycle of Guibert’s sermons for Sun- and feastdays contains 1.)
sermons on the Epistles and the Gospels for each Sunday of the liturgical year
14 chapter one
names and is by no means complete.40 An additional cycle of sought-

after Sermones de Tempore et Sermones Festivales is the so-called Collectio/
Collatio Fratrum Minorum, ascribed to the Franciscan friar Bonfortune
(including Sermones Quadragesimales that sometimes are found separately in the man-
uscripts) and 2.) a cycle of Sermones de Sanctis preached to the Parisian clergy. Among
these can also be found five sermons on Francesco d’Assisi, some of which have
been edited recently: Sean Field, ‘Annihilation and Perfection in Two Sermons by
Gilbert of Tournai for the Translation of St. Francis’, Franciscana 1 (1999), 237–274;
Nicole Bériou, ‘Saint François, premier prophète de son ordre, dans les sermons
du XIIIe siècle’, in: Modern Questions About Medieval Sermons: Essays on Marriage, Death,
History and Sanctity, ed. N. Bériou & D.L. D’Avray (Spoleto, 1994), 285–308.
34
Alongside of his manifold theological works—a Sentences commentary, quaestiones,
an important Introitus generalis ad sacram scripturam, biblical commentaries—Matteo
produced several lengthy sermon collections that shed light on his catechistic and
spiritual insights. In all, he left behind more than 200 Sunday and feast day ser-
mons (including sermons on the Virgin, on Antonio di Padova, Francesco and
Chiara d’Assisi), as well as three sermons De Potestate Papae. For an initial overview,
see Schneyer, Repertorium IV, 149–167, as well as the following editions: Sermones de
B.M. Virgine, ed. C. Piana, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 9 (Quaracchi,
1962); Quaestiones Disputate de Fide et de Cognitione, Bibl. Franc. Schol. Medii Aevi, 1
(Quaracchi, 1903/1957), 22–36 (= Sermo de Studio Sacrae Scripturae); Sermones de S.
Antonio, de S. Clara, ed. G. Gál, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 10
(Quaracchi, 1962) (In an appendix this volume also contains one Sermo de Potestate
Papae); Sermo de S. Francisco, ed. F. Cloarec, AFH 9 (1916), 227–236; Sermo de Promotione
ad Aliquam Dignitatem, ed. L.-J. Bataillon, AFH 87 (1994), 129–134. For an intro-
duction to Matteo’s catechistic and spiritual views cf. DSpir X, 800–802.
35
John of Wales, regent lector at Oxford (after 1258) and magister regens at Paris
between 1281–1283, is predominantly known for his ubiquitous works of moral the-
ology (such as the Compendiloquium and the Breviloquium de Virtutibus), which are a
mix of homiletic instruments and works for spiritual reading. Besides, he left behind
a considerable homiletic oeuvre, as well as an influential Ars Praedicandi. On his sur-
viving Latin Sermones de Tempore, see especially Schneyer, Repertorium III, 480–504.
On his Ars Praedicandi, see Th.-M. Charland, Artes Praedicandi (Paris-Ottawa, 1936),
56–58; Caplan, Medieval Artes Praedicandi; a Handlist (Ithaca NY-London, 1934–1936),
no. 62, 71, 95, 121; CF 7 (1937), 274.
36
Not much is known about Pierre’s life and career. Apparently, he was an
active preacher at Paris and Orléans. To him are ascribed several important ser-
mon collections De Tempore, De Sanctis, and De Communi Sanctorum. Some of these
show a great resemblance with sermons ascribed to Nicholas Byard, Guillaume de
Mailly and others. Most sermons and outlines ascribed to Pierre seem to have been
copied for use by fellow preachers and are highly structured, with divisions, sub-
divisions, recourse to biblical and theological authorities, and many concise exempla.
Some sermons ascribed to him have a strong spiritual import, such as the christo-
logical sermons edited under the name of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, and an
interesting sermon on the importance of prayer. For more information, see: Schneyer,
Repertorium IV, 782–802; L.-J. Bataillon, ‘Sur quelques sermons de S. Bonaventure’,
in: S. Bonaventura, 1274–1974 (Grottaferrata, 1973), I, 495–515; D’Avray, The Preaching
of the Friars, 99–100, 105–106, 108, 114–6, 161, 171, 218–9, 220–1, 252, 275–6;
D’Avray, ‘Pierre de Saint-Benoit’, DSpir XII, 1667–69.
37
On Pecham’s sermons, several of which date from the period in which he was
Archbishop of Canterbury, see the studies of G. Melani, in SF 38 (1941), 197–220
& 45 (1949), 116–123, as well as D.L. Douie, ‘Archbishop Pecham’s Sermons and
or Bonaventure de Paris, active as a provincial minister in France

during the second quarter of the thirteenth century. For this suc-
cessful collection of model sermons for use in secular parish churches,
Collations’, in: Studies in Medieval History Presented to F.M. Powicke (Oxford, 1948),
269–282.
38
More in particular Raymond’s sermons held at Oxford in 1291, (MS Worcester
Cathedral Q 46 f. 294r–296r–298v), which deal with the nature of Christian reli-
gion and the merits of saints. For the edition, see A.G. Little, ‘Two Sermons of
Fr. Raymund Gaufredi’, CF 4 (1934), 161–174. The first sermon, held at the Oxford
Dominican church (Sunday 28 October 1291), dealt with the theme ‘Isti sunt due
olive et duo candelabra lucencia in conspectu Domini terre stantes.’ Gaufredi argues,
with reference to Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, that: ‘. . . in tribus consistit christina
religio: scilicet in honesta conversatione, veritate et fide. Sub conversacione autem
comprendit virtutes morales, sub veritate virtutes intellectuales, sub fide virtutes the-
ologicas, gratuitas et speciales. Igitur in religione christiana optinetur liberacio anime:
quod patet.’ (ed. Little, pp. 165–166). He argues further: ‘Ideo necesse quod circa
liberacionem anime intendens totaliter consistat circa vitutis excercicium, sapientie
studium et divinitatis cultum. Hec enim perfecte liberant animam prout hic est pos-
sibile (. . .). Cum igitur constet in hiis totaliter humana perfectio, et isti in hiis sunt
perfecti, constat quod status apostolicus est perfectissimus et preclarissime sapientie
et dignitatis summe. (. . .) Set isti [nl. the apostles] fuerunt humiles (. . .) ex titulo
sue vocationis, etiam ex voto sue professionis. Obedientes enim fuerunt et pauperes,
et per consequens humiles; obedientia enim voluntatem propriam aliene supponit.
(. . .) apostoli fuerunt humiles ex doctrina eruditionis; erudiri enim a Christo, omnis
humilitatis exemplum.’ (ed. Little, pp. 166–167). The sermon held at Grey Friars
on All Saints Day 1291 (ed. Little, pp. 170–174), based on the theme ‘Sapientiam
sanctorum narrat populi et laudes eorum annunciet Ecclesia,’ relates, again with
reference to Augustine (Contra Faustum) ‘. . . quod sanctorum recoluntur merita, ut
exemplaria ad imitandum, ut adiutoria ad impetrandum, ut Dei beneficia ad
magnificandum. (. . .) Primum igitur ad quod recitantur sanctorum merita debet
imprimere nobis vigorem ad imitandum; secundum debet incendere in nobis amorem
ad impetrandum: nisi enim amor eorum in nobis ardeat, non licet ut aliquis eorum
suffragia poscat; tertium autem in nobis afficit admiracionem, scilicet ut admiremur
beneficia sibi a Deo collata. (. . .) Dicit igitur primo quod per sapientiam desig-
nantur merita sanctorum, quia donum sapientie est donum suppremum omnium
aliorum donorum (. . .) Sapientia autem per propriam virtutem cor humanum depu-
rat et sanctificat, et hoc ad degustacionem boni. Merito igitur per sapientiam notan-
tur sanctorum merita, que non sunt nisi a septem donis Spiritus Sancti, que omnia
continet sapientia. (. . .) Secundo per vim doni pietatis cor emolit et dulcorat. (. . .)
Tertio per vim sciencie sapientia cor illuminat ad cognitionem salubrioris veri. (. . .)
Quarto sapientia per vim consilii affectum dirigit in electionem salubrioris boni. Ista
autem sapientia maxime vigebat in apostolis. (. . .) Martires autem beati per vim
fortitudinis donum sapientie optinuerunt. (. . .) Sapientia autem per vim intellectus
confessores simplicibus devotos effecit ad penetrandum celestia, que per elevationem
sui intellectus separabant se a strepitu mundi et subiacebant se asperitati, ut nec
corrumperentur nec afficerentur, et isti ideo capiebant miracula divina. Sapientia
vero per vim propriam animam depurat degustationem boni, in quo plenum gaudium
consistit.’
39
The sermons of François de Meyronnes (1288–ca. 1328) on doctrinal, medita-
tive and ascetical issues could be found in many medieval Franciscan libraries and
were an inspiration for the Observant preaching revival. See for instance MSS Naples,
Biblioteca Nazionale V.H. 144; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana 453, 221 (ff. 11r–119v),
16 chapter one
this namesake of the more famous Franciscan minister general prob-

ably made use of collationes held at the Parisian mendicant houses.41
Many such surviving model sermon collections have come down
to us under titles as: Sermones de Tempore (following the liturgical year);
Sermones Quadragesimales (teachings for the weeks leading up to Easter,
with doctrinal and moral instruction to bring the believers to con-
fession), Sermones de Sanctis (sermons on the virtues of the major saints
of Christendom as well as panegerical sermons on cherished local
saints), or Sermones Communes (predominantly on the Psalms, the Pater
Noster, the Ave Maria, the Credo etc.). In addition, we encounter sev-
eral influential collections of Sermones ad Status sive Sermones ad Omne
Hominum Genus, written for the spiritual needs of different audiences.42
393, 484 (ff. 173v–242v), 500 & 503; Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek Cod. II.1.2°
50 (ca. 1450) ff. 131–142 & Cod. II.1.2° 86 (15th cent.) ff. 189r–191rb; Colmar,
Bibliothèque Publique 190 ff. 191–197; Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek
Novi 960, ff. 1r–62rb (14th cent.); Rome, BAV Vat. Palat. Lat. 451; Vienna, Öster-
reichische Landesbibliothek 3746; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 8982 ff. 157r–162r,
Clm 7594, Clm 8825, Clm 8974, Clm 3592 ff. 158–171v; Bologna, Collegio Hisp.
S. Clem., 54 ff. 21ra–116vb; Frankfurt a. M., Dominikanerkloster 93 (14th cent.);
Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei 2°, 55 ff. 111ra–193rb. For other manuscripts, see also:
Schneyer, Repertorium II, 64–79; W. Lampen, ‘Trois sermons de François de Meyronnes
sur la stigmatisation’, LFF, ser. ii, 10 (1927), 338–397; H. Roßmann, Die Hierarchie
der Welt. Gestalt und System des Franz von Meyronnes OFM, mit besonderer Beruchsichtigung
seiner Schöpfungslehre (Werl, 1972), 66ff. (also for information on early editions). One
early printed collection, the Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum et Domenicales per Totum
Annum cum Aliquibus Tractatibus (Venice, 1493/Basel, 1498) also contains a Tractatus
de Articulis Fidei, with sermons on the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, the Magnificat, on
John the Baptist and baptism, on the body of Christ, the seven gifts of the Holy
Spirit, the nature of penitence and humility etc.
40
A quick browse of my Franciscan authors internet catalogue will make this
clear.
41
This collection, also known as the Summa Que Dicitur Legifer de Collationibus Per
Annum, seems to figure on early Parisian pecia lists. It has survived in various ver-
sions in a significant number of manuscripts. See for instance: MSS Munich,
Staatsbibliothek Clm 7932 (possibly the earliest manuscript); Cambridge, University
Library Ii.4.2; Zürich, Zentralbibliothek Rh.181; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat.
16510; Admont, Stiftsbibliothek 774; Cambridge, Pembroke College 87. For more
information on such Franciscan sermon collections connected with the university,
see Schneyer, ‘Die überraschende Fülle der lateinischen Sermonesliteratur im frühen
Franziskanerorden’, 124–127; D’Avray, ‘‘Collectiones Fratrum” and “Collationes
Fratrum’’, AFH 70 (1977), 152–156.
42
The most famous ad status collections go back to Jacques de Vitry OP, Humbert
de Romans OP, and the Franciscan friar Guibert de Tournai. These address different
social groups and also include specific thematic sermons for crusade preaching, anti-
heretical preaching, sermons suitable for synods, general and provincial chapters
etc. D’Alatri, ‘La predicazione francescana nel due e trecento’, 12–13, 19–23. There
is some discussion as to whether these ad status collections reflect actual preaching
Most of these surviving model sermons and sermon outlines do

not give us an unmediated entry into the spoken sermon preached
in the pulpit, and cannot easily be used to establish which topics
and methods were reserved for a learned audience, and which topics
were typical for popular sermons before a lay audience. The findings
of Mary and Richard Rouse and other scholars mentioned above
indicate that it probably is mistaken to draw a neat distinction between
the model sermons produced by the learned elites and the sermon
outlines compiled by the many popular Franciscan preachers whose
names abound in the chronicles of Salimbene, Thomas Eccleston
and Giordano di Giano. As said before, from the mid-1220s onwards,
many of these Franciscan ‘popular’ preachers had received a rather
thorough training in the Franciscan school network. They were well-
informed about the techniques of the sermo modernus. Their popularity
was dependent upon the extent to which they were able to adapt
these techniques when preaching to a stratified lay audience, whether
or not with the help of popular tales, songs, jokes and theatrical
effects.43 Successful preachers—according to the testimony of Salim-
bene—could range from well-trained academic scholars to rather
simple friars who had not even gone through the lectorate pro-
gramme. The question was how they were able to engage their
public, starting with the right equipment to make themselves heard.44
practice. Cf. Mariano D’Alatri, ‘Pulpito e navata’, in: Jacques Paul & Mariano
D’Alatri, Salimbene da Parma testimone e cronista, Bibliotheca Seraphico-Cappuccina, 41
(Rome, 1992), 181–199, who says with regard to the preaching references found
in Salimbene’s Cronica: ‘. . . ignora quasi del tutto la prassi d’una predicazione ad
status, almeno se per stati si intendono la diversa condizione sociale e i peculiari
uffici e mestieri svolti dalle varie categorie di laici. Infatti, accanto alla predicazione
riservata al clero in circostanze particolari (sinodi e riunioni di altro genere) e, come
prassi ordinaria, ai frati, vi è la predicazione destinata al popolo cristino in genere.’
(p. 185) Many scholars would concur with this impression. However, as I men-
tioned in an earlier note, Rusconi, ‘La predicazione minoritica in Europa nei secoli
XIII–XV’, 141–165, insists that, from the 1250s onwards, the mendicant orders
used the ad status sermons and the stratified penitential summae as complementary
instruments in their comprehensive pastoral offensive.
43
V. Donnetti, ‘Sulla predicazione popolare francescana: la parodia di Zaffarino
da Firenze’, in: Cristianesimo nella storia 3 (1982), 83–102; F. Cardini, ‘Aspetti ludici,
scenici e spettacolari della predicazione francescana’, Storia della Città 8 (1984), 53–61
(no. 27–27); Raoul Manselli, ‘Il francescanesimo come momento di predicazione e
di espressione drammatica’, in: Il francescanesimo e il teatro medievale (Castelfiorentino,
1984), 121–133.
44
With the help of specially designed pulpits in the nave of the church, stone
pulpits on the market place, and even transportable wooden pulpits. Salimbene
18 chapter one
Insofar as we can rely on chroniclers’ reports, popular preachers

like Hugues de Digne and Berthold von Regensburg did have a ten-
dency to preach about the ‘novissimi’: the coming last judgement,
the tortures of hell and the rewards in heaven. As we will see later
in greater detail, this was part of an overall programme to steer the
people towards repentance, so that they would be willing to receive
the doctrinal and moral instruction necessary to strengthen their faith
and be ready to shed their sins in the act of confession.45
Whatever the intended audience, as a rule there was a strong link
between preaching and (immediate) confession, especially during the
periods of Lent and Advent. In the chronicles of Salimbene and
Thomas Eccleston the link between preaching and confession is pre-
sented as normal and necessary.46 Sermons should prepare the ground
for inner conversion and for the act of repentance through confession
and restitution, and they should provide a straightforward catechistic
programme that would make it possible to leave the path of error
and embrace a fully Christian lifestyle. Hence, sermons had to teach
what people should believe, what people should desire, and what
people should and should not do. In principle, every sermon was
meant to deal with one or more aspects of this overall programme.
In that sense it is difficult to exclude any sermon collection as a
mentions for instance the popular preacher Gerardo da Modena, who on the piazza
of Parma and elsewhere preached ‘super gradum ligneum, quem fecerat ad loquen-
dum.’ Salimbene da Parma, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores, XXXII
(Hanover-Leipzig, 1905–1913), 76. He also mentions Berthold von Regensburg, who
‘. . . ascendebat bettefredum sive turrim ligneam quasi ad modum campanilis fac-
tam, qua pro pulpito in campestribus utebatur, quando predicare volebat, in cuius
etiam cacumine ponebatur pennellus ab his qui artificium collocabant, ut ex vento
flante cognosceret populus, in qua parte ad melius audiendum se ad sedendum col-
locare deberet.’ Salimbene da Parma, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores,
XXXII (Hanover-Leipzig, 1905–1913), 560. Cf. D’Alatri, ‘Pulpito e navata’, 182.
45
Ibidem, 187.
46
This again holds true for the preaching of learned friars—such as Haymo of
Faversham, who preached ‘ita motive, ut multi differrent communicare quousque
fuissent ei confessi. Sedit itaque tribus diebus in ecclesia et audivit confessiones et
confortavit bon mediocriter populum.’ Thomas de Eccleston, Tractatus de Adventu
Minorum in Angliam, ed. A.G. Little (Manchester, 1951), 28—and for the preaching
of preachers with a lectorate background, such as Umile da Milano, who in Fano
‘. . . tempore quadragesimali instabat predicationibus et confessionibus audiendis.’
Salimbene, Cronica, ed. Holder Egger, 411. Cf. Roberto Rusconi, ‘De la prédica-
tion à la confession: transmission et controle de modèles de comportement u XIII e
siècle’, in: Faire croire. Modalités de la diffusion et de la réception des messages religieux du
XII e au XV e siècle (Rome, 1981), 67ff.
source for religious instruction. However, many Franciscan preachers

dealt with this catechistic programme most squarely in their quares-
imal preaching cycles, which abound in sermons de fide and on the
Credo (teaching the public what to believe), and in their Sermones
Communes on the Pater Noster (teaching the public how to pray and
what to ask for), on the capital sins and the ten commandments
(teaching the public what to do and what not), and on the various
aspects of repentance, confession and the qualities of a proper Chris-
tian life (teaching the public how to come to terms with God).47
To an extent, therefore, the surviving quaresimal sermon cycles
and Sermones Communes seem to constitute a privileged source corpus
for historians interested in the Franciscan message of religious instruc-
tion. Nevertheless, many De Tempore collections and many Sermones
de Sanctis also contain much relevant materials. As a matter of fact,
the latter form a special case, in the sense that the conversion history
of individual saints, their deeds in the world (before and after their
47
The outlines of this catechistic programme were already well-established dur-
ing the high Middle Ages, and at least since the Carolingian times had determined
the basic catechistic activities of bishops and priests. P.M. Gy, ‘Evangelisation et
sacraments au Moyen Age’, in: Humanisme et foi chrétienne, ed. C. Kannegiesser &
Y. Marchasson (Paris, 1976), 565–577. Moreover, it had become a core issue at
the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and in subsequent synodal meetings. Cf. Silvana
Vecchio, ‘Le prediche e l’istruzione religiosa’, in: La predicazione dei frati dalla metà
del ’200 alla fine del ’300, Atti del XXII Convegno internazionale Assisi, 13–15 otto-
bre 1994 (Spoleto, 1995), 301–335, 305–307. The major innovation (from the early
thirteenth century onwards) was the increasing use of the decalogue as a grid for
catechistic teachings, as an alternative or supplement to the seven capital sins: ‘. . . il
decalogo infatti, quasi completamente ignorato nel corso dell’Alto Medioevo, è
oggetto, a partire dal XII secolo, di un rinnovato interesse tanto a livello teologico
quanto a livello pastorale. ‘Riscoperto’ dai teologi del XII secolo (Ugo di San
Vittore, Pier Lombardo), il sistema dei dieci commandamenti sembra rappresentare
la sintesi più efficace ed autorevole dell’etica cristiana, e nel XIII secolo compare con
frequenza crescente anche nella manualistica, nei sermoni, nelle opere per la con-
fessione, accanto o addirittura al posto di quello che era lo schema tradizionalmente
consacrato ad affrontare la tematica morale, il settenario dei vizi capitali. L’indubbia
chiarezza espositiva, la struttura razionale interna e la più volte sottolineata com-
pletezza, nonché l’autorevolezza della fonte, fanno del decalogo lo strumento principe
per l’istruzione morale del cristiano ed un elemento ormai imprescindibile per quel
programma catechetico che sta prendendo forma nell’ambito della pastorale cris-
tiana.’ Ibidem, 308. Cf. also: P. Delhaye, Le décalogue et sa place dans la morale chré-
tienne (Brussels-Paris, 1963); S. Vecchio, ‘Il decalogo nella predicazione del XIII
secolo’, Cristianesimo nella Storia 10 (1989), 41–56; C. Casagrande & S. Vecchio, ‘La
classificazione dei peccati tra settenario e decalogo (secoli XIII–XV), Documenti e
studi sulla tradizone filosofica medievale’, Rivista della Società Internazionale per lo Studio
del Medioevo Latino 5 (1994), 331–395.
20 chapter one
bodily death), and their glorification furnished even so many exem-

plary models of Christian perfection.48 Within the Franciscan order,
the commemoration of Franciscan saints via Sermones de Sanctis opened
the additional possibility to highlight before a non-Franciscan public
various specifically ‘Franciscan’ virtues (poverty, humility, love for
the suffering Christ) within an overarching programme of religious
instruction.49
Many early Franciscan preachers who do not figure among the
Parisian theological elite are mere names to us. Their homiletic
prowess shines through in the laudatory testimonies of Franciscan
and non-Franciscan chroniclers, who sometimes also provide us with
an inkling of their preaching methods and the reactions of their audi-
ence.50 Although many of these preachers did not leave behind a lit-
48
There is, of course, a strong link between the objectives and functions of these
sermons and the objectives of hagiographical texts, a topic that can not be dealt
with in this volume.
49
See on the commemoration of Franciscan and non-Franciscan saints in medieval
(Franciscan) preaching especially S. d’Algaida, ‘Tres sermons de Bartomeu Catany
fra-menor de Mallorca (s. XV)’, EsFrns 43 (1931), 407–421; J.B. Schneyer, ‘Lateinische
Sermones-Initien des Hochmittelalters für die Heiligenfeste des Franziskanerordens’,
AFH 61 (1968), 3–78; David D’Avray, ‘‘Collectiones fratrum’ and ‘Collationes
fratrum’’, AFH 70 (1977), 152–156; Carlo Delcorno, ‘Il racconto agiografico nella
predicazione dei secoli XIII–XV’, in: Agiografia dell’Occodente cristiano. Secoli XIII–XV
(Rome, 1980), 79–114; J.G. Bougerol, ‘Sermons médiévaux en l’honneur de Saint
François’, AFH 75 (1982), 382–415; J.G. Bougerol, ‘Initia latinorum sermonum ad
laudem Sancti Francisci’, Antonianum 57 (1982), 706–794; J.G. Bougerol, ‘Saint
François dans les premiers sermons universitaires’, in: Francesco d’Assisi nella Storia,
ed. Servus Gieben (Rome, 1983) I, 173–199; Nicole Beriou, ‘Saint François, pre-
mier prophète de son ordre, dans les sermons du XIII e siècle’, Mélanges de l’École
Française de Rome, Moyen Age 2 (1990), 535–556; Marina Soriani Innocenti, ‘I ser-
moni latini in onore di santa Chiara’, in: Chiara di Assisi, Atti del XX Convegno inter-
nazionale Assisi, 15–17 ottobre 1992 (Spoleto, 1993), 357–384; Nicole Bériou, ‘Les
sermons sur sainte Claire dans l’espace français (1255–vers 1350)’, in: Sainte Claire
d’Assise et sa postérité (Nantes-Paris, 1995), 119–154; J. Dalarun, ‘Francesco nei ser-
moni: agiografia e predicazione’, in: La predicazione dei frati dalla metà del ’200 alla fine
del ’300, Atti del XXII Convegno Internazionale (Assisi 13–15 ottobre 1994) (Spoleto, 1995),
339–403; Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, Sermones Duo de S. Francisco, edited in: Peter of
John Olivi on the Bible, Principi Quinque in Sacram Scripturam. Postilla in Isaiam et in I ad
Corinthos. Appendix: Quaestio de Obedientia et Sermones duo de S. Francisco, ed. D. Flood
& G. Gál, Franciscan Institute Publications, text Series, 18 (New York, 1997); Sean
Field, ‘Annihilation and Perfection in Two Sermons by Gilbert of Tournai for the
Translation of St. Francis’, Franciscana 1 (1999), 237–274.
50
The chronicle of Salimbene provides information on a large number of thir-
teenth-century French and Italian Franciscan preachers. Alongside of well-known
friars whose works in some form have survived—such as Berthold von Regensburg
and Antonio di Padova—he lists a score of renowned preachers whose sermons
have not yet been found (such as Alberto da Verona, Benvenuto da Modena, Hugues
erary trace, we still do have such an impressive number of sermon

collections compiled by Franciscan preachers active outside the uni-
versity realm (both by preachers that had gone through the university
degree programme and by preachers with lower academic creden-
tials), that it would be impossible to mention all of them within the
scope of this chapter. I have, therefore, limited myself to the sur-
viving output of the most productive friars.
One of the earliest and most famous of these is Antonio di Padova
(Antonio de Coimbra), who not only earned renown as a preacher, but
left behind a written legacy large enough to provide information on the
character of early Franciscan religious instruction in a homiletic con-
text. Antonio entered the Franciscan order in 1220, after higher stud-
ies and a religious career as an Augustinian Canon. At first, the new
Franciscan friar opted for a eremitic life of spiritual retreat in the
‘romitorio’ of Monte Paolo. Yet from 1222 until his death in 1231 he
became active as an itinerant anti-heretical and catechetical preacher
in Northern Italy and Southern France, alongside of Franciscan col-
leagues such as Haymo of Faversham and Gerardo da Modena.51
Antonio di Padova was an innovative preacher, in the sense that
he was one of the first to give a complete cycle of daily public ser-
mons during the Lent and Easter period. Famous in this regard is
de Digne, Giovanni da Vicenza, Giacobino da Reggio Emilia, Luca della Puglia,

Enrico da Pisa). Mariano D’Alatri, ‘Predicazione e predicatori francescani’, in: Idem,
La Cronaca di Salimbene. Personaggi e tematiche, Bibliotheca Seraphico-Capuccina, 35
(Rome, 1988), 166–170. Testimonies regarding Franciscan preachers can also be
found in the Chronica Fratris Jordani, which for instance tells us about the preaching
of Giovanni da Pian del Carpino (in Latin and ‘Lombardic’), and friar Barnabas
(In ‘Lombardic’ and German).
51
Mariano d’Alatri, ‘Antonio martello degli eretici?’, Il Santo 2nd ser., 5 (1965),
123–130; Antonio Rigon, ‘Antonio di Padova e il minoritismo padano’, in: I com-
pagni di Francesco e la prima generazione minoritica, Atti del xix Convegno internazionale
Assisi, 17–19 ottobre 1991 (Spoleto, 1992), 168–199. Rigon argues that Antonio’s
pastoral activities should be seen in the context of the mendicant anti-heretical reli-
gious and social pacification programme for Northern Italy devised by Pope Gregory
IX in 1227: ‘Antonio, dunque, è protagonista di una campagna di predicazione che
investe la Marca e che, forse, si estende anche ad altre aree dell’Italia settentrio-
nale, coinvolgendo altri religiosi, il clero, le forze collegate col papato per l’at-
tuazione del programma delineato da Gregorio IX all’inizio del suo pontificato.’
Ibidem, 185–186. In order to make the Franciscan order more suited to such tasks,
Gregory IX intervened with his bull Quo Elongati, liberating the Franciscans from
the directives of Francesco d’Assisi’s Testamentum. Antonio di Padova would have
been part of the Franciscan envoy sent to the pope to bring about this papal inter-
vention. Cf. Thomas Eccleston, Tractatus de Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed.
A.G. Little (Manchester, 1951), 66.
22 chapter one
his predicazione quaresimale of 1231, when Antonio preached at public

places in Padua throughout the quaresimal weeks, rounding off his
daily preaching with extensive confession sessions (with the help of
local priests) and a full pacification of the town of Padua (replete
with a revision of the communal statutes). In this way, Antonio exe-
cuted the religious programme of Lateran IV in an exemplary fashion,
combining the message of repentance with the professional facilita-
tion of confession and more wide-ranging socio-religious reforms.52
In the years before his death, Antonio took care to produce for
Franciscan students and fellow friars involved in pastoral care two
cycles of sermons for Sun- and feast days.53 The oldest of these, a
complete cycle of Sunday sermons for the liturgical year, with special
attention for the periods of Lent and Easter, was composed between
1227 and 1228. Antonio named this cycle the Mystica Quadriga: Just
as the fiery wagon had taken Elijah to heaven (2 Kings 2:11), so
this work would serve as a vehicle to carry human souls into eternal
life. The accompanying cycle of Sermones Festivi saw the light in the
last year of Antonio’s life.54
52
See C. Gasparotto, ‘La grande missione antoniana a Padova nella quaresima
1231’, Il Santo 2nd ser., 4 (1964), 127–152; V. Gamboso, Vita Prima o ‘Assidua’, Fonti
agiografiche antoniane, I (Padua, 1981), 326–335, 344f.; A. Pompei, ‘La predi-
cazione di san’Antonio (. . .)’, in: Unione conferenze ministri provinciali famiglie francescane
d’Italia, XIX assemblea generale: Antonio uomo evangelica, ed. U.G. Sciemè (Palermo, 1995),
105–155; Cl. Schmitt, ‘S. Antonio da Padova, predicatore di successo’, SF 92 (1995),
307–318. Cf. also the remarks of Rusconi, ‘La predicazione minoritica in Europa
nei secoli XIII–XV’: ‘È la prima manifestazione, da parte minoritica, del crescente
intervento dei frati mendicanti nella vita sociale, sia pure con modalità proprie: ne
costituirà uno sviluppo su grande scala la devozione dell’Alleluja nel 1233.’ For
Antonio’s reform statutes of Padua, see Statuti del comune di Padova dal secolo XII
all’anno 1285, ed. A. Gloria (Padua, 1873).
53
S. Antonii Patavini, O. Min., Sermones Dominicales et Festivi, ed. B. Costa, L. Frasson,
G. Luisetto, P. Marangon, 3 Vols (Padua, 1979). See also: Sophronius Clasen, Lehrer
des Evangeliums. Ausgewählte Texte aus den Predigten des hl. Antonius von Padua, Franziskanische
Quellenschriften, 4 (Werl, 1954); Sermones Dominicales y Festivos, Texto Bilingue Latin-
Español, ed. Victorino Terradillos Ortega & Teodoro H. Martín-Lunas, 2 Vols
(Murcia, 1995/1996); I sermoni, trad. Giordano Tollardo (Padua, 1994 & Padua,
1996); Santo António de Lisboa, Biografias-Sermões, I: Sermões dominicais, Septuagésima-
Pentecostes, II: Sermões dominicais, Domingos depois do Pentecostes, III: Sermões dominicais,
Domingos do Advento—4 depois da Epifania, Sermões marianos e festivos, Fontes Franciscanas,
III (Braga, 1998); P. Spilsbury, ‘St. Antony of Padua’s sermon for the Eighteenth
Sunday after Pentecost. A translation’, Medieval Sermon Studies 43 (1999), 55–66.
54
‘Ad Dei ergo honorem et animarum aedificationem, et tam lectoris quam audi-
toris consolationem, ex ipso Sacrae Scripturae intellectu, utriusque Testamenti auc-
toritatibus, quadrigam fabricavimus, ‘ut in ipsa cum Elia a terrenis anima elevetur
et in caelum caelesti conversatione deferatur.’ Et nota quod ‘sicut in quadriga quat-
These two collections, which are among the oldest completely sur-
viving Franciscan sermon cycles, do not stand in a direct relationship
with Antonio’s legendary preaching tours in Southern France and
Northern Italy.55 They amount to carefully edited Latin model sermons,
without the anecdotes, the rhetoric and the drive for which Antonio
was famous. Due to Antonio’s prior education in the Victorine tradi-
tion, these sermons do not yet fully adhere to the rules of the scholastic
sermo modernus. Moreover, the theology and spirituality of these collec-
tions stand on the crossroads between monastic and scholastic lines
of thought,56 and exhibit a preference for a strongly exegetical preach-
ing method.57 Within this strongly exegetical framework, which made
tuor sunt rota’, sic in hoc opere quattuor tanguntur materiae, scilicet evangelia
domenicalia, historia Veteris Testamenti, sicut in Ecclesia leguntur, introitus et epis-
tolae missae dominicalis.’ Sermones Dominicales et Festivi, ed. Costa, Frasson, Luisetto,
I, Prologus, 3; ‘Eia ergo, fratres carissimi, ego omnium vestrum minimus, vester frater
et servus, ad vestram consolationem, fidelium aedificationem, in peccatorum meo-
rum remissionem, utcumque hoc opus evangeliorum per anni circulum composui.’
Sermones Dominicales et Festivi, ed. Costa, Frasson, Luisetto, II, Epilogus, 605. Cf.
S. Clasen, Lehrer des Evangeliums (Werl, 1954), 29, who remarks in this context: ‘Wie
ein Wagen auf vier Rädern ruht, so gründet Antonius die Ausführung seiner Predigten
auf vier heilige Texte: die Schriftlesung des Breviers, den Introitus, die Epistel und
das Evangelium des betreffenden Sonntags. Dabei bietet sich ihm durch das geistige
Verstehen der Heiligen Schrift die Möglichkeit, im Anschluß an diese Texte sehr
viele Fragen der dogmatischen und aszetisch-mystischen Theologie zu erörtern.’
55
The surviving Miscellanea, remarks and sermons by Antonio and/or his direct
successors, found in MS Padua, Biblioteca Anton. 720 ff. 182ra–205vb, might be
somewhat closer to Antonio’s preaching practice in Franciscan houses to clerical
friars engaged in the study of theology. These Miscellanea are edited in: In Nome di
Antonio. ‘La Miscellanea’ del codice del tesoro (XIII in.) della biblioteca Antoniana di Padova,
Studio ed edizione critica, ed. Leonardo Frasson, Laura Gaffuri, Cecilia Passarin, Centro
di Studi Antoniani, 19 (Padua, 1996): ‘La circolarità interna alla Miscellanea, attesta
dai legami talvolta presenti tra frammenti e sermoni, consente di pensare che i tre
quaterni del codice del Tesoro (. . .) possano construire effetivamente (. . .) una sorta
di taccuino di un predicatore.’ Ibidem, Introd., 32; ‘Da una parte i Sermones domini-
cales, con il loro carattere di ‘manuale’ per la predicazione, dotto e fortamente nor-
mativo nella puntualità dei suoi rinvii alle concordanze e alle clausole utilizzate (. . .)
dall’ altra la Miscellanea (. . .) testimonianza di una probabile predicazione effettiva
dai toni polemici e dal registro espressivo piu basso, con la sua presa di posizione
non più generica ma mirata ad un publico di clerici scolares contro la divaricazione
tra studio e cura animarum legata all’opera del primo lector dell’ordine, la Miscellanea
poteva testimoniare a favore della conversio minoritica dando una risposta al problema
del ruolo assegnato allo studio all’interno della famiglia francescana pochi anni dopo
la morte di Francesco.’ Ibidem, Introd., 3.
56
Cf. J. Leclercq, ‘La spiritualità dei ‘sermones’ antoniani e la sua connessione
e dipendenza dalla spiritualità monastico-canonicale’, Il Santo n.s. 8 (1968), 203–216;
J.G. Bougerol, ‘La struttura del “sermo” antoniano’, Il Santo n.s. 8 (1968), 93–108.
57
For a first introduction, see Gostavo Cantini, ‘La tecnica e l’indole del ser-
mone medievale ed i sermoni di S. Antonio da Padova’, SF 31,1–2 (1934), 60–80,
24 chapter one
these sermons also very suitable for use in the classroom by convent
lectors, Antonio’s sermons deal with a wide range of basic doctrinal
and moral issues, so to provide correct doctrine on God (as the Creator
and Trinity), creation, original sin, the work of redemption and the
suffering of Christ, last judgement and heaven, the role of the Church,
sacramental grace and the priesthood, as well as guidelines for
efficacious preaching, adherence to the commandments, the practice
of virtue and the rejection of sins, and the correct approach towards
the sacraments of baptism, confession, and the Eucharist.58 Of par-
ticular interest are his manifold sermons that deal with sin and pen-
itence properly speaking, as they indicate Antonio’s strong concern
for repentance and conversion.59 A case in point is the sermon for
the Dominica prima in Quadragesima de poenitentia (Sermo ad claustrales, seu
de anima poenitenti), which deals at length with the contritio cordis, the
confessio oris, and the satisfactio operis, and describes explicitly both the
circumstantiae peccatorum in the act of confession, and the temptations
by which man is trapped into sin (especially through the sins of gula,
vanagloria, and avaritia).60
195–224; Sophronius Clasen, ‘“Lehrer des Evangeliums.” Über die Predigtweise des
hl. Antonius von Padua’, W&W 16 (1953), 111–121; Le fonti e la teologia dei sermoni
antoniani. Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi sui ‘Sermones’ di S. Antonio di Padova
(Padova, 5–10 ottobre 1981), ed. A. Poppi, Centro Studi Antoniani, 5 (Padua, 1982);
A. Figueiredo Frias, Lettura ermeneutica dei ‘Sermoni’ di Sant’Antonio di Padova, Centro di
Studi Antoniani, 18 (Padua, 1995); K. Reinhardt, ‘Der Gebrauch der Glossa Ordinaria
in den Predigten des heiligen Antonius von Padua’, W&W 59 (1996), 199–210;
Antonio de Padua, maestro franciscano. Pensamiento teológico, vida, presencia en el arte, difusión
de su culto (Madrid, 1996); Convegno ‘Vite’ e vita di Antonio di Padova. Centro Studi Antoniani,
29 maggio–1 giugno 1995, in: Il Santo 36 (1996), 5–379 (also published separately as
a monograph); Vergilio Gamboso, ‘Motivi evangelici negli scritti di sant’Antonio’,
in: Studi di storia religiosa padovana dal Medioevo ai nostri giorni, Fonti e ricerche di sto-
ria ecclesiastica padovana, 25 (Padua, 1997), 55–84; Marian Kray, La doctrina eucarís-
tica en los Sermones de San Antonio de Padua, Dissertationes ad Lauream, 89 (Rome,
1997); Simón Luis Pérez, San Antonio de Padua. Exposición sistemática de su predicación,
Publicaciones Instituto Teológico Franciscano, 26 (Madrid, 1998).
58
This was already noticed by Clasen, Lehrer des Evangeliums, 44–45: ‘. . . denn
der Inhalt seiner Predigten ist im wesentlichen der gleiche, den Franziskus in seiner
Ordensregel fordert: Laster und Tugenden, Lohn und Strafe. Deshalb dient sein
Predigtwerk der Erbauung . . .’ Clasen’s German omnibus of Antonio’s sermons
closely follows these topics.
59
Cf. Luis Pérez, ‘La penitencia en los Sermones de San Antonio’, Carthaginensia
13 (1997), 283–318.
60
Sermones Dominicales et Festivi, ed. Costa, Frasson, Luisetto, I, 63–84. Within the
current edition of Antonio’ works by Costa, Frasson and Luisetto, we can also point
to the sermons in volume one for the dominica in septuagesima (Sermo ad informationem
cordis peccatoris), and the dominica prima in Quadragesima de poenitentia (Sermo ad claustrales,
Whereas Antonio’s written sermons on their own had a considerable

impact on the homiletic and theological output of the Franciscan elite
throughout the medieval period,61 it would seem that the spiritual
legacy of Antonio’s preaching in Padua and other North-Italian towns
also proved to be a source of inspiration for less-famous Franciscan
homiletic practitioners. A direct disciple of Antonio seems to have
been Sopramonte del Varisio (Sopramonte da Varese/Superanzio da
Varese), preacher at Padua and provincial minister of Lombardy in
1230 and 1242. His own Sermones de Tempore are a clear testimony
to the Franciscan emphasis on penitence, evangelical poverty, the
fight against usury, the proper behaviour of clerics, the importance
of social peace and charity (as a necessary counterpart to faith), and
the utility of preaching.62
An almost exact contemporary of Sopramonte and one of the
most celebrated Franciscan preachers of his time was Luca da Bitonto
(Lucas Apulus, d. 1242/3). The biographical information on this friar
is scarce and hampered by the presence of two or three thirteenth-
century namesakes with whom he is frequently confused.63 The
seu de anima poenitenti). In the second volume, we can point to the sermons for the
dominica XVI post pentecosten (Sermo de anima poenitente), dominica XXI post pentecosten (Sermo de
carnalium desideriorum mortificatione et peccatorum confessione), dominica prima de adventu (Sermo
ad poenitentes vel religiosos et de confessione), dominica tertia de adventu (Sermo ad poenitentes),
and the dominica secunda post nativitatem domini (Sermo in Quadragesima ad poenitentes).
61
Cf. Sermones Dominicales et Festivi, ed. Costa, Frasson, Luisetto, I, Introductio,
xxviff., which gives an indication of the reception of Antonio’s written sermons
among later theologians (a.o. Roger Marston, Jean Rigaud, Bernard de Deo, Alvaro
Pelayo, Bartolomeo da Pisa, and Bernardino da Siena).
62
Sopramonte’s sermons can be found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 1043
and MS Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria Aldini 173. Cf. P. Sevesi, ‘I ministri provin-
ciali dell’alma provincia dei frati minori di Milano dal 1217 al 1517’, SF n.s. 2
(xiii) (1915–1916), 140–141; Schneyer, Repertorium V, 514–518; Antonio Rigon,
‘Antonio di Padova e il minoritismo padano’, in: I compagni di Francesco e la prima
generazione minoritica, Atti del xix Convegno internazionale Assisi, 17–19 ottobre 1991
(Spoleto, 1992), 194–199. Rigon shows that Sopramonte made use of Antonio’s
published sermons as well.
63
Our Luca da Bitonto is frequently confused with the lector Luca lettore di
Padova (d. 1287), with Luca Belludi (d. 1285), an alleged socius of Antonio di Padova,
and with the Servite Luca da Prato (fl. ca. 1290). Our Franciscan preacher prob-
ably received a sound theological training, either at the Parisian schools or at a
progressive Italian centre of learning that taught the techniques of the sermo modernus
in the years leading up to 1220. In that year, or slightly earlier, Luca would have
joined the Franciscan order. He possibly may be identified with the Luca mentioned
as a provincial minister of Rumania, Greece and the Holy Land (1221, cf. the
letters of pope Honorius III in Bullarium Franciscanum I, 7–8). If this identification is
correct, our Luca may have become lector and predicator solemnis after his return to
26 chapter one
preacher with whom we are dealing was hailed by Salimbene da

Parma as one of the most learned friars of his days,64 and recent
scholarship indicates that during the medieval period his sermon col-
lections were even more popular than those of Antonio di Padova.65
Luca’s homiletic renown was already well-established during his own
lifetime, and might have motivated both his provincial minister and
the Franciscan minister general to ask him shortly after 1230 to
record his sermons for the use of his fellow friars. This resulted in
a lengthy collection of Sermones Dominicales, Quadragesimales et Feriales,
crowned with an interesting prologue, which doubled as a short
exegetical and epistemological treatise and as an ars praedicandi.66
Luca’s sermons follow the sermo modernus-structure more closely
than those of Antonio di Padova. Yet in line with the Sunday sermons
of Antonio, they frequently contain an exegesis of the designated
Gospel and Epistle readings for the Sun- and feast day in question,
exhibiting in the process a sound theological learning. Moreover,
with ample recourse to etymological and symbolical explanations,
many of Luca’s sermons provide religious teachings on the virtues
and vices connected with the domestic life within urban families and
with the commercial life of the marketplace. Intermittently, they also
display a stratified ad-status approach to pressing moral issues.67
Italy (cf. Dialogus de Gestis Sanctorum Fratrum Minorum, ed. F.-M. Delorme (Quaracchi,
1929), 117). According to Salimbene, he held a sermon at the funeral of the son
of Emperor Frederick II in 1242 (taking as his biblical theme ‘Arripuit Abraham
gladium, ut immolaret filium suum’), and died himself shortly thereafter. Salimbene,
Cronica, ed. Holder-Egger MGH Scriptores, XXXII (Hanover, 1905–1913), 87–88.
For the scholarly disagreements concering these biographical details, see especially
Pierre Péano, ‘Luc de Bitonto’, DSpir IX, 1121–1122 and Jean Désiré Rasolofoari-
manana, ‘Luc de Bitonto, OMin, et ses sermons’, in: Predicazione e società nel medio-
evo. Riflessione etica, valori e modelli di comportamento/Preaching and Society in the Middle Ages:
Ethics, Values and Social Behaviour, Atti/Proceedings of the XII Medieval Sermon
Studies Sympoium Padova, 14–18 Iuglio 2000, ed. Laura Gaffuri-Riccardo Quinto
(Padua, 2002), 239–247.
64
Salimbene, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores, XXXII (Hanover-
Leipzig, 1905–1913), 87–88 tells us: ‘Et tunc vivebat frater Lucas Apulus ex ordine
fratrum Minorum, cuius est sermonum memoria, qui fuit scholasticus et ecclesias-
ticus et litteratus homo et in Apulia in theologia eximius doctor, nominatus, sollem-
neis atque famosus; cuius anima per misericordiam Dei requiescat in pace, amen.’
65
‘. . . some preachers almost forgotten now were important and influential in
the Middle Ages: it seems likely that the sermons of the obscure Luca da Bitonto
were more used and read than those of Antony of Padua.’ David L. D’Avray, The
Preaching of the Friars (Oxford, 1985), 156.
66
The form and content of this prologue suggest a good command of the school
issues of the day and in my opinion support the idea that Luca had been active
as a teacher within the Franciscan school network.
67
Sermones Dominicales, Quadragesimales et de Festis: a.o. MSS Paris Bibliothèque
On top of the Franciscan university preachers mentioned before,

and in the wake of Antonio, Sopramonte da Varese and Luca da
Bitonto, many more thirteenth-century Franciscan preachers can be
named whose surviving sermon collections provide information on
Franciscan religious instruction. Here I will only deal succinctly with a
few of the more proficient ones, such as Konrad Holtnicker, Berthold
von Regensburg, Albertino da Verona and Servasanto da Faenza.
Konrad Holtnicker (Konrad von Sachsen, d. 1279) is one of the
first important Franciscan authors active in the German lands (along
with Bartholomaeus Anglicus, David von Augsburg and Berthold von
Regensburg). His sermon collections and other writings were directly
related to his lectorate activities at the Hildesheim convent in the
1240s, and might be indicative for the nature of religious and the-
ological instruction at the convent level in the mid-thirteenth cen-
tury. It seems clear that Konrad wrote his large and popular collections
of sermon outlines (most of which survive in many manuscripts but
have seen neither proper editions nor in-depth scholarly analysis), as
well as his very successful Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis (to which I
will return in another chapter) first and foremost for his fellow friars,
so that they might have adequate materials for preaching outside
the convent walls.68 His sermon outlines were an immediate success,
Nationale Lat. 15958; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouvelles Acquisitions 410;

Rome, BAV Chigi C.VI.164; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 1356 (13th
c.); Avignon, Bibliothèque Municipale Lat 83; Würzburg, Franziskanerkloster cod.
I.85; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Conv. Soppr. C-7–236 [= Laurenz. Plut. XXXIV
Sin Cod 5. In all, his sermon cycle survived in nearly 100 manuscripts. For an ini-
tial manuscript overview (that probably will change somewhat after further study),
see Schneyer, Repertorium IV, 49–71. An early printed version of his cycle appeared in
1483. A copy of this incunable edition is found in the Public Library of Bruges, Belgium
(Stedelijke Openbare Bibliotheek). The fascinating prologue to the Sermones Dominicales
(Narraverunt mihi iniqui) has been edited in: B. Sderci da Gaiole, L’apostolato di S. Francesco
e dei francescani, I (Quaracchi, 1909), 374–381; A. Barzon, ‘Saggio dei sermoni di frate
Luca’, Il Santo 1,4 (1930), 348–357; Felice Moretti, Luca Apulus, un maestro francescano
del secolo XIII (Bitonto, 1985), 162–172. The sermon for the first Sunday of Advent
(Universe vie Domini) has been edited in A. Barzon, ‘Saggio dei sermoni di frate Luca’,
Il Santo 3 (1930), 77–88. The sermon for Sexagesima Sunday (Exiit qui seminat) has
been edited in C. Delcorno, ‘La predicazione volgare in Italia (sex. XIII–XIV):
teoria, produzione, ricezione’, Revue Mabillon 65 (1993), 104–105. The sermon for
Ash Wednesday (In domo pulueris) and for the Feria VIa after the first Sunday of the
Passion (Domine, omnes, qui) can be found in Moretti, Lucas Apulus, 187–190, 190–196.
A complete edition of Luca’s sermons is presently being prepared by Rasolofoarima-
nana. For more information see not only Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 174–175 and
the concise studies of Peano and Rasolofoarimanana mentioned in one of the pre-
vious notes but also the just-mentioned study of Felice Moretti, as well as Idem, ‘I
sermoni di Luca da Bitonto fra cattedra e pulpito’, Il Santo 40 (2000), 49–69.
68
Konrad was lector of theology at Hildesheim until 1247, when he was elected
28 chapter one
becoming a source of inspiration not solely for Franciscan preach-

ers, but also for outside homiletic practitioners in Southern Germany.69
Much more scholarly effort thus far has been bestowed on the
surviving sermons of Berthold von Regensburg, Konrad’s contem-
porary, and beyond doubt the most famous thirteenth-century Fran-
ciscan preacher from the German lands, whose renown already during
his lifetime had spread to Italy.70 Berthold, a pupil and socius of David
von Augsburg, had studied at the provincial studium of Magdenburg
between 1230 and 1235, and from ca. 1240 embarked on a preach-
ing career in Southern Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Austria,
Hungary, Switzerland, and the Rhine valley.71 Between ca. 1250 and
provincial minister of the Saxony province. His sermon collections include the
Sermones de Festis/Sermones de Commune Sanctorum (24 sermons); the Sermones de Sanctis
(ca. 106 sermons); the Sermones de Sacerdotibus et Prelatis (6 sermons, often found in
the same manuscripts as the Sermones de Sanctis); the Sermones de Dominicalibus Evangeliis
et Epistolis (110 sermons); the Sermones Quadragesimales (46 sermons for every day of
Lent); a long cycle of Sermones de Tempore (c. 256 sermons); as well as various indi-
vidual sermons (such as the Sermo in Exaltatione Sancte Crucis, found in MS Solothurn,
Zentralbibl. S. 209 f. 26r), sermon verses (the so-called Versus Holtnickeri, which
amount to introductory verses to several of his sermon collections), and mariological
sermons connected with his Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis. For manuscript information,
see Schneyer, Repertorium I, 765–777; A. Franz, Drei deutsche Minoritenprediger aus dem
13. Und 14. Jahrhundert (Freiburg, 1907), 9–46; S. Girotto, Corrado di Sassona, predicatore
e mariologo del secolo xiii, Biblioteca di SF, 3 (Firenze, 1952), passim; Speculum seu
Salutatio B. Mariae Virginis ac Sermones Mariani, ed. P. de Alcantara Martinez, Bibliotheca
Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 11 (Rome, 1975), introduction; Gerhard Stamm,
‘Conrad von Sachsen’, in: Die Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserslexikon2 V
(Berlin-New York, 1985), 247–251. A number of Konrad’s Sermones de Tempore et de
Sanctis were printed during the sixteenth century, under the name of Bonaventura
da Bagnoreggio. See for instance Bonaventura, Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis (Paris:
Jodocus Badius Ascensius, 1521). Some of Konrad’s sermons on Mary and on
Franciscan saints (notably Antonio di Padova and Francesco d’Assisi) have seen
more recent editorial attention. See: V. Gamboso: ‘I tre panegirici Antoniani . . .’,
Il Santo 14 (1974), 63–120; Francesco d’Assisi nella Storia, I: Secoli XIII–XV, Atti del primo
convegno di studi per l’VIII centenario della nascità di S. francesco (1182–1982), ed. S. Gieben
(Rome, 1983), 41–44 (editions of a Sermo Francisci Patris Nostri and a Sermo Francisci
Confessoris, edited from MS Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale 1494 f. 266b and f. 276);
Speculum seu Salutatio B. Mariae Virginis ac Sermones Mariani, ed. P. de Alcantara Martinez,
Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 11 (Rome, 1975), esp. 504–573.
69
Cf. W. Williams-Krapp, ‘Das Gesamtwerk des sog. ‘Schwarzwälder Predigers’,
ZdAdL 107 (1978), 50–80.
70
Salimbene, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores XXXII (Hanover-
Leipzig, 1905–1913), 559–563.
71
On Berthold’s life, career and works, see first of all Georg Steer, ‘Leben und
Wirken des Berthold von Regensburg’, in: 800 Jahre Franz von Assisi. Franziskanische
Kunst und Kultur des Mittelalters (Vienna, 1982), 169–175; Anna Maria Valente Bacci,
‘Berthold von Regensburg’, Dizionario di omiletica, ed. Manlio Sodi & Achille M.
Triacca (Bergamo, 1999–2003), 195–197.
1255, he composed at least three and possibly five overlapping Latin

sermon compilations (the so-called Rusticanus de Dominicis, the Rusticanus
de Sanctis, the Rusticanus de Communi Sanctorum, the Sermones ad Religiosos
and the Sermones Speciales vel Extravagantes).72 These Latin sermon col-
lections, which have been attested in ca. 300 or more manuscripts,
again were meant as authoritative homiletic handbooks for simple
priests and preachers,73 and contain a wealth of material for religious
72
Partly due to their enormous manuscript dissemination, these Latin sermons
have not yet seen a critical edition. For a more or less complete overview of the
manuscripts, see: L. Casutt, Die Handschriften mit lateinischen Predigten Bertholds von
Regensburg (Freiburg i. Br., 1961); F. Banta, ‘Berthold von Regensburg: Investigations
Past and Present’, Traditio 25 (1969), 472–479; Schneyer, Repertorium I, 472–504.
The only cycle that has almost been edited completely, is the Sermones ad Religiosos.
The sermons of this cycle probably were composed on the basis of preaching notes
left behind by Berthold himself. See: Beati Fr. Bertholdi a Ratisbona Sermones ad Religiosos
XX, ed. P. Hötzl (München, 1882). The edition of Hötzl contains twenty Sermones
ad Religiosos and the fourth sermon of the Rusticanus de Sanctis. He edited all of these
on the basis of one manuscript, namely MS Erlangen 324. Cf. Cassut, Die hand-
schriften mit lateinischen Predigten Bertholds von Regensburg, 9–10. The Rusticanus de Sanctis
et de Communi Sanctorum still awaits its first critical edition. As said before, one ser-
mon from the Rusticanus de Sanctis can be found in Hötzl’s edition of the Sermones
ad Religiosos. For some other printed sermons, see: Anton Schönbach, ‘Das Wirken
Bertholds von Regensburg gegen die Ketzer’, Studien zur Geschichte der altdeutschen
Predigt, III (Vienna, 1904/Hildesheim, 1968), 2–82; Idem, ‘Die Überlieferung der
Werke Bertholds von Regensburg, I’, Studien zur Geschichte der altdeutschen Predigt, IV
(Vienna, 1905–6/Hildesheim, 1968), 87–97, 104–116, 124–145; Idem, ‘Die Über-
lieferung der Werke Bertholds von Regensburg, III’, Studien zur Geschichte der alt-
deutschen Predigt, VI (Vienna, 1906/Hildesheim, 1968), 153–161. Some sermons from
the Rusticanus de Dominicis likewise can be found in the studies of Schönbach. See:
‘Das Wirken Bertholds von Regensburg gegen die Ketzer’, Studien zur Geschichte der
altdeutschen Predigt, III (Vienna, 1904/Hildesheim, 1968), 2–82; Idem, ‘Die Über-
lieferung der Werke Bertholds von Regensburg, I’, Studien zur Geschichte der altdeutschen
Predigt, IV (Vienna, 1905–6/Hildesheim, 1968), 5–54, 175–182. The prologue to
the Rusticanus de Dominicis (which can for instance be found in MS Sevilla, Biblioteca
Capitular y Columbina 7.6.20; MS Salzburg, Benediktinerstift St. Peter a.IV.16;
MS Sitten, Kantonsarchiv A.B.S. Lp. 1) was edited by Heinrich Denifle, ‘Zu Bruder
Berthold’, ZdAdL 27 (1883), 303–304 and reprinted in Schönbach, ‘Die Überliefer-
ung der Werke Bertholds von Regensburg II’, Studien zur Geschichte der altdeutschen
Predigt V, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wisenschaften in Wien,
Philosophisch-Historische Klasse CLII, VII (Vienna, 1906), 3–4. The Sermones Speciales
vel Extravagantes have not yet been edited in full either. For some individual Latin
sermons, see Schönbach, ‘Das Wirken Bertholds von Regensburg gegen die Ketzer’,
passim; Idem, ‘Die Überlieferung der Werke Bertholds von Regensburg, I’, 14–23,
27–31.
73
See on this the prologue to the Rusticanus de Dominicis: ‘Istos sermones ea neces-
sitate coactus sum notare (cum tamen invitissime hoc fecerim) quod, cum predi-
carem eos in populo, quidam simplices clerici et religiosi, non intelligentes in quibus
verbis et sententiis veritas penderet, voluerant notare sibi illa, que poterant capere,
et sic multa falsa notaverunt. Quod cum ego deprehendissem timui, ne, si talia
30 chapter one
instruction and straightforward anti-heretical education, concentrat-

ing on virtues and vices, basic doctrine, the Christian upbringing of
children, married life, adultery, the order of society and the proper
place and behaviour of the various ‘genera laicorum.’74
Such materials are most wide-spread in the Rusticanus de Dominicis.
This being said, Berthold’s Rusticanus de Communi Sanctorum also contains
several sermons on prayer for the instruction of the uneducated (‘ad
instructionem simplicissimorum’), as well as sermons on prayer for
the instruction of workers and servants (‘ad operarios, laborantes, et
servientes’),75 thus using an ad status approach to catechistic homiletics
akin to that found in some sermons of Luca da Bitonto. The same
Rusticanus de Communi Sanctorum contains four sermons on the creed and
on the twelve articles of faith, a sermon on the ten commandments,
sermons on the virtues and vices, on baptism and on emergency
baptism by lay people (such as Sermo LIX ad dominicam xxii post
Pentecosten), and a set of anti-heretical sermons. These latter sermons
contain a wealth of religious instruction (in between denunciations
of heretical mistakes) about Christian faith, the sacraments, peni-
tence, the afterlife and the last judgement.76 Within the Sermones
Speciales vel Extravagantes, the authorship of which is less secure, we
find, in its turn, an interesting Pater Noster sermon.77
predicarentur qualia ipsi notaverant, populus in errorem duceretur per falsitates

illas, et hoc necessitate coactus sum ipse notare, quod predicavi, ut ad istorum ser-
monum exemplar alia falsa et inordinate notata corrigerentur. Nec est necesse ut
alii litterati et periti eos conscribant, cum multo meliores sermones a magistris facti
sunt, qui sufficiant ad omnem edificationem et eruditionem fidei et morum, et ideo
relinquant istos rudibus et simplicibus mei similibus et qui alta et subtilia non pos-
sunt capere, quia nec in sententiis nec in dictamine aliquid pretendunt, quod sit a
litteratioribus appetendum vel curandum.’ Taken from Heinrich Denifle, ‘Zu Bruder
Berthold’, ZdAdL 27 (1883), 303–304. Cf. Richter, Die deutsche Überlieferung der Predigten
Bertholds von Regensburg. Untersuchungen zur geistlichen Literatur des Spätmittelalters (Munich,
1969), ‘. . . die Rusticani sind literarisches Werk, gelehrte Arbeit und ausdrücklich
als homiletische Hilfen gedacht. Als solche waren sie aber—wie andere Predigtreihen
homiletischer Zielrichtung—auch Stoffsammlungen . . .’
74
On these Latin texts, see also G. Jakob, Die lateinische Reden des seligen Berthold
von Regensburg (Regensburg, 1880); Rüdiger Schnell, ‘Bertholds Ehepredigten zwi-
schen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 32/2 (1997), 93–108;
John Dahmus, ‘Medieval German Preaching on the Ten Commandments: a com-
parison of Berthold of Regensburg and Johannes Nider’, Medieval Sermon Studies 44
(2000), 37–52.
75
Cf. MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 7961 ff. 25rb–26vb.
76
Cf. Schönbach, ‘Die Überlieferung der Werke Bertholds von Regensburg, I’,
39–54.
77
Sermon 29. See for instance MS Stuttgart, HB I 115 ff. 173ra–va: ‘Pater nos-
In addition to Berthold’s Latin sermon cycles, several collections

with sermons and treatises in the (German) vernacular bear his
name.78 These vernacular texts have not come down to us in a huge
number of manuscripts (certainly not compared with the many sur-
viving manuscripts of Berthold’s Latin sermons, or compared with
the proliferation of vernacular texts of fourteenth-century Franciscan
authors, such as Otto von Passau and Marquard von Lindau),79 and
cannot always be ascribed to Berthold himself. A number of them
probably were compiled during and shortly after Berthold’s lifetime
by Augsburg Franciscans who had witnessed Berthold’s preaching,
ter qui es in celis. Cum predicas laicis sic procede. Si es in civitate, dic: cras veni-
ant rurales. Post principium dic: Vos rurales et mechanici et serviciales . . .’
78
The German sermons attributed to Berthold can be divided into at least three
different collections (the so-called *X-Gruppe (five manuscripts, two fragments), con-
taining ca. 65 sermons and treatises; the so-called *Y-Gruppe (eight manuscripts
and four fragments), containing ca. 130 sermons and ascetical texts (a.o. the
‘Lesepredigt’ Prüder Davids lere von geistleichen leuten); and the so-called *Z-Gruppe (sur-
viving in a ‘Baumgarten’ manuscript, another manuscript and a fragment), containing
eight sermons). A large bulk of these sermons saw their first edition in Berthold
von Regensburg. Vollständige Ausgabe seiner deutschen Predigten, ed. F. Pfeiffer & J. Strobl,
2 Vols. (Vienna, 1862–1880/Berlin 19652, with a preface, a new bibliography and
a commentary by Kurt Ruh). This edition is based on shaky editorial principles,
does not include all existing sermons, and fails to provide insight in the nature and
transmission of the various collections. Alongside of this old and incomplete edition
can be mentioned several other editions and translations, namely: Die Missionspredigten
des Franziskaners Berthold von Regensburg in jetziger Schriftsprache, ed. F. Göbel, 2 Vols.
(Regensburg, 1873/Regensburg, 1929) and O.H. Brandt, Bertholds von Regensburg
deutsche Predigten übertragen und eingeleitet (Leipzig, 1924). More recently, the individual
collections of these vernacular sermons have come under philological and editorial
scrutiny. See: Berthold von Regensburg, Deutsche Predigten (Überlieferungsgruppe *Z ), ed.
Dieter Richter, Kleine prosadenkmaler des Mittelalters, 5 (Munich, 1968); Dieter
Richter, Die deutsche Überlieferung der Predigten Bertholds von Regensburg. Untersuchungen zur
geistlichen Literatur des Spätmittelalters (Munich, 1969), which explains the relation between
the various collections and contains editions of 19 vernacular sermons; Bertholdus von
Regensburg: Vier Predigten. Mittelhochdeutsch/Neuhochdeutsch, ed. w. Röcke (Stuttgart, 1983);
C. Lecouteux & P. Marcq, Berthold de Ratisbonne. Péchés et vertus. Scènes de la vie du
XIII e siècle, Textes présentés, traduits et commentés (Paris, 1991); Predigten und Stücke aus
dem Kreise Bertholds von Regensburg (Teilsammlung Yiii), ed. Frank G. Banta, Göppinger
Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 621 (Göppingen, 1995). In addition, some sermons from
the *Y-Gruppe (‘Christus resurgens a mortuis’, ‘Von dreierlei Leuten im geistlichen
Leben’, ‘Gratia Dei sum’) and an additional sermon compilation (‘Von den vier
jungherren, den der tufel sinen gewalt bevolen hat’) have been edited in Franziskanisches
Schrifttum Band II: Texte, ed. Ruh, Ladisch-Grube & Brecht (Munich, 1985), 9–46.
79
Dieter Richter, Die deutsche Überlieferung der Predigten Bertholds von Regensburg (Munich,
1969), 220ff. The most ‘popular’ vernacular text of Berthold was the explanatory
treatise/sermon Von den Zeichen der Messe/Meßpredigt, which alone has come down to
us in ca. 30 manuscripts. Ibidem, 222; Predigten und Stücke aus dem Kreise Bertholds von
Regensburg (Teilsammlung Yiii), ed. Frank G. Banta (Göppingen, 1995), xii.
32 chapter one
and had access to his Latin texts.80 Contrary to the authenticated

Latin texts, the German sermons were composed not merely to serve
as auxiliary homiletic materials. They also were meant to function
as material for devotional reading in female convents (during meal
times and at evening collations), and in aristocratic lay circles (one
manuscript, the so-called Harburger Codex, was compiled for Countess
Agnes von Werdenberg, and was organised thematically).81 In between
more mystical sermons and texts meant to promote spiritual growth,
these vernacular sermon cycles contain many texts of straightforward
religious instruction.82 This is particularly true for the manuscripts
of the so-called ‘*X-gruppe’ (with the sermons Von siben übergrôzen
sünden, Von den zehen geboten unsers Herren, and Von der bîhte).83 Among
the sermons of the ‘*Z-Gruppe’, the sermon Vom Empfang des Herren
stands out as a primordial text of religious instruction, explaining
who is not and who is worthy to receive the Eucharist, and how
those who are worthy should receive it.84
80
For a recent evaluation, see Dagmar Neuendorff, ‘Bruoder Berthold sprichet-
aber spricht er wirklich? Zur Rhetorik in Berthold von Regensburg zugeschriebe-
nen deutschen Predigten’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 101:2 (2000), 301–312.
81
See the various remarks in Berthold von Regensburg, Deutsche Predigten (Über-
lieferungsgruppe *Z ), ed. Dieter Richter, Kleine prosadenkmaler des Mittelalters, 5
(Munich, 1968), 14f.
82
On the catechistic teachings of these vernacular sermons and their socio-cul-
tural implications see also: R.J. Iannucci, The Treatment of the Capital Sins and the
Decalogue in the German Sermons of Berthold of Regensburg, The Catholic University of
America, Studies in German, 17 (Washington, 1942); A.J. Gurevic, ‘“L’Antropologia”
e la “sociologia” di Berthold von Regensburg’, in: Idem, Lezioni romane. Antropologia
e cultura medievale, Einaudi, 549 (Torino, 1991); C. Lecouteaux & P. Marcq, Berthold
de Ratisbonne. Péchés et vertus. Scènes de la vie du XIII e siècle. Textes présentés, traduits et
commentés (Paris, 1991); H.J. Schmidt, ‘Arbeit und soziale Ordnung. Zur Wertung
städtischer Lebensweise bei Berthold von Regensburg’, AKG 71 (1989), 261–296;
E. Solbach, Welt und weltliches Treiben im Spätmittelalter. Aus den predigten des Volks- und
Sittenpredigers Berthold von Regensburg (Hamburg, 1994).
83
All of these and several others can be found in: Berthold von Regensburg. Vollständige
Ausgabe seiner Predigten, Erster Band, ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Vienna, 1862/Berlin, 1965),
esp. 196–201, 264–288, 339–356.
84
This sermon explains that there are ‘. . . vier laeie lute, die gotes lichnamen
niht suln enphahen, di sint uns bezeichent bi vier laie luten, die solten in der alten
e daz osterlamp niht ezzen: Di ersten waren die vremeden, di ander die umbesniten,
di dritten die geste, die vierden die mietlinge. Die vremden sint die andern luten
helfent ir sunde vol bringen (. . .) Die umbesniten, daz sint die umbehalten an ir
worten sint, die des dinges ze vil machent eintweder durch liebe oder durch laide
(. . .) Die geste, daz sint die, die ir ungedulticheit oder ungehorsam oder eigenschaft
wellent lazzen biz daz si ze alter gent und si denne her wider nement. Die mietlinge
sint die, die gelobet und geert wellent werden umb iriu guten werch. (. . .) Der in
wirdichlichen wil enphahen, der sol sich bereiten rehte als er von dirre werlt sule
Berthold von Regensburg was one of Salimbene’s heroes. So was

the Italian preacher Albertino da Verona, whose alleged interven-
tion on behalf of the imprisoned Enzo of Sicily (son of Frederick II)
provided material for a vivid anecdote.85 Albertino was a member
of the Bolognese province. He might have been active as a lector
and preacher at the Aracoeli convent in Rome in the early 1250s,86
and in the course of his life reached the status of solemnis praedicator
schaeiden. Der mensch sol haben rehten und vesten gelauben, daz er enphahet
waren got und waren mensche als er erstunt von dem tode und als er sitzet ze der
zeswen sines vater (. . .) Daz ander ist der gedinge daz der mensch got getruwe,
der sich selben im hie git zeiner spise, er gebe sich auch dort im ze vraeuden
ewichlichen. Daz dritte, daz der mensch ein luter herze habe vor allem unfride,
daz er vereinet si mit der minne mit allen den, die in himel und uf ertrich sint.
So mach auch der mensch denne gedenchen an sin sund und an unsers herren
marter, daz ist auch vil guet. Und denne so gedenche: Herre, nu gan ich ze dir,
ze minem got, ze minem schephaer, ze minem erlosaer, und swer in also enpha-
het, der enphahet die siben gnade an im, der der brister alle tage pitet in der messe
an dem Pater noster (. . .) Ie dar nach als daz glas ist, also schinet die sunne da
durch; ist daz glaz rot, so schinet auch diu sunne rot. Also nach der lutercheit,
nach der minne, nach der andaht, mit der der mensch got enphahet, wirt auch
diu gnade und der trost. Da von so liset man von einem heiligen mann, der hiez
Corp, daz der nimmer messe gesprach, er enphie sunderliche gnade. ‘Nu ware umb
leiget er sich niht sehen als er ist?’ Daz vergelt got im selben! Wer moht ein rohes
vleisch gezzen oder ein rohes bluet getrinchen? Wer moht ein chindelin sin hauplin
oder siniu haendelin oder siniu fuezzelin ab gebizzen? Waere halt daz der mensch
sehe di wandelunge, er solt sich niht bewaren e daz er sich wider verwandelt in
die oblaten.’ Berthold von Regensburg, Deutsche Predigten (Überlieferungsgruppe *Z ), ed.
Dieter Richter, Kleine prosadenkmaler des Mittelalters, 5 (Munich, 1968), 63–67.
85
‘Cum autem quadam die Custodus eius [that is the captors of Enzo of Sicily,
son of emperor Frederick II, made prisoner by the Bolognese, who kept him confined
for life] nollent ei dare comedere, ivit ad eos frater Albertinus de Verona, qui erat
‘solemnis predicator’ ex ordine fratrum Minorum, et rogavit custodes, quod sibi
amore Dei et sui comedere darent. Qui cum deprecanti nullatenus acquiescere vel-
lent, dixit eis: ‘Ludam vobiscum ad taxillos, et si vicero, habebo licentiam dandi
sibi comedere.’ Factum fuit. Lusit et vicit deditque comedere regi familiariter stando
cum eo. Et omnes qui audiverunt hoc, commendaverunt fratris caritatem, curiali-
tatem et libertatem.’ Salimbene, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores,
XXXII (Hanover-Leipzig, 1905–1913), 329f. In another context, which also sheds
some light on Albertino’s literary works, Salimbene comments on the friar’s ‘sense
of humour’: ‘Habui quendam ministrum in ordine fratrum Minorum, qui dictus est
frater Aldevrandus [Aldovrando da Fiagnano], et fuit de oppido Flaniani, quod est
in episcopatu Imole, de quo frater Albertinus de Verona, cuius est ‘Sermonum
memoria’, ludendo dicebat, quod turpem ydeam in Deo habuerat. Habebat enim
caput deforme et factum ad modum galee antiquorum et pilos multos in fronte.’
Cronica, ed. Holder-Egger, 137.
86
See on this the conjectures made on the basis of a range of documentary
sources in C. Cenci, ‘Sermoni del commune dei Santi, dei morti e della Madonna,
composti dal francescano Fr. Albertino da Verona’, Antonianum 69 (1994), 273–314
(275, 290 & note 57).
34 chapter one
in the Franciscan order. In his lectorate and preaching assignments

he produced a rather varied series of model sermon cycles, most of
which have survived either completely or partially in a considerable
number of manuscripts.87 Studies by Cesare Cenci have brought to
light his Sermones Dominicales,88 his Sermones de Festivitatibus Sanctorum (by
far Albertino’s most successful sermon cycle),89 his Sermones de Communi
Sanctorum,90 the Sermones Quadragesimales, the Sermones de Mortuis, and
the Sermones de Beata Virgine.91 Except for some individual sermons,
none of these collections have thus far been edited, making it difficult
to assess their religious message.92
It would seem that these sermon collections were made for recita-
tion by colleague preachers and for study purposes. Overall, they
have a strong moral-ascetical import. The Sermones de Festivitatibus
Sanctorum, the only cycle that thus far has drawn more than passing
87
Cenci, Ibidem, 289 has an explanation for the popularity of Albertino’s works:
‘Fr. Albertino lettore insegna ai predicatori come tonificare e vivificare la condotta
morale-ascetica dei cristiani (rarissimi gli spunti teologici) con molti e brevi acceni
a svariati argomenti in ogni sermone, concedendo quindi ad ogni predicatore spazio
per approfondire ciò che più gli interessava. Forse in questo aspetto sta la fortuna
dei sermoni di fr. Albertino, da Montecassino fino a München.’
88
These sermons are mentioned in other sermons by Albertino. Cf. MS Padua,
Biblioteca Antoniana 470.
89
This collection can for instance be found in MSS Assisi, Biblioteca del Sacro
Convento 432/I ff. 4–81v; Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana Conv. Soppr.
548 ff. 1–127r; Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek 417 ff. 169–250; Oxford, Bodleian
Cod. Canon. Misc. 518 ff. 1–126; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana 470 ff. 69–201;
Sankt Florian (Linz), Stiftsbibliothek 353 ff.1–31; Vienna, Österreichische National-
bibliothek 1315 ff. 1r–94v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 15958. For more man-
uscript ascriptions and additional information, see the above-mentioned 1994 article
of Cenci, as well as L. Pamato, ‘‘Ut digne valeam scribere et aliis predicare’. I ser-
moni di Albertino da Verona Omin., nel cod. Laurenziano conv. soppr. 548’, Il
Santo 37 (1997), 105–122, esp. 108.
90
The complete cycle has not yet been recovered. Various sermons of this cycle
can be found in MSS Rome, Biblioteca Angelica 794; Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica
A. Mai, MA 47 (Delta I.13); Rome, Curia Gen. O.P. dis. Sabina XIV.38.a; Perugia,
Biblioteca Comunale Augusta 1226; Sankt Florian, Stiftsbibliothek 361; Rome, BAV
Vat. Lat. 13075; Monte della Verna, Conv. O.F.M. H.5; Vienna, Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek 1701.
91
For manuscript information on these three collections, see Cenci, ‘Sermoni del
commune dei Santi, dei morti e della Madonna’, passim.
92
V. Gamboso, ‘Il due sermoni in lode di S. Antonio di Albertino da Verona
O.Min. (sec. XIII/2)’, Il Santo 27 (1987), 77–120. Antonio di Padova was a source
of inspiration for Albertino in more than one sense. In his sermons he also makes
use of Antonio’s published sermon collections. See on this: Antonio Rigon, ‘Note
sulla fortuna dei Sermoni antoniani nel XIII secolo’, in: Pensamento e Testemunho. 8°
centenário do nascimento de Santo Antonio. Actas (Braga, 1996) I, 227–244.
scholarly attention,93 in any case was made to function in urban

preaching encounters, and puts heavy emphasis on the sins of com-
merce (luxuria, superbia, avaritia, usura, and hypocrisia). Reading the ser-
mons gives the impression that Albertino lived in an urban world
of usurers and raptores. To this world Albertino presented a Christian
alternative, countering every sin with its corresponding virtue. This
asked, of course, for a mental transformation in the implied audi-
ence. First of all, it asked for a far more engaged form of religious
life than the preacher saw around him in the Italian towns, where
according to his bleak observations people did not even bother to
abide by the most elementary religious obligations.94
Slightly more accessible are the surviving sermons of Servasanto
da Faenza, if only because a relatively large number of them have
found their way into old editions of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio.
Servasanto probably entered the order at Bologna around 1240 and
subsequently might have completed the order’s lectorate programme.
Thereafter, from 1244 or 1260 onwards, he embarked on a long
preaching and teaching career at the St. Croce convent (Florence),
and at other Franciscan centres in Tuscany and Umbria. He is
one of the most important thirteenth-century Franciscan authors
throughout, whose life and literary activities deserve additional
scrutiny. Alongside of his various works of moral theology, which
will be discussed in more detail in another chapter,95 he wrote a
cycle of Sermones de Proprio Sanctorum,96 a cycle of Sermones de Communi
93
The Florentine manuscript of the Sermones de Festivitatibus Sanctorum was for
instance used in A. Murray, ‘Pietà ed empietà nel secolo XIII in Italia’, in: La reli-
giosità popolare nel Medioevo, ed. R. Manselli (Bologna, 1983), 251–270, and has received
a more detailed analysis in L. Pamato, La pratica della predicazione nel Duecento. I
‘Sermones festivi’ di Albertino da Verona, Omin, dal codice Laurenziano conv. sopp. 548, tesi
di laurea, Università degli studi di Padova (Università degli studi di Padova, Facoltà
di Lettere e Filosofia a.a. 1993–1994) & Idem, ‘“Ut digne valeam scribere et aliis
predicare”. I sermoni di Albertino da Verona Omin’, 105–122.
94
Ibidem, 117ff.
95
See the section on confession handbooks elsewhere in this volume, where I list
additional studies on Servasanto’s life and works. For the representation of Servasanto
in old Franciscan catalogues, see: Bartolomeo da Pisa, Liber Conformitatum, in: AF
IV, 341; Mariano da Firenze, Compendium Chronicarum, AFH 3 (1910), 309; Wadding,
Scriptores, 214; Joh. a S. Antonio, BUF III, 88; Sbaralea, Supplementum III, 98–99.
96
A.o. MSS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 9884 ff. 37v–139v; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana
cod. 490 ff. 1r–180v (ca. 1300); Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale cod. 530 (ca. 1300);
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 8438. On the manuscripts of this collec-
tion and those mentioned in the following notes, see Schneyer, Repertorium V, 376–399;
Balduinus ab Amsterdam, ‘Servasancti de Faenza, O.Min., Sermones ‘De proprio
36 chapter one
Sanctorum,97 a series of Sermones Dominicales,98 a Lenten cycle, entitled

the Collationes Quadragesime, as well as a cycle of Sermones seu Collationes
de Mortuis,99 a number of Sermones de Festivitatibus B.M. Virginis,100 and
sanctorum’ in codice anonymo Vat. Lat. 9884’, Laurentianum 6 (1965), 73–103; Idem,
‘Servasancti de Faenza,O.Min. Sermones Dominicales (cod. 1440, Troyes)’, CF 37
(1967), 5–32; V. Gamboso, ‘I sermoni festivi di Servasanctus da Faenza’, Il Santo
13 (1973), 3–88, 211–278. Balduinus ab Amsterdam (1965) lists the 44 sermons
found in MS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 9884 ff. 37v–139v and also points out in which
old editions of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio they can be found. In addition he
offers an edition of the Sermo in Festo Apostolorum Simonis et Iudae. In his 1973 study
of the Padua manuscript Gamboso suggests as possible scribe friar Albertino da
Montesilice. Gamboso thinks that this manuscript represents the most complete col-
lection of Sermones de Proprio Sanctorum, originally containing 168 sermons, of which
ca. 30 are lost. Gamboso provides a list of the surviving sermons in the Paduan
manuscript (with references to other manuscripts containing these semons of Servasanto,
as well as references to old editions in which 57 of these sermons can be found).
In an appendix, Gamboso also provides an edition of five sermons (In circumcisione
Domini, De S. Iohanne Baptista, De Omnibus Sanctis, and two Sermones de Sancte Marie
Auxilio. The last of these, De Sancte Marie Auxilio, MS Padua, Antonianum cod. 490
ff. 187va–188vb, exhorts sinners to run to the Virgin Mary, who can save them
from sin and perdition). In another study from 1973 (Il Santo 13,2–3 (1973), 238–278)
Gamboso provides a description of MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 530, which con-
tains 44 sermons De Proprio Sanctorum by Servasancto (in between sermons by oth-
ers) as well as some sermons on the Virgin taken from Servasancto’s De Communi
Sanctorum. Here again, Gamboso gives a listing of individual sermons, with refer-
ences towards parellel sermons in other manuscripts and old editions, and edits a
few individual texts. A large number of these latter sermons are printed in Bonaventura,
Opera Omnia, ed. Angelo Rocca (Rome, 1596) III, 237–322; Bonaventura, Operum
(. . .) Omnium (. . .) Supplementum, ed. Bonelli (Trient, 1774) III, 611–755; Bonaventura,
Opera Omnia, ed. Peltier (Paris, 1868) XIII, 493–636.
97
This collection can for instance be found in MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale
520 ff. 1r–99v (early fourteenth cent.); Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense 333 (D.IV.42);
Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 1261 (2846); Perugia, Benedictine Monastery cod. 50 (15th
cent.); Todi, Biblioteca Comunale 111; Basel, Universitätsbibliothek cod. A.XI.52.
In the epilogue of MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 520 f. 99v, we can read inter-
esting information about the scope and the goals of Servasanto’s literary output
(copied from Gamboso, Il Santo 13,1 (1973), 19): ‘Sermonibus iam completis tam
DOMINICALIBUS omnibus quam FESTIVIS, nec non et QUADRAGESIMAL-
IBUS similiter et PRO MORTUIS ad finem deductis, solum ad opus perficiendum
restabat, ut arbitror, SANCTOCUM PLURIMORUM sermones adiungere, ad quos
possit lector recurrere, dum vellet in predicando materias variare (. . .) Sed si quis
copiusius desiderabat esse in exemplis ut deficere in predicatione non possit, libel-
lum nostrum, cuius titulus est: DE NATURALIBUS EXEMPLIS, studeat legere et
memorie commendare; quia tanta ibi aggregata est multitudino exemplorum, ut
nulla sit materia de qua multa non possint inveniri exempla (. . .).’ A more detailed
description of MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale Cod. 520, with a list of sermons and
references to other manuscripts and old editions is found in Gamboso, Il Santo
13,2–3 (1973), 211–237. It seems that this manuscripts contains 39 sermons De
Communi Sanctorum and the above-mentioned epilogue. Many pieces from Servasanto’s
Sermones de Communi Sanctorum can be found in: Sermones aurei atque subtiles de tempore
et de sanctis cum Communi sanctorum Sancti Bonaventure doctoris seraphici, ed. Jacobus
a large Liber de Exemplis Naturalibus. This last-mentioned work is a

large collection of emblematic exempla, legends, visions and miracle
stories for the use or preachers.101
Pfortzhemius (Basel, 1502); Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Rome, 1596) III, 323–406;
Bonaventura, Operum (. . .) Omnium (. . .) Supplementum, ed. Bonelli (Trient, 1774) III,
611–755; Bonaventura, Opera Omnia, ed. Peltier (Paris, 1868) XIV, 1–138. Cf.
L. Oliger, ‘Servasanto da Faenza O.F.M. e il suo ‘Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis’’,
Miscellanea Francesco Ehrle. Scritti di storia e paleografia I: Per la storia della teologia e della
filosofia (Rome, 1924), 148–189 (esp. 170); J.G. Bougerol, ‘La première édition du
corpus des sermons dominicaux de saint Bonaventure (1502)’, Antonianum 51 (1976),
201–231 (esp. 223–228).
98
The Sermones Dominicales/Sermones de Dominicis et Festivitatibus can for instance be
found in the following manuscripts: London, British Library Harley 3221; Troyes,
Bibliothèque Publique, 1440; Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 59333 (saec xiii, contains the
sermons for Dom. I. Adv. until Dom. Passionis); Basel, Universitätsbibliothek cod.
B.X.4 (nine sermons ascribed to Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio); Giessen, Universitäts-
bibliothek cod. 779; Rome, Bibiotheca Casanatense cod. 338. 114 of the 126 ser-
mons found in MS Troyes 1440 have been printed under the name of Bonaventura
da Bagnoreggio, in: Bonaventura, Sermones Dominicales (Zwolle: Peter van Os, 1479/Ulm:
Johann Zainer, 1481/1485/Hagenau: Heinrich Gran, 1496)). See on this the 1924
study by Oliger and the 1976 study by Bougerol mentioned in the previous note,
as well as Balduinus ab Amsterdam, ‘Servasancti de Faenza, O.Min. Sermones
dominicales (cod. 1440, Troyes)’, CF 37 (1967), 5–32.
99
Thus far, I have not been able to identify a manuscript that contains this
cycle.
100
Cf. a.o. MS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 9884 ff. 139–216r (in fact combining ser-
mons on Mary with sermons on other saints). Based on internal evidence, as pre-
sented in the 1973 study of Gamboso, it would seem that Servasanto first wrote
his Sermones Dominicales, and thereafter his Sermones de Proprio Sanctorum, the Quadragesimales,
the Sermones pro Mortuis, and the De Communi Sanctorum. These collections built a com-
plete corpus of sermons for all occasions. As many sermons on Mary can be found
in the Sermones de Proprio Sanctorum and in the Sermones de Communi Sanctorum, it could
well be that the Sermones de Festivitatibus is partly a gathering of sermons found in
these other collections. On Servasanto’ sermons, see also: C. Frison, ‘Fra Servasanto
da Faenza, predicatore francescano del XIII secolo’, Studi Romagnoli 39 (1988),
301–315; David L. d’Avray, ‘Philosophy in Preaching: the case of a Franciscan
based in thirteenth-century Florence’, in: Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages.
Studies in Honor of Siegfried Wenzel, ed. R.G. Neuhauser & John A. Alford. (New
York, 1995), 263–273.
101
The Liber de Exemplis Naturalibus is Servasanto’s most disseminated work, and
itself laid the basis for his works of moral theology that we will encounter else-
where. The Liber is divided into three books that deal with the articles of faith (21
chapters), the sacraments (17 chapters), and the virtues and vices (92 chapters),
respectively. See a.o. MSS Montecassino, Cod. 373; Vienna, Österreichische National-
bibliothek Cod. lat. 1589; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 14749; Munich, Staats-
bibliothek Clm. 8439 (Book III); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouv. Acq. Lat. 259;
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 10642 & 3436 (15th cent.); Rouen, Bibliothèque
Municipale 674 (A. 245), 675 (A. 340), & 936 (I. 31); London, British Library
Arundel 198; Sevilla, Biblioteca Colombina Z. 136 no. 11; Sevilla, Biblioteca
Colombina Y. 130 no. 40; Pisa, Convento di S. Caterina Doc. 173; Venice, Biblioteca
San Marco 52 (a. 230, I, 215); Rome. BAV Vat. Lat. 5048; Rome, BAV Vat. Lat.
38 chapter one
A quick look at the Sermones Dominicales as found in MS Troyes,

cod. 1440 (a collection of 126 sermons for the period between the
first Sunday of Advent and the 24th Sunday after Pentecost), gives
an indication of the recurrent issues in Servasanto’s catechetical and
penitential preaching. By carefully employing the layered meanings
of the biblical themes taken from the appropriate Gospel readings
(which brings to mind the approach taken by Luca da Bitonto),
Servasanto was able to deal artfully with the sacraments (especially
matrimony), the combat against sin, the practice of penitence through
confession and retribution, the support of faith, and the necessity
and efficacy of prayer.102 Throughout these sermons, Servasanto was
keen to make his audience understand the theological and at times
philosophical underpinnings of the doctrines that they should take
to heart, a tendency which makes him one of the more interesting
Franciscan preachers of his time, and probably reflects the compar-
atively high-brow lay religious culture at Florence in the later thir-
teenth century.103
This shortlist of well-educated but not necessarily fully university-
trained Franciscan preachers involved in basic religious instruction
can of course be greatly extended.104 However, some exceptions
4311; Rome, Archivio della Basilica di S. Pietro G. 20. A partial edition (prologue
and table of content) can be found in: M. Grabmann, ‘Der Liber de Exemplis Naturalibus
des Franziskanertheologen Servasanctus’, FrSt 7 (1920), 83–117.
102
See on these issues for instance sermon 33 (f. 95vb: second sermon for Dom.
II. post Epiph., Nuptiae factae sunt (Io.2,1): dealing with Christian matrimony), ser-
mon 42 (f. 120vb: second sermon for Dom. Quinquagesimae, Caecus quidam sedebat
secus viam (Luke 18, 35): on sin and human sinners), sermon 74 (f. 213rb: second
sermon for In Ascensione Domini, Omnium finis appropinquavit (1 Petr. 4,7): on pen-
itence), sermon 104 (f. 298rb: second sermon for Dom. XIII post Pentecosten, Fides
tua te salvum fecit (Luke 17, 19): on the way in which faith rescues us from corrup-
tion (described as leprosy)), sermon 125 (f. 360ra: Dom. XXIV post Pentecosten,
Non cessamus pro vobis orantes (Col. 1, 9): on prayer, its necessity and efficacy), and
sermon 126 (f. 363ra, second sermon for Dom. XXIV post Pentecosten, Ubicumque
sunt corpora illic congregabuntur aquilae (Matthew 24, 28): on penitence).
103
Servasanto’s ‘popular philosophical theology’ in his sermons and works of
moral theology has been dwelt upon by L.-J. Bataillon, ‘L’emploi du langage
philosophique dans les sermons du XIII e siècle’, in: Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter,
ed. A. Zimmermann, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 13/2 (Berlin-New York, 1981),
983–991 (esp. 989–991) and David D’Avray, ‘Some franciscan ideas about the body’,
AFH 84 (1991), 343–363 (esp. 353–363).
104
When I speak of friars who were not fully university-trained, I mean friars
who had received an education as lectorate students at the Franciscan studia gene-
ralia but did not go all the way through the theology degree programme. Scholars
assume too easily that all friars called doctores in the sources and/or friars who
notwithstanding,105 the works of many such preachers remain hid-

den in insufficiently described manuscripts and therefore are difficult
to study.
B. Franciscan sermon cycles from the fourteenth century
This drawback is even greater for the works of many Franciscan

preachers active in the fourteenth century, who have the handi-
cap that they did not live in the grandiose age of Franciscan begin-
nings (the thirteenth century), nor in the acknowledged period of
Franciscan Observant reform (the fifteenth century). Add to this the
fact that Schneyer’s Repertorium closes at 1350, and it becomes clear
why fourteenth-century Franciscan preachers might not be the first
choice for scholars trying to make their mark in the field of Franciscan
studies.
To be sure, the homiletic works of the more renowned Franciscan
theologians, such as François de Meyronnes and Alvaro Pelayo,106
at least have been charted (and sometimes edited), if not studied in
depth. In addition, the sermons of several German friars with a mys-
tical bent have received a relatively large amount of scholarly atten-
tion. This certainly holds true for the sermons of the German lector
and provincial minister (of the Strasbourg province) Marquard von
Lindau (d. 1392).107 These have been edited and studied because
according to the sources had studied at Paris or at other centres with Franciscan
studia generalia, would have obtained a theology degree (such as baccalaureus formatus
or magister theologiae). As a matter of fact, most of these friars studying at studia gene-
ralia never entered the degree programme but received an in-house lectorate edu-
cation for three or four years, after which they returned to their home province,
to embark on careers as lectors, preachers and (sub-)provincial administrators. See
on this the first chapter of my book A History of Franciscan Education.
105
In this context we also can point to the initial studies and editions devoted
to the sermons of Bindo da Siena (fl. c. 1300). See: Louis-Jacques Bataillon, ‘Les
sermons du franciscain Bindo da Siena pour les dimanches’, AFH 92 (1999), 95–116.
106
For the sermons of François de Meyronnes, see note 39. On Alvaro Pelayo
(d, 1349) and his Quinquagesilogium/Sermones (o.a. MS Oxford, Bodleian Misc. Can.
529: sermons on Scripture and on the Franciscan rule and its observance), see
Alejandro Amaro, ‘Fr. Alvaro Pelagio: su vida, sus obras y su posición respecto de
la cuestión de la pobreza teórica en la Orden Franciscana, bajo Juan XXII (1316–34)’,
AIA 3, xiii (1916), 5–32, 192–213, AIA 3, xvi–xvii (1916), 5–28.
107
For an overview of his life and works, see O. Bonmann, ‘Marquard von
Lindau und sein literarischer Nachlaß’, FrSt 21 (1934), 315–343 and especially Nigel
F. Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, VL2 VI (Berlin-New York, 1987), 81–126.
40 chapter one
they were seen to form part of a larger mystical theological oeuvre,

and seemed to support attempts of German scholars to reconstruct
the late medieval ‘Theologia Deutsch’ and the specific ‘German’
character of fourteen-century philosophical mysticism after Eckhart
and Seusse.108 Yet, like many other works in his rich and varied
108
Marquard’s German sermons were first described in Philipp Strauch, ‘Die
deutschen Predigten des Marquart von Lindau’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen
Sprache und Literatur (Pauls und Braunes Beiträge) 54 (1930), 161–201. Two full cycles
of these Deutsche Predigten can be found in MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preußischer
Kulturbesitz Ms.germ. fol. 79 ff. 1r–109v and in MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
Preußischer Kulturbesitz Ms.germ. fol. 1041 ff. 1r–222v. A selection is found in
MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz Ms.germ. fol. 986 and in sev-
eral other manuscripts, such as Reading, University Library Cod. 137 and St. Gallen,
Kantonsbibliothek (Vadiana) Cod. 351 (Two sermons found in MS Würzburg,
Franziskanerkloster I 89 were copied by Johann Sintram, who also translated one
into Latin). The edition followed more than 90 years later: Marquard von Lindau.
Deutsche Predigten-Untersuchungen und Edition, ed. Rüdiger Blumrich, Texte und Text-
geschichte, 34 (Tübingen, 1994). Two of Marquard’s German sermons (‘Diss ist
von dem hailgen tag ze wihennachten’ and ‘Von unser frowen geburt’) have also
been edited in Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter. Band II: Texte, ed. Ruh,
Ladisch-Grube & Brecht (Munich, 1985), 47–64. For Blumrich’s interest in the mys-
tical elements in Marquard’s German sermons, see especially his articles ‘Feuer der
Liebe. Franziskanische Theologie in den deutschen Predigten Marquards von Lindau’,
W&W 54 (1991), 44–55; Idem, ‘Die deutschen Predigten Marquards von Lindau.
Ein franziskaner Beitrag zur ‘Theologia Mystica’’, in: Albertus Magnus und der Albertismus,
ed. M.J.F.M. Hoenen & A. de Libera (Leyden-New York, 1995), 155–172. Several
other extended sermons of Marquard, the Sermo de Corpore Christi, the Maitagspredigt,
the Sermo de Anima Christi, the sermon De Paradiso Spirituali, and the De Horto Spirituali
have an independent reception history, and normally are seen as independent trea-
tises. The Sermo de Corpore Christi survived in eight manuscripts, among which MS
Dillingen, StB XV 125 ff. 15v–39r and MS Nuremberg StB Cent. VI, 60 ff. 79r–106v
contain the complete sermon, which in four parts explains the Eucharist sacrament,
starting from the theme Nolite solliciti esse (Matthew 6, 31). The sermon deals with
the six excellent properties of the sacrament, the six miracles of the sacrament, the
six human weaknesses to which God answers through the sacrament with six signs
of love, and the six fruits of the sacrament. This very scholastic sermon, which
Palmer therefore regards as an early work, ends with a quaestio. Cf. Palmer, ‘Marquard
von Lindau’, 99. The Maitagspredigt survived in five manuscripts, namely MS Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek mgq 107 ff. 229r–235v & mgq 1133 ff. 125v–131r; Göttingen,
Universitätsbibliotek 285 ff. 88v–91r; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 292 f. 51v–53v;
Salzburg, St. Peter Cod. b.V. 32 ff. 143rr–146v. The Sermo de Anima Christi has sur-
vived in Latin and German fashions. For manuscript information, see Palmer,
‘Marquard von Lindau’, 96. Partial editions can be found in R. Lievens, ‘De mystieke
inhoud van het handschrift Dr. P.S. Everts’, Leuvense Bijdragen 51 (1962), 22f. (part
VII) & Josef Hartinger, Der Traktat De paupertate von Marquard von Lindau, Diss.
(Würzburg, 1965), 180–229 (parts I–V, VIII). See also Kurt Ruh, ‘Der von Winphen’,
VL2 X, 1218f. The De Anima Christi originally was a sermon in three parts on the
poverty, the patience and the suffering of Christ. In some of the later manuscripts,
the treatise was enlarged with other, related themes, sometimes expanding the trea-
oeuvre,109 Marquard’s sermons cater to various levels of religious and

theological understanding, and do not steer free from catechistic
instruction and related issues of religious edification.110
Marquard’s German sermon cycle more or less follows the litur-
gical year and addresses a range of theological issues (such as the
nature of God and the meaning of the Eucharist, but also matters
of angelology and mariology).111 The sermons probably were com-
posed in German in 1389, and have the format of highly structured
‘Lesepredigten.’112 On the whole, these sermons are intellectually
rather demanding, combining exegetical digressions with outright
tise into a work of seven or eight parts. Konrad Bömlin has used (a Latin version
of ) the De Anima in his sermon Vom Leiden Christi, in his passion sermon Inspice et
fac secundum exemplar, and in his Gúldin Buch. See also my section on Franciscan pas-
sion treatises elsewhere in this volume. The Latin sermon De Paradiso Spirituali, found
in MS Würzburg, Franziskanerkloster I 86 ff. 10v–13v, deals (with recourse to
pseudo-Dionysius) with the way to gain paradise in the spiritual life. The De Horto
Spirituali consists of seven sermons exploiting garden allegories to expound the theme
Veniat dilectus. See Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, 119–120.
109
For his catechisms and related works alongside of his sermons, see the fol-
lowing chapters.
110
This was, of course, already noted by Kurt Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch (Bern,
1956), 54: ‘Marquard ist einer der wirksamsten Lehrer des aufstrebenden Laientums.
Schon die Themen sind bedeutsam: Zehn Gebote, Glaubensbekenntnis, Altarsakrament
bilden ja die Hauptstücke eines “Katechismus”. Daß er die Rolle eines Popularisators
ohne “sacrificium” des theologischen Gehaltes zu spielen wußte, dürfen wir ihm
hoch anrechnen.’
111
As Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, 106 makes out, the greatest thematical
group within the collection is formed by the sermons on the life and the person of
Christ (on His name, His seven words at the cross, His suffering, and His five
wounds, all fully in the Franciscan conformitas Christi tradition). For many of his the-
ological citations, Marquard reached back to his main theological work De Reparatione
Hominis.
112
Blumrich, ‘Die deutschen Predigten Marquards von Lindau’, 157: ‘Dabei han-
delt es sich um Lesepredigten, die eine einheitliche literarische Form—jede Predigt
umfaßt drei Themen, die jeweils in sechs Punkte untergliedert sind—und eine kon-
sequente Ausgestaltung aufweisen, wozu häufige und umfangreiche Zitate und
Autoritäten gehören. (. . .) Jedes Thema der Predigten wird durch Quästionen
abgeschlossen, die das Behandelte vertiefen, es spirituell anwenden oder philosophi-
sche und theologische Streitfragen ansprechen.’ On ‘Lesepredigten’ as a generic phe-
nomenon, see also Blumrich, Marquard von Lindau. Deutsche Predigten-Untersuchungen und
Edition, 47*: ‘Die deutschen Predigtbücher des Mittelalters enthalten in den aller-
meisten Fällen literarische Lesepredigten, ‘bestimmt zum Vorlesen im Konvent bei
Tisch oder zur erbaulichen Lektüre in der Zelle oder auch in der guten Bürgerstube
[with reference to K. Ruh, “Deutsche Predigtbücher des Mittelalters”, in: Beiträge
zur Geschichte der Predigt, ed. H. Reinitzer, Vestigia Bibliae, 3 (Hamburg, 1981), 11–30,
14]. Dies gilt ohne Zweifel auch für die Sammlung Marquards.’
42 chapter one
mystical excursions that unfold a Dionysian-Bonaventurian programme

of spiritual ascent and increasing understanding through love of the
triune God. Yet these sermons offer at the same stroke a complete
‘summa’ of theological knowledge and spiritual wisdom. More to the
point, they state that even the most lofty forms of meditation and
contemplation of the divine mysteries are secondary to those sacra-
mental elements of the Christian life accessible to and necessary for
each and every Christian.113
With a few exceptions, the works of other fourteenth-century
Franciscan preachers active in the German lands who can not so
easily be studied from this mystical angle have at best been cata-
logued without additional editorial attention.114 Among the latter we
encounter several widely-diffused or otherwise significant collections
that as yet can not be evaluated through lack of proper scholarly
interest, such as the cycles of friar Teuto, Johannes Bloemendal and
Hartung von Erfurt.
113
A good example is the thirty-third sermon of the cycle: ‘Diss ist von den hail-
gen sacrament’, explaining clearly ‘wie daz sacrament ze enpfahend alle ander ker
zu gott und uebung uebertiffet. Wan ze erst so uebertriffet daz sacrament ze enpfa-
hend alle tugentrich uebung, wan alle uebung der tugend ist nit anders denn ain
weg zu dem zil, daz gott ist. (. . .) Ze dem anderen so uebertriffet es allen inren
andaht, wan in dem hailgen sacrament wurket gott luterlich allain an alles ver-
mischen des creaturlichen naturlichen werkes, aber in inrem andaht so wurket och
die kraft des menschen und vermischet daz gnadrich ubernaturlich werk. Und wan
gottes werk so gar luter sind und ubertreffend alle creaturliche vermischte werk,
hier umb so ubertriffet och daz hailig sacrament allen inren andaht. (. . .) Ze dem
dritten so ubertriffet es alle schowend wise, wan dar umb ist schowend wis hoh,
daz der mensch so gar verainet wirt mit gott. Nun beschiht groesser ainung zwuschen
gott und der selen in dem hailgen sacrament denn in kainem schowen, wan in dem
hailgen sacrament wirt die sel sunder beruert von gott, und gott git ainen minn-
richen kuss der selen in dem hailgen sacrament (. . .) Ze dem vierden so uebertriffet
daz hoh sacrament alle ander hailikait (. . .) Ze dem fuenften so ubertriffet es alle
ander richait und ubernaturlich gaben, so der mensch von gott enpfahen moeht,
wann alle ander uebernaturlich gaben, die sind in zu val und in geschaffner wis,
aber in dem hailgen sactrament wirt enpfangen wesenlicher gott. Ze dem sechsten
so ubertriffet es alles applas holen und alle ander gnad, die der mensch in zit enpfa-
hen mag, wan in dem hailgen sacrament ist der brunn aller gnaden und der schacz
der hohen drivaltikait, wan es ist die naehste tur zu dem ingang in die gotthait
(. . .).’ Marquard von Lindau, Deutsche Predigten, ed. Blumrich (Tübingen, 1994),
234–235.
114
See the many lemmata in the Verfasserlexikon on Franciscan friars of whom
sermons and sermon fragments have survived. A good example is the lemma on a
friar known as ‘Der von Halle’, who was active in the Strasbourg region around
1400. See Kurt Ruh, ‘Der von Halle’, VL2 III, 414–415.
From the beginning of the fourteenth century date the large Sermones
de Sanctis115 and the Sermones de Tempore per Circulum Anni116 by friar
Teuto (or ‘Graeculus’), a prolific preacher toiling both in the Austrian
lands and in the Saxony province.117 His written sermons have a
strong sermo modernus structure and contain numerous exempla drawn
from the world of nature. They exhibit strong links with Berthold
von Regensburg’s Rusticanus de Tempore, the sermons of the Dominican
best-seller author Jacopo da Voragine, and the works of preachers
from his own generation, like Peregrinus von Opeln.
Slightly younger than the works of Teuto are the manifold ser-
mons of religious instruction written by Johannes Bloemendal ( Johannes
Blontiades). He was a friar from Cologne, and in the wake of his
lectorate activities (at Cologne and possibly at the Curia studium of
Avignon during the pontificate of John XXII) published a range of
sermons.118 A contemporary of Johannes Bloemendal, friar Hartung
115
This cycle contains 200 sermons for the feast days of the whole year. It sur-
vives in at least 28 manuscripts (cf. for instance MS St. Florian, Stiftsbibliothek XI
259, XI 263, XI 289 (mid 14th cent.); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 9730, Clm.
269, and Clm. 13446; Klosterneuburg 352; Prague, University Library XX (Admont
569) B. 8). See especially Schneyer, Repertorium II, 236–289.
116
A cycle of 182 sermons, which can for instance be found in MSS Vienna,
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. Lat. 859, Cod. Lat. 1686 (a. 1348), Cod.
Lat. 166, Cod. Lat. 3865, Cod. Lat. 5062; Graz, Universitätsbibliothek 275, 566,
726 & 1137; Linz, Stud. bibliothek Cc. IV 22 (a. 1341); St. Florian, Stiftsbibliothek
XI 342. See also A. Franz, Drei deutsche Minoritenprediger aus den XIII. und XIV.
Jahrhundert (Freiburg, 1907), 107–157 and Schneyer, Repertorium II, 220ff. Some
manuscripts contain both collections: MSS Graz, Universitätsbibliothek 730 [?];
Klosterneuburg, 52; St. Florian, Stiftsbibliothek XI 239; Vienna, Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek Lat. 1654. The 1907 study of Franz (p. 149f.) also ascribes to
our friar a number of Sermones de Tempore super Epistolas.
117
For additional information on this friar and his works, see M. Bihl, AFH 2
(1909), 330–333; Schneyer, Repertorium II, 206–240; Kurt Ruh, ‘Greculus (Graeculus)’,
VL2 III, 231–232.
118
He also is the author of biblical commentaries (which probably include an
Opusculum Correctionis Textus et Prologorum Biblie), a Tractatus de Posituris, short treatises
on the theological significance of Christ’s passion, and commentaries on Biblical
hymns and songs, the Credo, and the Pater Noster. That is, if we are dealing with one
and the same person. Previous scholars sometimes have distingished between a
Johannes Bloemendal (the author of sermons) and a Johannes von Köln (who would
have been the author of the other works). See Wadding, Scriptores, 131; Wadding,
Annales Minorum VII, 168 (no. 25; ed. 1932, p. 198); Gonzaga, De Origine Seraphicae
Religionis Franciscanae (Rome, 1587), 86; P. Schlager, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kölnischen
Franziskaner-Ordensprovinz im Mittelalter (Cologne, 1904), 167–168; O. Bonmann &
B. Brodmann, ‘Joh. Blomendal von Köln und sein literar. Nachlass’, FrSt 28 (1941),
36–52; 98–106; E. Wegerich, ‘Bio-bibliographische Notizen über Franziskanerlehrer
44 chapter one
or Hartwich, preached in the Erfurt region during the 1320s and

1330s. His name is attached to several sermon collections that seem to
fall in three different generic sub-categories, namely Postillae (sermons
for Sun- and feast days), Tractatus (in this case more loosely organised
sermons on pressing moral and doctrinal issues), and Plenariae (shorter
homiletic glosses to liturgical pericopes). The manuscripts containing
these various collections, which seem to alternate between straight-
forward religious instruction and forms of mystic education, have an
intricate reception history, showing that they were used as model
sermons, as communal reading texts, and as a starting point for pri-
vate meditation.119
des 15. Jahrhunderts 5. Johannes von Köln, O.F.M. Conv.’ FrSt 29 (1942), 166–169;
Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi (Madrid, 1951) III, 258–59 (n. 4241–4245);
Schneyer, Repertorium III, 373; S. De Munter, ‘Jean Blumendal’, DHGE XXVI,
1311–1312. Thus far, only Johannes von Bloemendal’s Postilla Pauperum super Ewangelia
Dominicalia per Circulum Anni have been identified in MS Münster, Universitätsbibliothek
153 ff. 1–105 (14th cent.). The incipit of this fascinating sermon collection com-
piled for reading purposes suggests the existence of additional sermon cycles for
Sun- and feast days: ‘Cum obsecrationibus loquetur pauper. Prov. 18—Pauper ego
paupercule regule pauperis quondam beati francisci professor, pauper nichilominus
vita et scientia, moribus, industria et experiencia. Post compilationem sermonum
tam dominicalium, per circulum anni, quam festivalium pauperum, has aggredior
postillas modo paupere obsecrans pauperum Jesum adiotorem me duo minuta sen-
sum videlicet literalem et misticum ewangeliorum domenicalium in gazophilacium
domini cum paupere mittentem vidua . . .’ Bonmann, Brodmann and Wegerich also
have collected evidence for the existence of additional Sermones Quadragesimales and
Sermones de Festivitatibus B.M.Virginis.
119
Cf. Schneyer, Repertorium II, 609–17; Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch, 52; Richter,
Die deutsche Überlieferung der Predigten Bertholds von Regensburg (1969), 215; Volker Mer-
tens, ‘(Hartung/Heinrich) von Erfurt, Postille’, Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und
Deutsche Literatur 107 (1978), 81–91; Idem, ‘Hartwich von Erfurt’, VL2 III (Berlin-
New York, 1981), 532–535; Idem, ‘Theologie der Mönche—Frömmigkeit der Laien?
Beobachtungen zur Textgeschichte von Predigten des Hartwig von Erfurt. Mit einem
Textanhang’, in: Literatur und Laienbildung im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit.
Symposium Wolfenbüttel 1981, ed. Ludger Grenzmann & Karl Stackmann, Germanische
Symposien Berichtsbände, V (Stuttgart, 1984), 661–683; R. Aubert, ‘Hartung d’Erfurt’,
DHGE 23 (1990), 457–458. His Postillae can be found in the following manuscripts:
Augsburg, Stadtsbibliothek Cod. 150; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Mgf. 1151; Donau-
eschingen, B.II.1; Frankfurt, Stadts- und Universitätsbibliothek Germ. Qu. 3; Zürich,
Zentralbibliothek Cod. Car. C. 98; Königsberg, Universitätsbibliothek 896; Munich,
Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 222 & Cgm. 286; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
Cod. 15315. Mertens, ‘(Hartung/Heinrich) von Erfurt, Postille’, passim gives a con-
cordance of 176 postillae in the five principal mss. The Plenariae can be found in
MSS Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 2845; Munich, Staatsbibliothek
Cgm. 636; Breslau, Universitätsbibliothek Cod. I F 371, Cod. I F 564 & Cod. I F
568; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Mgf. 130; Dillingen, cod. XV, 78; Vienna, Öster-
reichische Nationalbibliothek 3057; Strasbourg, Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire
As yet, none of these texts have been studied in depth. This also
holds true for the popular Paratus Continens Sermones de Tempore et de
Sanctis, a Latin catechism-oriented model sermon collection from the
later fourteenth century, filled with concise sermon outlines on the
ten commandments, the creed, the sacraments and the virtues and
vices, and written for busy and less-gifted preachers. This collection
probably was put together by friar Berthold von Wiesbaden (known
to have lived in the Würzburg convent). It had considerable success
in the German lands until the early sixteenth century, and proba-
bly is indicative for the level of homiletic catechistic instruction in
those regions.120
Our current knowledge about the surviving fourteenth-century
Franciscan sermon collections from most other areas is not much
better. Among the more prominent fourteenth-century sermonists
from the French, Italian and Iberian provinces active outside the
Franciscan degree studia, I have thus far not found a single friar
whose homiletic works have been studied properly. Several of these
sermonists were highly educated friars, such as Jean Rigaud (whose
sermons have been mentioned in passing but apparently have not
yet been studied)121 and the homiletic giants Bertrand de la Tour
and Filipppo di Moncalieri.
17. The Tractatus can be found in MSS Nuremberg, Stadsbibliothek Cod. Cent. IV
37, Cod. Cent. VI 53 & Cod. Cent. IV 40; St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek Sang. 969;
Oxford, Bodleian Laud. Misc. 479.
120
The title Paratus is derived from I Petrus 4: ‘Paratus est iudicare vivos et mor-
tuos’ and Psalm 118: ‘Paratus sum et non sum turbatus.’ The collection still sur-
vives in more than 20 manuscripts and several incunable editions. See for instance
Paratus Continens Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis (Hagenau: H. Gran, 1517) and the
manuscripts Ansbach, Staatliche Bibliothek Lat. 9 (ca. 1504) ff. 206v–379v (passim);
Würzburg, Franziskanerkloster I.56; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 9001, Clm. 1440,
Clm. 1473, Clm. 1474, Clm. 15326, Clm. 4751 & Clm. 11463. For additional
information on manuscripts and early editions, see Schneyer, Repertorium IV, 523–548;
Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, no. 12397–12412; Copinger, Supplement, no. 4598–4601;
R. Cruel, Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter (Detmold, 1879), 474–478;
F. Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz in der letz-
ten Zeit des Mittelalters. Die breite Masse franziskanischer Prediger’, FrSt 15 (1928),
102; Volker Honemann, ‘Paratus’, DSpir XII, 204–205.
121
Jean Rigaud (d. 1323) from Limoges, provincial minister of the Provence
province and subsequently papal penitentiary (under pope John XXII) and bishop
of Tréguier (1317–1323), composed concise handbooks of moral theology (the
Compendium Theologicae Pauperis and the Formula Confessionum) as well as sermons.
Schneyer, Repertorium III, 676–703 lists 280 of his sermons De Tempore in MS Rome,
BAV Vat.Lat. 957.
46 chapter one
Most historians will know the French friar Bertrand de la Tour

for his role in the suppression of the Spirituals and for his support
of pope John XXII during the struggles on the absolute poverty of
Christ and on the nature of Franciscan poverty between the papacy
and friars such as Michele da Cessena and William of Ockham. Not
well-known is Bertrand’s tireless advocacy for the Franciscan apos-
tolate and his own preaching endeavours, part of which found expres-
sion in writing. Thanks to the painstaking labours of Patrick Nold,
we now more or less have a full panorama of Bertrand’s homiletic
output. This consists of nine full sermon cycles, each of which sur-
vives in dozens of manuscripts, and an additional group of smaller
collections and sermon excerpts. Looking at the number of manu-
scripts in which Bertrand’s sermon cycles have survived, it becomes
apparent that his sermons must have had a profound impact on the
fourteenth-century homiletic landscape. Yet a first assessment of their
value as vehicles of religious instruction still has to be made.122
122
For an exhaustive overview of the surviving manuscripts, see Patrick Nold,
‘Bertrand de la Tour Omin. Manuscript List and Sermon Supplement’, AFH 95
(2002), 3–52. Here I only mention the complete cycles and some of their most
accessible manuscripts: i.) Postilla super Epistolas Dominicales et Feriales: a.o. MSS
Altenburg, Stiftsbibliothek 14 C 10, ff. 1r–129v; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale
Conv. Soppr. C.IV.136, ff. 103ra–262ra; Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. 2° 28 (pars
aestivalis); Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. 2° 27, ff. 1–247 (Quadragesimale section);
Ansbach, Schossbibliothek/Staatliche Bibliothek Lat. 15 (15th cent.), ff. 175ra–234vb
(Sermones Abbreviati from the Quadragesimale); ii.) Postilla super Epistolas Sanctorales: a.o.
MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 258; Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 259; Assisi,
Biblioteca Comunale 543; Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. 2° 29, ff. 1ra–157ra; iii.)
Postilla super Evangelia Dominicalia et Ferialia: a.o. MSS Bergamo, Biblioteca Civica
MA 558; Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Plut. XI dext. 5; Florence,
Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Plut. XII dext. 6; Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek
476; Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek 512, ff. 1–208ra (continuation of MS 476);
Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. 2° 69, ff. 1ra–185va; Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek,
Zisterzienserabtei Ebrach M.p.th.1. 12 (14th cent.), ff. 1ra–189va; iv.) Collationes
Dominicales: a.o. MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 410, ff. 210r–274r; Assisi, Biblioteca
Comunale 468, ff. 1r–69v; Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. XI dext.
5, ff. 236va–254rb; Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek 512, ff. 208ra–214ra; Naples
Naz., VIII.A.36, ff. 1ra–45vb; v.) Sermones de Evangeliis Dominicalibus: a.o. MSS Bergamo,
Biblioteca Civica MA 559; Braunschweig, Stadtbibliothek 51 & 74, ff. 33–251;
Toulouse, Bibliothèque Municipale 320 & 327; vi.) Sermones de Evangeliis Sanctorum:
a.o. MSS Admont, Stiftsbibliothek 155, ff. 157–226; Admont, Stiftsbibliothek 311;
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Theol. lat.fol. 245; Melk, Stiftsbibliothek 732 (37), ff.
220ra–419vb; Toulouse, Bibliothèque Municipale 328; vii.) Sermones de Mortuis: a.o.
MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 448, ff. 31va–48vb; Barcelona, Biblioteca Central
de Catalunya 661, ff. 99–125; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Theol. lat. fol. 614, ff.
148r–221v; Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek 265, ff. 49r–97r; Klosterneuburg, Stifts-
bibliothek 486, ff. 127r–162r; Klosterneuburg, Stiftsbibliothek 513, ff. 157r–262r;
The Italian lector Filippo di Moncalieri (d. ca. 1344) is yet another
important figure in fourteenth-century Franciscan homiletics. He com-
piled in the early 1330s for his students at the Franciscan study
house of Padua two large sermon collections, namely the Postilla super
Evangelia Domenicalia and the Postilla super Evangelia que Leguntur in
Quadrigesima. Both of these sermon collections had considerable suc-
cess in the later medieval and the early modern period. Filippo’s
sermons were especially sought after by Observant homiletic practi-
tioners, not in the least because his sermons combined complete
commentaries on the Gospel readings for the Sundays in question
with a strong pastoral interpretation. On top of that, his sermons
had a proto-humanistic penchant to them that might have endeared
them to the eyes and ears of fifteenth-century religious scholars.123
Our present knowledge about the character of the homiletic output
of later fourteenth-century Italian friars likewise remains deplorable.
The highly individualistic sermons of Ascencio di S. Colomba (d. 1368),
only recently have drawn scholarly interest (from the indefatigable
Cesare Cenci).124 Others have not been studied at all, or only looked
Kremsmünster, Stiftsbibliothek 44, ff. 1ra–125rb; viii.) Collationes de Sanctis: a.o. Assisi,

Biblioteca Comunale 675, ff. 70r–113v; Kraków, Biblioteka Jagiellonska 194, ff.
49v–110v; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale conv. soppr. VIII.A.36, ff. 46ra–88vb; ix.)
Collationes ad Status: a.o. Bonn, Universitätsbibliothek Lat. 376, ff. 195–253; Pamplona,
Biblioteca de la Iglesia Catedral 34, ff. 127r–192v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
Lat. 3276; Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale 2001. ff. 17v–75v.
123
Filippo was born at Moncalieri (near Turin), and entered the order in the
Genoa province. He ended his life as penitentiary of the S. Pietro basilica in Rome.
In the prologues to his successful Postillae, he promised to compose a volume of
Sermones et Collationes Morales, yet these do not seem to have survived. For his Postilla
super Evangelia Domenicalia/Sermones Dominicales, see a.o.: MSS Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale VII.A.19 ff. 1a–8d; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.AA.14 ff. 1a–238b.
The earliest printed edition of the complete Sunday sermon cycle appeared in 1490:
Postilla Super Evangelia Dominicalia Totius Anni, ed. Jonselmus Canova (Milan, 1490/Lyon,
1510/1515/1540). Partial editions of both cycles came for instance out as the Sermones
de Sanctis et Dominicale (Milan, 1487); Domenicale (Milan, 1498/Lyon, 1501); Quadragesimale
(Milan, 1498/Lyon, 1510/Lyon, 1515/Lyon, 1541); Conciones de SS. Eucharistia (Lyon,
1515). For more information, see Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, nos. 11593–11594;
Mariano di Firenze, Compendium Chronicarum, AFH 3 (1910), 309 (who calls him a
‘vir devotus et magnus praedicator’). The work also was printed under the title
Postilla Abbreviata. Parts of the collections were published separately as well. Wadding,
Scriptores, 196f; Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 381–382; Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum
IV, 437 no. 6966; Pierre Péano, ‘Philippe de Moncalieri’, DSpir XII, 1316–1317.
On humanist tendencies in Filippo’s sermons, see B. Smalley, English Friars and
Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1960), 276–277.
124
His sermons were sought after by Franciscan lectors in France and Italy. See:
C. Cenci, ‘Sermoni del magister Ascencio di Santa Colomba’, Antonianum 66 (1991),
48 chapter one
at in passing. This is even true for the large Quadragesimale de Casibus

Conscientiae and the Quadragesimale de Contemptu Mundi by Bartolomeo
da Rinoncio (author of the famous De Conformitate Vitae Beati Francisci
ad Vitam Domini Iesu).125 Roberto Rusconi, one of the few scholars
who has paid more than perfunctory attention to these collections,
hails them as an important trait d’union between the early fourteenth-
century sermo modernus and the Observant catechistic preaching of the
fifteenth century.126 Yet they are only available in fifteenth- and six-
teenth-century editions and for most historians seemingly have remained
inaccessible.127
301–351, who informs us that, alongside of academic Principia in Theologia and

Distinctiones, a possible Apocalypse commentary and an abbreviation of Geraud du
Peschier’s Ars Praedicandi, Ascencio produced a large number of highy individualis-
tic sermons. He consistently developed his sermons from arguments taken from tra-
dition or experience, natural reason and Scripture (‘prout consuetudo in pluribus
observata naturalisque ratio et exempla divine pagine protestantur’; ‘Humana docet
experientia et sacre scripture testatur auctoritas’), normally starting the dilatatio (as
well as the individual divisions) with introductory poems elucidating the sermon’s
structure and content. Cenci lists the following manuscripts: MSS Aix-en-Provence,
Bibl. Méjanes 1312 ff. 1r–235v (cf. f. IIv: ‘Sermones Astensis ad usum mei fratris
F(rancisci) de Pistorio, emi Placentie cum essem lector ibidem 1423. . .’); Assisi,
Biblioteca Comunale 410; Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 468 ff. 107v–109v; Assisi,
Biblioteca Comunale 557 ff. 191r–252r; Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 578 ff. 176v–204r;
Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 406 ff. 127r–141r (Like the Aix-en-Provence manu-
script a miscellaneous manuscript in use by a Franciscan lector-preacher, in this
case maybe Niccolò Caccini da Firenze); Graz, Universitätsbibliothek 836 ff. 75a–80a,
86d–89a; Prague, Bibl. Cap. n. XXII 1546 ff. 81r–88v; Rome, BAV Vat. Palat.
Lat. 378 ff. 127v–128r.
125
The tenth ‘fruit’ of the De Conformitate develops in some detail the theme of
Franciscus-predicator, with recourse both to the rules of 1221 and 1223, and to the
Franciscan hagiographic tradition (esp. the Legenda Major by Bonaventura, the vitae
produced by Tommaso da Celano , the Legenda Trium Sociorum, the Fioretti and the
Speculum Perfectionis).
126
‘un rilevante anello di giunzione tra la predicazione minoritica della prima
metà del secolo XIV e la predicazione di Bernardino da Siena agli inizi del secolo
XV, sul piano sia della struttura dei sermoni latini sia degli orientamenti di fondo
della pastorale . . .’, Rusconi, ‘La predicazione minoritica in Europa nei secoli XIII–
XV’, 159.
127
The Quadragesimale de Casibus Conscientiae, a full Lenten cycle of 88 sermons
originally held at Florence in 1390, was published two times in one year as the
Sermones Magistri Bartholomaei de Pisis Ordinis Minorum (. . .) Dubiorum et Casuum Conscientialium
Contemptivi et Elucidativi super Evangeliis Quadragesimalibus (Lyon, 1519). The Quadragesimale
de Contempti Mundi consisting of 58 sermons, based on Bartolomeo’s preaching activ-
ities at Pisa during Lent 1397, was edited as the Quadragesimale Magistri Bartholomaei
de Pisis Ordinis Minorum de Contemptu Mundi, sive de triplici Mundo (. . .), cur. Johannes
Maria Mapellus (Milano: Ulrich Scinzenzeler, 1498). Cf. the study of Rusconi men-
tioned in the previous note, as well as Raoul Manselli, ‘Bartolomeo da Pisa (da
Rinonico, de Rinonichi)’, DBI VI, 756–758.
Better known are some fourteenth-century praedicabilia and homiletic

‘commonplace books’ or ‘sermon booklets’ from the English province,
notably those compiled by Nicholas Bozon (d. 1320), William Herebert
(d. 1333), and John Grimestone (later fourteenth century). All these
texts hold a middle ground between sermonaries, exempla-collections
and anthologies of religious poetry.128 The Contes Moralisés129 and the
so-called ‘verse-sermons’ written by Nicholas Bozon in particular
address privileged themes of religious instruction. His Contes consist
of 145 thematically organised little tales. Some of these are outright
exempla, whereas others are more developed stories with a moral nar-
rative followed by a supporting anecdote. For his Contes, Nicholas
made heavy use of existing fabliaux, popular lore derived from nat-
ural history, and materials taken from Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ De
128
William Herebert’s so-called commonplace book is found in the miscellanea
manuscript London, British Library Add. 46919. Herebert’s ‘own’ work in this het-
erogenous collection can be found on ff. 157v–158 (notes for sermons), ff. 159r–179v
(five sermons and two sermon outlines; ff. 183v–184v (another sermon); f. 204v (the
poem ‘quomodo se habet homo’ and another sermon outline); ff. 205r–211v (nine-
teen poems/poetic translations in Middle English, some seventeen of which can also
be found in MS London, British Library Phillips 8336 ff. 203r–207v, and go back
to poems by Nicholas Bozon). The Works of William Herebert, OFM., ed. Stephen R.
Reimer, Studies and Texts, 81 (Toronto, 1987) contains an edition of six sermons,
three sermon outlines, and 23 English religious poems. The commonplace book of
John Grimestone is more clearly an alphabetical exempla-collection (covering 143
topics) interspersed with a large number of English rhymes and poems. The reli-
gious poems in these two collections will be dealt with in another chapter. Cf.
Benito d’Angelo, ‘English Franciscan Poetry before Chaucer’, FS 43 (1983), 218–260
(esp. 255–260).
129
Contes Moralisés: MS London, Gray’s Inn, 12 ff. 15–49v. In this manuscript,
the Contes are preceded by a Tabula metaphorarum, containing Latin rubrics referring
to the paragraph headings in the manuscripts. This manuscript originally belonged
to the Franciscan convent of Chester. On top of the Contes, it contains Latin ser-
mons (ff. 1–8, 12–13), an Ars Praedicandi (ff. 8–12), the Rule of St. Augustine, together
with a work by Hugues de Saint Victor (ff. 51–68), Bonaventura’s (?) De Vita Beate
Virginis (ff. 69–78), and a Summa de Vitiis (ff. 79–260); MS British Library, Additional
46919 (= Phillips MS 8336) ff. 120–153. This composite manuscript of many different
hands contains a variety of French (the majority), Latin, and English pieces (amount-
ing to a wealth of devotional, allegorical, dicactic and otherwise instructive poetry
and narrative). For a first description, see Romania 13 (1884). There are indications
to think that the various elements were assembled into one volume by a Franciscan
friar, maybe William Herebert, Franciscan lector at Oxford, who once possessed
this manuscript and added to it some of his own Latin sermons on Hell, and a
number of translations of Latin Hymns. A partial Latin translation of the Contes
(the first part) can be found in MS London, British Library Harley 1288 ff. 112–125.
See: Les contes moralisés de Nicole Bozon, frère mineur, ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith & Paul
Meyer, Société des Anciens Textes Français (Paris, 1889). A (partial) English trans-
lation of the work appeared as: Metaphors of Brother Bozon (London, 1917).
50 chapter one
Proprietatibus Rerum (one of Nicholas’ most important sources). In their

turn, the many little tales of Nicholas Contes Moralisés provided abun-
dant suitable materials to preachers.130 In that sense, the whole work
stood in long tradition of Franciscan exempla collections.131
Throughout the Contes Moralisés, basic religious and moral instruc-
tion holds pride of place, and most explicitly in the tales De penitentia
(no. 33), De confessione et contricione (no. 58), Quod anime in purgatorio libe-
rantur per missas et elemosinas (no. 81), De remediis contra peccatum (no. 86),
Quod confessio est sepius facienda (no. 106), Qualiter peccator resipiscere debet a
peccatis (no. 111), De mala disciplinatione filiorum (no. 124), Quod filii bene
130
The partial Latin translation of the Contes, found in MS London, British
Library Harley 1288 ff. 112–125, gives a clear indication of the work’s main pur-
pose: ‘In isto parvo libello sive opusculo potest quis invenire multiplex exemplum
pro materiis diversis, unde possit addisci ad reprobandum malum, scilicet pecca-
tum, et ad eligendum sive amplexandum bonum scilicet virtutes et opera bona, et
precipue ad laudandum Deum qui bene vivendi dedit nobis occasionem per natu-
ram creaturarum que sunt sine ratione, prout dicitur Job 12°: Interroga jumenta et
docebunt te, volatilia celi et indicabunt tibi; loquere terre et respondebit tibi; id est: Vos qui
nescitis peccata vitare et operari bona, interrogate bestias et ille vos docebunt, aves
volantes et ille vobis dicent; materias terre que vobis respondent; pisces maris, et
illi vobis modum denunciabunt, non sermone, sed quelibet creatura in natura sua
diversimode operatur, et ostendit docendo quomodo per aliquam poteris benefacere
et per aliam a malo te retrahere.’ Taken from Les contes moralisés de Nicole Bozon,
frère mineur, ed. L. Toulmin Smith & P. Meyer (Paris, 1889), 195.
131
The nineteenth-century editors of the Contes Moralisés remark (pp. xxiii–xxiv):
‘Son enseignement a le caractère populaire; sa morale est appropriée à l’intelligence
et aux besoins spirituels des laïques. (. . .) Il ne cherche point à expliquer la Bible,
mais il s’applique à donner des règles pour la conduite de la vie. (. . .) Il y a peu
de théologie dans son livre. Les préceptes proprement religieux en occupent la moin-
dre partie. Quelques chapitres sur la confession et la contrition (§ 58, 86), sur la
pénitence (§ 63), sur la béatitude céleste (§ 90), sur la vertu des messes et de l’aumône
comme moyen de sauver les âmes du purgatoire (§ 81), sur la puissance miraculeuse
de la vierge Marie (§ 45), des exhortations à l’amour du Christ (§ 61, 62, 79), à la
contemplation de sa passion (§ 78), à la résignation chrétienne (§ 98), constituent à
vrai dire tout l’élément pieux de l’ouvrage. Le reste est d’une morale assez vul-
gaire, parfois passablement égoïste, tendant plutôt à une réforme sociale qu’à la
perfection religieuse. Les vices que l’auteur signale et blâme sont ceux des puis-
sants, spécialement des hommes qui ont le gouvernement et l’administration du
pays. (. . .)’ Also (p. xxviii): ‘Évidement c’est un livre qui a été prêché, et sans doute
plus d’une fois, avant d’être écrit. Le désordre qui se remarque dans l’arrangement
des matières montre que nous sommes en présence de morceaux rapidement rédigés,
négligemment rassemblés, ou même quelques parties sont encore à l’état de notes.
Il n’y a pas, dans toute la littérature anglo-normande, un second ouvrage qui puisse
nous donner une idée aussi complète de ce qu’était en Angleterre et au com-
mencement du XIVe siècle, la prédication populaire. Non que le livre de Bozon
soit proprement un recueil de sermons; mais on peut légitimement le considérer
comme formé des éléments qui faisaient le fonds des sermons prêchés au peuple
par les prédicateurs de l’ordre auquel appartenait Bozon.’
doctrinentur (no. 127), De conjugio fideliter conservando (no. 134), De vidui-

tate caste conservanda (no. 135), De virginitate sollicite conservanda (no. 137),
Quod exponantur in juventute filii discipline, et de hiis qui proficere [n]umquam
volunt (no. 139).132
Even more singularly geared towards conversion and penitence
were Nicholas’ so-called ‘verse-sermons’, a group of writings with a
rather uncertain generic status.133 The editor of these texts traces the
‘verse sermon’ as a recognisable genre back to the late twelfth cen-
tury (with reference to Guichard de Beaulieu’s Grant Mal fist Adam
and Hélinant de Froidmont’s Vers de la Mort). Soon the emphasis in
this genre would have shifted from inspiring dread for death and
132
Conte No. 33 (De penitentia) nicely shows how Bozon uses an allegorical exem-
plum to deal with penitence: ‘Lui sage philosophre Diascorides dit en son livere qe
ceste piere amañd est de si grand vertue qe si femme la porte sur lui qi est a
descord od soun mary, par ceste piere de mout legier grace en lui peot trover.
Ceste piere signifie penañce par qel la char peot acorder al espirit de legier. Pur
ceo dit Salomon: ‘Amertee mout est douce al alme [q’est familous].’ Amarum pro
dulci sumet anima esuriens.’ [Proverbs XXVII, 7] La viaunde del alme si est penañce
du corps. Ceo qe est amier al cors est douce al alme; pur ceo si le cors se veot
acorder al alme covient qu il obeie a sa volenté . . .’ Contes Moralisés, ed. Toulmin
Smith & Meyer, 53. Conte no. 106 (Quod confessio est sepius facienda) also offers a nice
illustration of Bozon’s rhetorical method: ‘Lui oliphant dozze foiz par an se va laver
a la rivere, e amene soñ fitz od lui; si l’aprent [de] issi fere. Bien deüst homme
donqes un foys e treis sa alme netter par confessioñ, sicom dit le prophete: Lavamini
et mundi estote’ [Isaiah I, 16] (. . .)’, Contes Moralisés, ed. Toulmin Smith & Meyer, 125.
133
These texts are found in manuscript London, British Library Additional 46919
(= Phillips MS 8336). Individual sermons can be found in MS London, British
Library Sloane 1611 and MS London, Lambeth Palace Library 522. The manu-
script London, British Library Additional 46919 contains La parole Deu ke est preché
a rai de solail est cumparee (a poem in 116 lines, comparing preaching the word of
God with rays of sunlight in a dark world; ff. 80r–81r), Peynes e joies cy lisez k’en
l’autre vie serrunt trovez (a poem in 33 stanzas, warning sinners about the last judge-
ment and comparing the infernal feasts of hell with the feasts of the blessed in
heaven; ff. 81r–82r), Ke fous funt a seynz moleste ke meynent treche par jour de feste (a poem
in octosyllabic couples showing how wayward behaviour, presented as a carnival
dance, leads to hell; f. 82r), Coment nous sumus si contrarious a nostre seygnur k’est sy
dous (a poem in four mono-rhymed stanzas on man’s perversity and stubborness;
ff. 82r–82v), Coumparisoun al haust de ceste vie (a poem of 70 lines in octosyllabic cou-
plets on the ‘harvest’ of our lives; ff. 82v–83r), Une courte ditee de longe folie usee (a
poem of 43 lines in octosyllabic couplets on foolish chatter; ff. 83r–83v), Coment les
fole genz se affient trop en testamenz (a poem in 72 lines in octosyllabic couplets on the
use and abuse of testaments; ff. 83v–84v), Vous purveez en ceste vie de soustenaunce en
l’autre vie (a poem in 12 stanzas with refrains on the preparation for the coming
life, with attention for confession, prayer and the exercise of virtue; ff. 84r–84v), Ke
plusours unt aÿe par un homme de bone vie (a poem of 107 lines in octosyllabic couplets
on humility, the good life and hypocrisy; ff. 84v–85v). Cf. Nine Verse Sermons by
Nicholas Bozon, ed. & comm. Brian J. Levy, Medium Aevum Monographs New
Series, XI (Oxford, 1981).
52 chapter one
decay to inculcating the need for repentance (a development also

visible in Raoul de Houdenc’s Songe d’Enfer, his Voie de Paradis, Huon
de Méry’s Tournoiement d’Antécrist and Jehan de la Motte’s fourteenth-
century Voie d’Enfer). Sometimes, this brought about large versified
treatises on penitence (such as Jehan de Journy’s Disme de Penitence).134
Nicholas Bozon’s verse sermons retain this emphasis on conversion
and penitence. They aim their message at educated lay people and
fellow friars in south-east England and Normandy, telling them that
man has to learn to fear sin, last judgement and Hell, flee arrogance,
greed, envy, and hypocrisy, and counter all that with the virtues of
modesty, humility, poverty, contrition, and love (caritas). In this way,
salvific grace might overcome human ‘desmesure’ and enable human
sinners to live a joyful life in expectation of Paradise. It remains to
be seen whether these ‘verse sermons’ go back to versified lectures
preached from the pulpit, or should be seen as literary constructions
without a direct homiletic background.135
C. The Observant homiletic output in Italy
Whereas the picture of fourteenth-century Franciscan preaching still

lacks profile and perspective, the same can not be said for the fifteenth
century. This is no doubt connected with the successes of the Franciscan
Observance and the pastoral activities of its main protagonists. Within
the Franciscan order, the Observant ‘revival’ of preaching had its
genuine beginnings in the pastoral activities of Bernardino da Siena
(1380–1444), who had entered the order in 1402. Not only was
Bernardino himself a resourceful and imaginative preacher, he also
made the proper education of preachers one of his central con-
cerns.136 For his own preaching, Bernardino took the ninth chapter
of the Regula Bullata as his point of departure,137 transforming its
emphasis on vices, virtues, punishment and reward into a full-scale
programme of religious instruction, in which the message of doctrine
134
Ibidem, 13–14.
135
Ibidem, 14–21.
136
Roest, A History of Franciscan Education, chapter III.
137
Zelina Zafarana, ‘Bernardino nella storia della predicazione popolare’, in:
Bernardino predicatore nella società del suo tempo, Convegni del Centro di Studi sulla spi-
ritualità medievale, 16 (Todi, 1976), 41–70.
was embedded in an overarching moral-eschatological framework

that touched on all aspects of Christian life. This recalls the best of
Franciscan preaching as it was practised since Antonio di Padova.
Moreover, during his lengthy preaching tours through Tuscany and
Umbria, Bernardino separated the themes of his preaching from the
set liturgical Gospel readings, thus freeing his sermons from the estab-
lished exegetical and theological pathways138—bound to the biblical
readings of the year’s liturgical cycle—and changing them into a
more flexible instrument of communication, suited to his catechistic
objectives and tailored to the problems of everyday life.139
With this ‘innovation’, Bernardino and his Observant colleagues
embarked on intensive preaching rallies, especially during Lent, Easter
and Advent. These preaching rallies evolved into the foundation
stones of an ambitious programme of religious reform, aiming at
converting the individual towards repentance and virtue, and pro-
scribing codes of social, economical, sexual and religious behaviour
to the (gendered) individual, the household, the neighbourhood, the
community and the state.140
138
Maura O’Carrol, ‘The Friars and the Liturgy in the Thirteenth Century’, in:
La predicazione dei fratri dalla metà del ’200 alla fine del ’300, ed. E. Menestò, Atti del
XXII Convegno Internazionale (Spoleto, 1995), 189–227, 201–203 informs us that
the scholastic sermon method delineated in the thirteenth-century Artes Praedicandi
and the Franciscan preaching effort during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
held very firmly to the biblical readings or pericopes that figured in the Mass. The
friars took from these readings the majority of their sermon themes (sometimes sup-
plemented with themes taken from other liturgical elements).
139
Carlo Delcorno, ‘Introduzione’, in: Bernardino da Siena, Prediche Volgari sul Campo
di Siena 1427, ed. Carlo Delcorno, Vol. I (Milan, 1989), 9; G. Miccoli, ‘Bernardino
predicatore: problemi e ipotesi per un’interpretazione complessiva’, in: Bernardino
predicatore nella società del suo tempo, Convegno del Centro di studi sulla spiritualità
medievale, XVI (Todi, 1976). On the more technical aspects of Bernardino’s rework-
ing of the sermo modernus, see on top of the above-mentioned study of Delcorno (esp.
23ff.) also F.M. Delorme, ‘L’‘Ars faciendi sermones’ de Géraud du Pescher’, Antonianum
19 (1944), 169–198. Bernardino’s sermons chose more freely from the available bib-
lical texts (especially from the Psalms), seeking biblical themes commensurate with
the probems he wanted to discuss, relativily independent from the Mass pericopes
proper for the time of the year. In all probability, this ‘innovation’ did not come
about all of a sudden. It remains to be seen to what extent Bernardino stood, in
this respect, in a long tradition of extra-liturgical ‘popular’ preaching.
140
Observant preachers therefore also drew up communal statutes, rules for ter-
tiary communities, and independent treatises for the moral and religious education
of the laity (many of which we will encounter in another chapter). For Bernardino
da Siena’s involvement with the drafting of comunal statutes for Perugia in the
1420s (which recall comparable initiatives by Antonio di Padova in the early thir-
teenth century), see for instance Dionisio Pacetti, ‘La predicazione di S. Bernardino
a Perugia e ad Assisi’, CF 9 (1939), 507–508.
54 chapter one
In many ways, this religious programme pointed forward to the

closed religious edifice of the counterreformation Church, in which
the lives of Catholic believers were guided and monitored from bap-
tism to the grave, and embedded in a totalising religious framework,
the signifiers of which provided the correct meaning of each and
every aspect of life, and disqualified any form of religious and moral
dissent.
The many surviving sermons of Bernardino—both Latin141 and
vernacular142 collections—have proved to be a goldmine for every
141
Among his edited Latin sermon collections (most of which can also be found
in an array of old editions alongside of the critical editions mentioned here), we
can point in particular to the Quadragesimale de Christiana Religione (67 sermons, com-
posed between 1430–1436), edited in S. Bernardini Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio
et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965),
I & II; the Quadragesimale de Evangelio Aeterno (65 sermons, composed between
1430–1444), edited in S. Bernardini Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum
Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965), III–V;
the Tractatus de Vita Christiana (three sermons/discourses, composed before 1430),
edited in: S. Bernardini Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S.
Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965), VI; the Tractatus de
Spiritu Sancto et de Inspirationibus (six sermons, composed between 1422 and 1444),
edited in: S. Bernardini Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S.
Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965), VI; Tractatus de Octo
Beatitudinibus Evangelicis (nine sermons, composed between 1441 and 1443), edited
in: S. Bernardini Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae,
9 Vols. (Ad Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965), VI; the Sermones de Tempore (18
sermons, composed between 1440 and 1444), edited in: S. Bernardini Senensis Opera
Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad Claras Aquas/
Quaracchi, 1950–1965), VII; Sermones Imperfecti (25 sermons), edited in: S. Bernardini
Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad
Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965), VIII; Selecta ex Autographa Budapestinensi, edited
in: S. Bernardini Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae,
9 Vols. (Ad Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965), IX; Quadragesimale ‘Seraphim’ (not
included in the Opera Omnia of Quaracchi), edited in: Bernardini Senensis, Opera
Omnia, ed. G. De la Haye (Venice, 1745), III.
142
Il nome di Gesù. Predica volgare inedita, ed. E. Bulletti, in: Bullettino di Studi
Bernardiniani 3–4 (1938), 189–226; S. Bernardino da Siena, Le prediche volgari: Quaresimale
Fiorentino del 1424, ed. C. Cannarozzi, 2 Vols. (Pistoia, 1934); S. Bernardino da
Siena, Le prediche volgari: QuaresimaleFiorentino del 1425, ed. C. Cannarozzi, 3 Vols.
(Florence, 1940); Prediche della settimana santa, Firenze 1425, ed. M. Bartoli (Milan,
1995/Torino: Edizione Paoline, 1996); S. Bernardino da Siena, Le Prediche Volgari:
Predicazione del 1425 in Siena, ed. C. Cannarozzi, 2 Vols. (Florence, 1958). For a
different reportatio of these latter sermons, see the decription of Carlo Delcorno, in
‘Note sulla tradizione manoscritta delle prediche volgari di San Bernardino da Siena’,
AFH 73 (1980), 90–123. Some sermons of this reportatio have been published by
Carlo Delcorno in Bullettino abruzzese di storia patria 70 (1980), and in Le prediche vol-
gari di San Bernardino dette nella Piazza del Campo l’anno MCCCCXXVII, ed. L. Bianchi,
historian interested in the Observant project of religious reform,143

and he remains by far the best studied preacher among the Franciscan
‘pillars of the Observance’, partly because so many of his Latin and
vernacular catechistic sermons have been available in reliable edi-
tions for a long time already. The sermons of several other major
3 Vols. (Siena, 1880–1888). These are the reportationes written by Benedict Bartholomaei
(Benedetto Bartolomei). They have been re-edited in: S. Bernardino da Siena, Le
prediche volgari, ed. P. Bargellini (Milan, 1936), and again with revisions and exten-
sions in the Prediche Volgari sul Campo di Siena, 1427, ed. Carlo Delcorno, 2 Vols.
(Milan, 1989). On the unedited vernacular sermons held at Assisi (37 sermons) and
Perugia (36 sermons) between July-September 1425, See Pacetti, ‘La predicazione
di S. Bernardino a Perugia e ad Assisi nel 1425’, CF 9 (1939), 494–520 & 10
(1940), 5–28, 161–188. See also Cantini, ‘Una ignorata redazione (. . .)’, Bullettino
di studi bernardiniani 2 (1936), 284–300 & 3 (1937), 290–295. As far as I know, the
Quaresimale Padovano of 1443 has not been fully edited either. For a description of
the manuscripts containing them, see: D. Pacetti, ‘Nuove codice di prediche inedite
di S. Bernardino da Siena’, Bullettino di studi bernardiniani 1 (1935). See also: S.
Bernardino da Siena, Abbozzi (inediti) di sermoni, ricostruiti sul ms. VII G., 29 della
Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, ed. S.F. Di Zenzo & I. Siggillino (Naples, 1986). More
information and partial editions of these various cycles can be found in: Prose di
fede e di vita nel primo tempo dell’Umanesimo, ed. M. Bontempelli (Florence, 1913); Le
più belle pagine di Bernardino da Siena, ed. P. Misciattelli (Milan, 1924); Le prediche vol-
gari-Campo di Siena 1427, D. Pacetti (Siena, 1935); Le prediche volgari inedite. Firenze
1424–25; Siena 1425, ed. D. Pacetti (Siena, 1935); Ecco il segno. Antologia dalle prediche
in italiano di S. Bernardino, ed. G.V. Sabatelli (Siena, 1974); Novellette, esempi morali e
apologhi di S. Bernardino da Siena, ed. Zambrini, Scelta di curiosità letterarie inedite
o rare disp. XCVII (Bologna, 1868); Le streghe di Roma, storiella di San Bernardino da
Siena non mai fin qui stampata (Imola, 1876/Naples, 1955); La fonte della vita, ed. G.V.
Sabatelli (Florence, 1964) and Bernardino da Siena, Favole. Lettura in linguaggio cor-
rente delle prediche a sfondo pedagogico-didattico tenute a Siena nell’estate del 1427. In appen-
dice le favole nella versione volgare originale, ed. Cinzia Bei (Massarosa (Luca), 1999).
143
It would be impossible to list all the important works. The following is just
a short selection: D.D. Ronzoni, L’eloquenza di S. Bernardino da Siena e della sua scuola
(Siena, 1899); K. Hefele, Der hl. Bernhardin von Siena und die franziskanische Wanderpredigt
in Italien während des XV. Jahrhunderts (Freiburg i. Br., 1912); R. Mecacci, ‘L’educazione
cristiana nelle opere di S. Bernardino’, Bullettino di Studi Bernardiani 7 (1941), 21–50,
90–122; S. Bernardino da Siena. Saggi e ricerche pubblicati nel quinto centenario della morte
(1444 –1944) (Milan, 1945); M. Agosti, ‘La pedagogia di S. Bernardino’, in: S.
Bernardino da Siena. Saggi e Ricerche (Milan, 1945), 408–444; I. Origo, The World of
San Bernardino (London, 1963); Bernardino predicatore nella società del suo tempo, Convegni
del Centro di Studi sulla spiritualità medievale, 16 (Todi, 1976); S. Bernardino da
Siena predicatore e pellegrino, Atti del Convegno Nazionale di studi bernardiniani, Maiori,
20–22 giugno 1980, ed. F. d’Episcopo (Galatina, 1985); Emilio Pasquini, ‘Avarizia
e usura nelle prediche di san Bernardino da Siena’, in: La presenza francescana tra
medioevo e modernità, ed. A. Chessa & M. Poli (Florence, 1996), 29–37; Franco
Mormando, The Preacher’s Demons. Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early
Renaissance Italy (Chicago-London, 1999); Cynthia L. Polecritti, Preaching Peace in
Renaissance Italy. Bernardino of Siena and His Audience (Washington D.C., 2000).
56 chapter one
Franciscan figures of the Italian Observance likewise have benefited

from partial or full critical editions, which opened them up for fur-
ther study. Cases in point are the sermons of Matteo da Agrigento
(d. 1450)144 and, most importantly, the sermon collections of Giacomo
della Marca (1393–1476) and Bernardino da Feltre (1439–1494).
Giacomo della Marca entered the order after studies of canon
and civil law at the University of Perugia. Following his noviciate,
he studied moral theology (together with Giovanni da Capistrano)
under Bernardino da Siena, and subsequently spent more than 45
years as a preacher in Tuscany, Umbria, and the March of Ancona,145
supplementing his preaching tours with inquisitorial activities and
with attempts at reforming the morals of Italian city life (through
founding lay confraternities and montes de pietà). Like Bernardino
before him, Giacomo repeatedly reflected on the activity of preach-
ing and the necessary qualities of preachers.146 On top of several
144
A range of Matteo da Agrigento’s sermons have been edited in B. Matthaei
Agrigentini, Sermoni Varii, ed. A. Amore, Studi e Testi Francescani, 15 (Rome, 1960).
Cf. also Mario Sensi, ‘Il quaresimale del B. Matteo da Agrigento minore osser-
vante’, Bollettino Storico della Città di Foligno 19 (1995), 7–74; Roberto Zavalloni, ‘Matteo
d’Agrigento’, in: Mistici Francescani II: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 751–761. For man-
uscripts of his sermons, see: Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale MS I.23 ff. 370a–383c;
MS V.H.57 ff. 267a–271b; MS V.H.270 f 219r; MS VIII.F.43 ff. A-52b; MS
XIII.C.60 ff. 123a–146d; MS XIV.C.35 ff. 21r–387r; Nocera (Umbra), Bibl. Seminarile
Cod. II/3.
145
Cf. the autograph manuscript Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 7780 f. 1v: ‘Ego frater
Iacobus de Monteprandone ordinis minorum etate viginto duorum annorum in
nomine Domini ingressus sum in [ordinem] sancti Francisci de mense julii 1416.
Et incepi predicare in festo sancti Antonii de Padua in sancto Salvatore prope
Florentiam 1420. Et dimisi predicationem in festo sancti Bernardini de mense madii
1467, manu propria; habens etatem septuaginta quinque annorum’ After May 1467
Giacomo did no longer embark on large preaching trips. Yet it would seem that
he did continue to preach locally on Sun- and feast days (in the S. Maria La Nova
convent church at Naples).
146
Hence, in manuscript Rome, BAV Vat.Lat 7780, Giacomo states (f. 70v):
‘Tria sunt necessaria ad conmendationem veri predicatoris: primo, vita bona; 2,
doctrina salutifera et assidua; 3, proles sancta et fecunda.’ In his sermon in hon-
our of Bernardino da Siena, these qualifications of the preacher are elaborated fur-
ther: ‘Tria debet habere predicator, videlicet: vitam bonam, doctrinam salutiferam,
et perseverantiam. a.) Primo, vita bona (. . .) In verbo (. . .) Secundo, exemplo
(. . .) Tertio, opere (. . .) Ideo dicit Ecclesia: ‘iste est qui magnas virtutes operatus
est, et omnis terra doctrina eius repleta est.’ b.) Secundo, doctrina salutifera.
S. Franciscus declarat hanc doctrinam salutiferam in capitulo nono Regule, dicens:
‘Moneo quoque et exortor eosdem fratres, ut in predicatione quam faciunt sint
examinata et casta eorum eloquia, ad utilitatem et edificationem populi, annun-
tiando eis vitia et virtutes, penam et gloriam.’ Hic ponit S. Franciscus duo nota-
bilia. Primum notabile, quod predicatores ante predicationem debent examinare
independent treatises of moral theology, Giacomo produced in the

course of his preaching career a range of sermon manuscripts147 from
which he himself eventually distilled more or less finalised cycles of
eorum eloquia, quod sint casta sicut eloquia Dei; Psalmus [11,7] ‘Salvum me fac:
Eloquia Domini eloquia casta: argentum igne examinatum, purgatum septuplum.’
Id est septem examinationes quas debet habere predicator veritatis: Prima, quod
non sit in eius verbis aliquod verbum contra fidem. Secundo, non scandalizosum
contra proximum, verbis simulatis infamando aliquem, vel ex invidia vel odio unus
predicator contra alium, quia tales de predicationibus Dei effecti sunt predicatores
blasfemie. (. . .) Tertio, quod non predicet per avaritiam vel per salarium. S. Paulus
nolebat quod fierent collectas in predicatione (. . .) Quarto, non predicet adulando,
ut placeat populo. Unde Ysaie (. . .) Quinto, non predicent res inutiles sibi et pop-
ulo. Unde Ysidorus (. . .). Sexto, non predicent subtilia, que non possunt capi a
populo, sed ut se ostendat valentem hominem. Unde Ieronimus (. . .) Septimo, quod
predicatio sua non sit contra seipsum cum mala vita. Unde Paulus ad Romanos 2
cap. 21–22, inquit: ‘Quid ergo alium doces, et teipsum non doces? (. . .) Secundum
notabile de S. Francisco. Quod sunt quatuor: Primum predicare contra vitia; secun-
dum predicare virtutes; tertium penam; quartum gloriam vite eterne. c.) Tertio,
perseverantia. Numquam defecit expugnare divinas offensas; numquam defecit
dirigere devios ad vitam eternam; numquam defecit defensare Ecclesiam Dei;
numquam defecit manifestare gloriam Dei. Sicut Angelus in celo, et ille in terra: et ideo
honoratus est coram Deo et hominibus (. . .)’, ed. Pacetti, AFH 36 (1943), 84ff.
147
An exhaustive listing of all his works is made in Dionysius Lasic, De Vita et
Operibus S. Iacobi de Marchia. Studium et Recensio Quorundam Textum (Falconara, 1974).
Among these, we can single out the following sermon cycles:
1.) Sermones Quadragesimales, attested in the manuscripts Foligno, Biblioteca Comunale
C.A.IX.i.ii (103 sermons. Cf. R. Lioi, ‘I ‘Sermones Quadragesimales’ di S.G. della
Marca in un codice della Biblioteca comunale di Foligno’, Annali del Pontificio Istituto
Superiore Scienze e Lettere S. Chiara 10 (1960), 37–137); Rome, Biblioteca Angelica 187
(Cf. Pacetti, ‘I sermoni quaresimali di S. G. della Marca contenuti nel codice 187
della Bibl. Angelica di Roma’, AFH 46 (1953), 302–340); Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 1239
ff. 38–48, 85v–87v; Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 7488 ff. 116r–158; Rome, BAV Vat.Lat.
7642 (123 sermons, of which nos. 21–123 are the same as in the Foligno manu-
script. It would seem that this Vatican manuscript represents a copy of a more or
less final version of this Quadragesimale cycle. The manuscript has received a descrip-
tion in Dionysius Lasic, ‘Sermones S. Iacobi de Marchia in cod. Vat.Lat. 7780 et
7642 asservati’, AFH 63 (1970), 476–565 (516–565). The Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 7642
collection, which has an extensive tabula sermonum (not alphabetical but following the
Sun- and weekdays for which the sermons are meant) on ff. 246r–v, contains 123
sermons on religion instruction in the quaresimal period); Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale
VII.G.7 ff. 218r–253v (19 quadragesimal sermons); Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale
VII.C.56 ff. 18a; Barcelona, Biblioteca Central Cod. 641 ff. 122r–176v (15 quadra-
gesimal sermons); Venice, Bibliotheca Monasterii S. Michaelis Cod. 324; Pavia, Bibl.
Univ. cod. 1851 ff. 81v–83v (De confessione, same sermon as MS Rome, BAV Vat.Lat.
7642 ff. 21r–23r. This sermon on confession is also found in several vernacular
Italian versions in MSS Ascoli Piceno, Archivio Notarile Bastard ff. 188–194;
Falconara M. (Ascona), Biblioteca Francescana 33 ff. 1–20; Florence, Bibioteca
Nazionale 1176; Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 341 (K-III-7) ff. 132r–156r; Perugia,
Biblioteca Comunale G-78 ff. 108r–114r; Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale 2806 ff.
1r–12r; Trento, Bibioteca dei Frati Minori 301).
2.) Sermones Domenicales. Cf. Renato Lioi, ‘Tecnica e continuto dei sermoni di
58 chapter one
Sermones Quadragesimales148 and Sermones Dominicales.149 These are Latin

model sermons for fellow preachers, following the main rules of the
Artes Praedicandi. They bear no direct relation with his vernacular
preaching style.150 Nevertheless, they express Giacomo’s themes of
reform151 and his catechistic programme of religious instruction, which
S. Giacomo della Marca’, PS 10 (1973), 99–138 (esp. 119f ). Several versions can
be found in the manuscripts Monteprandone, Archivio Municipale 38; Naples,
Biblioteca Nazionale V.H.270 ff. 93r–192r (28 sermones domenicales); Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale VII.C.56 ff. 18r–124v; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale V.H.382 ff. 148d–171b;
Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria 1851 (some individual sermones domenicales among
other sermon texts); Falconara (Ancona), Biblioteca Francescana Cod. I (possibly
an autograph manuscript, containing 101 sermons. On f. 1r, we read: ‘Incipiunt
sermones dominicales utilissimi, predicabiles, per totum annum, conpilati per exim-
ium ac illustratissimum predicatorem fratrem Iacobum de Marchia ordinis beati
seraphici Francisci . . .’); Biblioteca Casanatense Cod. 876 ff. 327a–339b (five ser-
mones domenicales); Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 7780 (an autograph manuscript, with added
modern folio numbers, described in Lasic, ‘Sermones S. Iacobi de Marchia in cod.
Vat.Lat. 7780 et 7642 asservati’, 476–515).
3.) Liber Praedicationum & Liber alius Praedicationum: Cf. Lasic, De Vita et Operibus,
190–193; D. Pacetti, ‘Le prediche autografe di S. Giacomo della Marca (1393–1476)’,
AFH 35 (1942), 296–327 & 36 (1943), 75–97 (= edition of the sermon De S. Bernardino).
4.) Varia, such as a Sermo de XII Periculis; Sermo de Annuntiatione Virginis; Sermo de
Corona Animae; Sermo de Missa; Sermo de Unitate Ecclesiae. Cf. Lasic, De Vita et Operibus,
180–181, 188–190, 229–230.
148
The Sermones Quadragesimales still await their first critical edition. See the pre-
vious note for the known manuscripts.
149
Sermones Dominicales, ed. Renato Lioi, 4 Vols. (Falconara Maritima, 1978–1982).
This edition, which takes MS Falconara (Ancona), Biblioteca francescana Cod. I
and MS Monteprandone 38 as its point of departure, contains 99 sermons. In addi-
tion, the edition contains in an appendix to volume III a Sermo de malignitate peccati
mortalis, a Sermo de mirabili virtute patientie, and a Sermo de mirabili gloria et beneficio angelo-
rum erga homines.
150
For the latter, we might refer to the surviving reportationes of two sermons held
at Padua in 1460, namely the Predica/Panegirico in onore di S. Bernardino, ed. D. Pacetti,
AFH 36 (1943), 75–97 & ed. C. Delcorno in Idem, ‘Due prediche volgari di Jacopo
della Marca recitate a Padova nel 1460’, Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti
128 (Venice, 1970), 135–205 (a reportatio in the Venetian dialect), and the Predica
sulla bestemmia, which also has been edited in the just-mentioned work of Delcorno.
For other editions of individual sermons and additional information, see: ‘Sermo S.
Jacobi de Marchia de Excellentia Ordinis S. Francisci (ex codice autographo)’, ed.
Nicolaus Dal Gal, AFH 4 (1911), 303–313; Sermo Secretus ad Clerum, ed. D. Pacetti,
CF 11 (1941), 208–222 (In this sermon, held in the context of his function of exam-
inator of the clergy, Giacomo complains that he has found preachers who were
ignorant and did not know the ten commandments and the articles of faith); CF
11 (1941), 7–34, 185–222; AFH 35 (1942), 296–327; AFH 36 (1943), 75–97; La
Venezia Francescana 20 (1953), 18–50 (Sermo in onore di S. Bernardino, Padua 1460); SF
41 (1944), 27–39 (Sermo de Indulgentia Assisii ); AFH 45 (1952), 171–192; AFH 46
(1953), 302–340; AFH 48 (1955), 131–146; AFH 49 (1956), 17–76, 391–433; AFH
50 (1957), 27–74; Annali (. . .) S. Chiara 10 (1960), 37–137; SF 58 (1961), 3–61.
151
For more information on these and related issues, see Giuseppe Caselli, Studi
emphasises the sacrament of confession,152 the necessity of prayer

(with a special focus on the Pater Noster),153 and the Christian edu-
cation of children.154
su S. Giacomo della Marca pubblicati in occasione del Il Centenario della sua canonizzazione,
2 Vols. (Ascoli Piceno-Offida, 1926); Dionisio Pacetti, ‘I Sermones Domenicales di
Giacomo della Marca in un codice autografo del convento Francescano di Falconara’,
CF 11 (1941), 7–34, 185–222; Idem, ‘L’importanza dei “Sermones” di S. Giacomo
della Marca’, SF 39,3–4 (1942), 135–166; Idem, ‘Predica in onore di S. Bernardino
recitato a Padova nel 1460 da S. Giacomo della Marca’, Le Venezie Francescane 20,1
(1953), 18–50; Idem, ‘Le prediche autografe di S. Giacomo della Marca (1393–1476)
con un saggio delle medisime’, AFH 35 (1942), 296–327, 36 (1943), 75–97; Renato
Lioi, ‘I “Sermones Quadragesimales” di S.G. della Marca in un codice della bib-
lioteca comunale di Foligno’, Annali del Pontificio Istituto Superiore Scienze e Lettera ‘S.
Chiara’ 10 (Naples, 1961), 36–137; Idem, ‘Tecnica e contenuto dei sermoni di S.
Giacomo della Marca’, PS 10 (1973), 99–138; Lasic, De vita et operibus S. Iacobi de
Marchia, passim; U. Picciafuoco, Giacomo de Marchia (194–1450). Uomo di cultura-apos-
tolo-operatore sociale-taumaturgo del sec. XV (Monteprandone, 1976); A. Gattucci, ‘I
“Sermones dominicales” di S. Giacomo della Marca’, PS 15 (1979–1980); E. Tassi,
‘La predicazione antiusura di S. Giacomo della Marca e dei frati dell’Osservanza
a Fermo’, Quaderni dell’Archivio storico arcivescovile di Fermo 12 (1991), 55–75; San Giacomo
nella sua Marca, ed. Silvano Bracci (Monteprandone, 1996); San Giacomo della Marca
nell’Europa del’400. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi. Monteprandone, 7–10 settembre
1994, ed. Silvano Bracci, Centro Studi Antoniani 28 (Padua, 1997); Silvano Bracci,
‘Giacomo della Marca (1393–1476)’, in: Mistici francescani III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999),
801–813; Marco Mazzanti, Il matrimonio e la famiglia nei ‘Sermones domenicales’ di
S. Giacomo della Marca. Aspetti teologico-pastorali della predicazione francescana del sec. XV
(Diss.) (Rome, 1998).
152
A good example from the edited Sermones Dominicales is Sermo 25 de sacramento
confessionis (for Dominica Le), which contains ‘sex articulos utilissimos’: quid est peni-
tentia (interpreted as the sacrament of penance or confession, consisting of the con-
tritio cordis, the confessio oris and the satisfactio operis), qualiter debet se preparare ad
confessionem (ten ways to prepare oneself ), utrum necesse sit confiteri circumstan-
tias (reaching back to the popular ‘versus’: quis, que, ubi, per quos, quotiens, cur, quo-
modo, quando, quilibet observet anime medicamina dando), ut sit preceptum confiteri peccata
(showing that that the confession of sins is a preceptum divinum et apostolicum), quot
modis non est quis absolutus (19 cases in which absolution can not be granted),
utrum sit absolutus de quibus sacerdos non habet auctoritatem (an interesting point
in the face of the conflicts between mendicants and secular priests, and implicitly
walking a fine line between basing sacramental efficacy totally on the priest’s medi-
atory function and on his personal merit (in)validating the sacrament).
153
Hence, Sermo 49 de septem petitionibus et oratione dominica (for Dominica 5a pro Pasca),
explains that the Pater Noster as an oratio perfecta contains ‘tria meritoria’, namely the
orationis breviatio, the benevolentie captatio, and the honesta conclusio petitionum. Giacomo
makes it clear from the outset that the concise nature of the Pater Noster agrees with
the apostolic statement ‘verbum abreviatum fecit Deum super terram (which, as we
have seen before, played a role in the original Franciscan attitude to preaching).
In fact: ‘Nulla quippe oratio tam brevis in tota divina Scriptura reperiri potest, nec
tam sancta sicut sanctum Pater noster. Et hoc ex multis de causis. Primo, ut ab
omnibus sciatur; secundo, ut melius memoretur; tertio, ut frequenter dicatur; quarto,
ut orans tedio non afficiatur; quinto, ut nemo de eius ignorantia excusetur; sexto, ut
Dominus cito exaudire ostendatur; septimo, ut magis corde quam ore legi debeatur.’
60 chapter one
In 1456, Giacomo had among his audience the young law stu-
dent Martino Tomitano da Feltre. Inspired by Giacomo’s words, this
student took the Observant Franciscan habit in the Venetian province,
changing his name into Bernardino. His preaching career started in
1469. Then, as an exercise to overcome his shyness to speak in front
of others, he was asked to give a public sermon on the feast day of
Bernardino da Siena. From that occasion onwards, Bernardino da
Feltre developed himself into a highly acclaimed preacher, who
worked in nearly all the important urban centres of Italy. Although
he was a famous preacher during his lifetime, it was for a long time
impossible to trace his written sermons.155 However, in 1937 Carlo
After the benevolentie captatio, which deals with the approach of God in the statement
‘Pater noster qui es in caelis’, Giacomo analyses at large the meaning of the seven
petitiones included in the Pater Noster text: ‘Tertia vero principalis continet septem
petitiones, videlicet: prima, Patris honorificationem; secunda, sui glorificationem, ibi:
adveniat; tertia, divine voluntatis, ibi: fiat voluntas tua; quarta, necessitatum corporal-
ium subventionem, ibi: panem; quinta, peccatorum remissionem, ibi: dimicte nobis;
sexta, temptationis ansiationem, ibi: et ne nos; septima, a morte eterna liberationem,
ibi: sed libera nos.’ Sermones Doninicales, ed. Lioi, II, 258ff.
154
Cf. the Sermo 81 de doctrina puerorum (for Dominica 15), in: Sermones Dominicales,
ed. Lioi, III, 145ff. In seven articles, this sermon explains: ‘qualiter instruendi sint
pueri circa fidem et sacramenta, qualiter instruendi sint circa sensus, qualiter instru-
endi sint circa potum et cibum, qualiter instruendi sint circa coniugia, qualiter instru-
endi sint circa ludum gestum et vestitum, qualiter instruendi sint circa societatem.’
The first article urges: ‘Primo, erudire illos de articulis fidei, ut sint veri christiani
et discernantur a paganis. (. . .) continetur quod patres spirituales et matres tenen-
tur docere filios suos spirituales cognoscere Deum, servare castitatem, diligere iusti-
tiam, tenere caritatem et Pater noster et articulos fidei eosdem perfecte docere.
Secundo, assuefacere eos ad minus in septennio et ante et post ad confessionem et
ecclesiarum visitationem, ut devotos et reverentes circa spiritualia se habeant. Et in
hoc multum videntur pater et mater cum maiorem curam habeant circa porcellum
quam circa filios (. . .) Tertio debent docere eos super omnia Deum timere, Deum
amare, Deum cognoscere et ipsum sequi (. . .)’ In this, as in the other articles,
Giacomo unfolds a proverbial Observant programme of education, reminiscent of
the larger contemporary Observant treatises that dealt with comparable issues.
155
Several of his other surviving works will be dealt with elsewhere. For more
information on Bernardino da Feltre and his works, see especially A. Ghinato, ‘Ebrei
e predicatori francescani in Verona nel secolo XV’, AFH 50 (1957), 236–244;
N. Vian, ‘Il beato Bernardino da Feltre in edizione e studi recenti’, RSCI 24 (1970),
193–203; V. Meneghin, Bernardino da Feltre e i Monti di Pietà (Vicenza, 1974);
M. Giuseppina Muzzarelli, ‘Appunti per un’ analisi della struttura del ‘Sermones’
di Bernardino da Feltre’, RSCI 32 (1978), 153–180; R. Segre, ‘Bernardino da Feltre,
i monti di Pietà e i banchi ebraici’, Rivista della Storica Italiana 90 (1978), 818–833;
M. Monaco, ‘Aspetti di vita privata e pubblica nelle città italiane centro-settentrio-
nale durante il XV secolo nelle prediche del beato Bernardino da Feltre frances-
cano dell’Osservanza’, in: L’uomo e la storia. Studi storici in onore di Massimo Petrocchi
(Rome, 1983) I, 77–196; Giampaolo Paludet, Bernardino da Feltre, piccolo e poverello.
Nel quinto centenario del beato transito 1494 –1994, Libreria Internazionale Edizioni
Varischi da Milano unearthed two of Bernardino’s sermon cycles: a

Quadragesimale based on Bernardino Tomitano’s preaching activities
in Pavia (1493)156 and an Advent cycle based on Bernardino Tomitano’s
preaching activities in Brescia (1493).157
These surviving sermons show that, following in the footsteps of
his Franciscan Observant predecessors, Bernardino Tomitano da
Feltre was an important promotor of frequent confession, Eucharist
devotion, the devotion towards the holy name of Jesus, the immac-
ulate conception of Mary, and the cult of St. Joseph. Like many of
Francescane (Venice, 1993); A. Luise, Alza la voce come una bella tromba. Aspetti dell
predicazione del beato Bernardino da Feltre (Belluno, 1994); Edoardo Marcellino Ripamonti,
Bernardino da Feltre ‘Piccolino e poverello’ (Feltre 1439–Pavia, 1494), Edizioni Biblioteca
Francescana (Milan, 1994); Bernardino da Feltre a Pavia. La predicazione e la fondazione
del Monte di Pietà, ed. R. Crotti Pasi. Atti della giornata di studio, Palazzo centrale
dell’Università, Aula Foscoliana, Pavia, 30 ottobre 1993 (Como, 1994); Roberto
Zavalloni, ‘Bernardino da Feltre (1439–1494)’, Mistici francescani III: Secolo XV (Milan,
1999), 841–844.
156
The Sermones Quadragesimales quos Predicavit in Civitatem Papie anno Domini MCC-
CCLXXXXIII, consisting of 78 sermons, have been published between 1940 and
1964 in: Sermoni del beato Bernardino Tomitano da Feltre nella redazione di fra Bernardino
Bulgarino da Brescia, minore osservante. Il Quaresimale di Pavia del 1493, ed. Carlo Varischi
da Milano, I (Milano, 1940); Sermoni del beato Bernardinus Tomatino da Feltre nella
redazione di fra Bernardino Bulgarino da Brescia, minore osservante, 3 Vols, ed. Carlo Varischi
(Milan, 1964), Vol. I & II, 7–460.
157
The Sermones de Adventu (33 sermons, Brescia, 1493) have been published in:
Sermoni del beato Bernardinus Tomatino da Feltre nella redazione di fra Bernardino Bulgarino
da Brescia, minore osservante, 3 Vols., ed. C. Varischi (Milan, 1964), III. Several Sermoni
varii (8 sermons) can be found in the same edition, Vol. II, 461–537. For an eval-
uation of the editions by Varischi, editions of additional sermons and remarks on
manuscripts, see Cinque Prediche di Bernardino da Feltre e Michele da Milano, ed. M. da
Civezza (Prato, 1896); V. Meneghin, ‘Due sermoni inediti del B. Bernardino da
Feltre’, SF 61 (1964), 212–261; F. Casolini, ‘Sermoni del B. Bernardino da Feltre
nella monumentale edizione milanese’, Frate Francescano 32 (1965), 82–84; V. Meneghin,
‘I sermoni del B. Bernardino da Feltre nella loro recente edizione’, AFH 59 (1966),
141–157; N. Vian, ‘Il beato Bernardino da Feltre in edizione e studi recenti’, RSCI
24 (1970), 193–203; P. de Alcántara Martinez, ‘Dos sermones inéditos sobre S. José
del beato Bernardino de Feltre’, AFH 71 (1978), 65–111 (a study and edition of
the Sermones de S. Joseph, found in MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale V.H. 125 ff.
14r–21v). Bernardino’s sermon ‘Fulcite me Floribus’ can be found in Cinque prediche
a monache di due celebri Francescani del sec. XV (Prato, 1881). On his Sermo de sacratis-
sima Virgine Dei Genetrice Maria, found in MS Pavia, Bib. Univ. 2094 f. 235r (Prologus),
and on his two Sermones de seraphico P.N. Francisco, found in MS Pavia, Bib. Univ.,
2094 ff. 342r–3r & 343v–4v, see: V. Doucet, ‘De operibus manuscriptis fr. Petri
Joan. Olivi in Bibliotheca Universitatis Patavinae Asservatis’, AFH 28 (1935), 181.
An Italian Predica alle persone che desiderano imparara la via del Paradiso, found in MS
Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana E.I.3, 4 was printed early on as the Predica devotis-
sima del B. Bernardino Tomatino da Feltre (Venezia, 1557). For another surviving ver-
nacular sermon, see C. Piana, ‘Un sermone sconosciuto del B. Bernardino da Feltre,
tenuto a religiose’, SF 12/37 (1940), 53–71.
62 chapter one
his fellow Franciscan Observant colleagues, but more harsh than

some of them, Bernardino da Feltre had an outspoken tendency to
preach about socio-religious themes (such as celibacy, matrimony,
and the fight against the ‘mortal sin’ of extra-marital fornication),
the proper nature of Christian family life (stressing the hierarchical
relation between the husband (depicted as the head of the house-
hold), his wife, and his children), the proper behaviour and obliga-
tions of women as Christian virgins, wives, mothers and widows (in
the course of which Bernardino at times exhibited strong misogynist
streaks), the moral and religious education of children inside and
outside the family, the pernicious influence of games, plays and other
forms of entertainment, and the responsibility of urban authorities
for social and religious ‘peace and justice.’ Many of Bernardino da
Feltre’s sermons, as well as his propaganda leaflets in favour of the
montes de pietà express a vehement hatred towards the Jews. In his
preaching, Bernardino repeatedly aroused his public to take (violent)
action against them (to such an extent that local authorities saw
themselves forced to appeal to Bernardino’s superiors, asking them
to keep him in check).158
One of Bernardino da Feltre’s most colourful contemporaries was
Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce (c. 1425–1495), who from 1448 onwards
celebrated great successes as an Observant preacher (and gave the
official eulogy during the canonisation ceremonies for Bernardino da
Siena in 1450). Yet in 1452 Roberto switched to the Conventuals,
to continue his preaching career outside the Observant fold, thus
fuelling the feud between these rivalling branches of the order.
Roberto was quick to see the possibilities of the printing press, and
personally oversaw the publication of his treatises of moral theology
and of his manifold sermon collections, which within a few genera-
tions went through more than 100 editions all over Europe, and
even today can be found with relative ease.159 In this way, Roberto
158
Cf. Vian, ‘Il beato Bernardino da Feltre in edizione e studi recenti’, 196f. In
this he too followed in the footsteps of Bernardino da Siena. See Nirit Ben-Aryeh
Debby, ‘Jews and Judaism in the rhetoric of popular preachers: The Florentine ser-
mons of Giovanni Dominici (1345–1419) and Bernardino da Siena (1380–1444)’,
Jewish History 14 (2000), 175–200.
159
Several collections produced during Roberto’s lifetime and shortly thereafter
contain a selection of his various sermon cycles. Among these, we can for instance
single out the Opera Varia (Venice, 1479 & 1496/Lyon, 1500). Aside from such
selective omnibus editions, we can point to the following individual cycles: 1.) Opus
Caracciolo became one of the most renowned Franciscan preachers

of his time, and also a privileged object of scorn for sixteenth-century
humanists and Lutheran reformers.160
Before and after his transfer to the Conventuals, Roberto regarded
himself a pupil of Bernardino da Siena and a practitioner of the
‘Bernardine’ school of preaching.161 This shows most clearly in
Roberto’s early Quadragesimale Padovano and in his Quadragesimale de
Poenitentia, both of which have endured in a decent number of man-
uscripts alongside of their manifold early editions,162 and nicely illustrate
Quadragesimale de Poenitentia, ed. Johannes de Colonia & Johan Manthen de Gherretzem

(Strasbourg, s.a./Venice, 1472/Venice, 1476). For information on manuscripts and
additional editions of this cycle see Zawart, ‘The History of Franciscan Preaching
and Franciscan Preachers’, 295–298; Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke VI, 132–188;
S. Bastanzio, Fra Roberto Caracciolo, predicatore del sec. xv, vescovo di Aquino e Lecce (Isola
del Liri, 1947), passim; Z. Zafarana, ‘Caracciolo Roberto’, DBI XIX (1976), 446–452;
2.) Quadragesimale de Peccatis (Venice, 1488/Lyon, 1488); 3.) Sermones per Adventum seu
Collecta Magistralia per Adventum (Venice, 1474–1475/Neurenberg, 1478/Strasbourg,
ca. 1480); 4.) Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum (Naples, 1489/Venice: J. Rubeus, 1489);
5.) Sermones Tres de Annunciatione (Cologne, 1475). These annunciation sermons can
also be found in some editions of the Opus Quadragesimale de Poenitentia; 6.) Sermones
de Timore Divinorum Iudiciorum (Naples, 1473/Nurenberg, Friedrich Creussner, 1479).
For some recent editions of Roberto’s sermons, see: Quaresimale Padovano, ed. Oriana
Visana, Il Santo 23 (Padua, 1983); R. Caracciolo, Opere in volgare, ed. E. Esposito
(Galatina, 1993). Cf. the review of Oriana Visani in Lettere Italiane 46,1 (1994),
173–180.
160
E.-V. Telle, ‘En marge de l’éloquence sacrée aux XV e–XVI e siècles. Erasme
et fra Roberto Caracciolo’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 43 (1981), 449–470.
161
In his Sermo de Sancto Bernardino, Roberto mentions a large number of renowned
Franciscan preachers who stood in this ‘Bernardine’ tradition: ‘Quin imo et si qui
post ipsum in officio predicandi clari sunt habiti ut fratres Joannes de Capistrano,
Jacobus de Marchia, Mattheus de Sicilia, Antonius de Botonto, Andreas de Sancto
Geminio, Joannes de Prato, Jacobus de Doncellis de Bononia, Herculanus de Perusio,
Franciscus de Trevio, Silvester de Senis, Antonius de Ariminio, Michael de Mediolano,
Bartholomeus de Ayano, Antonius de Vercellis, Seraphinus de Gaieta, Cherubinus
de Spoleto, Franciscus de Spoleto, Hieronimus de Florentia, Dominicus de Gonessa,
Jacobus de Gallio: omnes fratres minores in hoc genere dicendi famosissimi et
quicumque alii etiam de aliis ordinibus mendicantium pro maiori parte conati sunt
imitari modum et regulam atque stilum ipsius sancti Bernardini (. . .) Ego etiam
(. . .) Bernardinum habui in stilo pronunciandi necnon scribendi patrem et precep-
torem . . .’ Robertus Caracciolus, Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum (Venice, 1489),
f. 200. Cited from Michele Monaco, ‘Aspetti di vita privata e pubblica nelle citta’
italiane centro-settentrionali durante il XV secolo nelle prediche del beato Bernardino
da Feltre Francescano dell’Osservanza’, in: L’Uomo e la storia. Studi storici in onore di
Massimo Petrocchi, Storia e letteratura. Raccolta di studi e testi 153 (Rome, 1983),
77–196, 88–89.
162
For the Quadragesimale Padovano, see MSS Venice, Biblioteca Francescana di
S. Michele in Isola IV,11; Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria Aldini 408; Falconara,
Archivio dei Frati Minori delle Marche 19; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.D.22;
64 chapter one
Roberto’s techniques of religious instruction with their predilection for

penitential issues and the use of threatening eschatological themes in
order to entice the public to repent and to lead a proper Christian life.163
In contrast with these above-mentioned friars, whose works are
relatively easy to find, many other frontrunners of the Italian Obser-
vance renowned for their lengthy preaching tours and for their large
production of written sermon materials, have not been so lucky. This
implies that a lot of scholarly work still lies ahead of us. Strangely
enough, this even holds true for the sermons of Giovanni da Capistrano
(1386–1456), the most renowned Italian Franciscan Observant friar
after Bernardino da Siena, and a driving force behind the expansion
of an independent regular Observant branch both within and out-
side the Italian peninsula. Giovanni da Capistrano’s well-organised
preaching missions in the German Empire and Poland between 1451–
54 (with twelve Franciscan helpers and a host of interpreters) have
become legendary, as have his anti-heretical and crusade preaching
rallies in Italy, Bohemia and Hungary (some of which were con-
nected with his inquisitorial tasks).164
Milan, Ambrosiana V 27 sup; Munich, Universitätsbibliothek 2° cod., ms 123;

Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria 1792; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana 436; Monteprandone,
Archivio Comunale 44; Pistoia, Biblioteca Comunale Forteguerriana D.29. The
Quadragesimale de Poenitentia can be found in MSS Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria
806; Foligno, Biblioteca Iacobilli latino C.VIII 16; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Clm. 13412; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 18319; Paterson, St. Antony
Franciscan Convent Library codex latina sine sign.; Berkeley, Bancroft Library UCB
89; Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria Aldini 408 (this manuscripts also contains the
Quadragesimale Padovano and, on ff. 235r–252r, several sermons from Michele Carcano’s
Tractatus de Inferno); Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale Gesuitico 453.
163
For a first introduction to Roberto Caracciolo’s life and works, see S. Bastanzio,
Fra Roberto Caracciolo, predicatore del sec. xv, vescovo di Aquino e Lecce (d. 1495) (Isola del
Liri, 1947); L. Gatto, ‘I temi escatologici nelle prediche di Roberto Caraccioli da
Lecce’, in: L’attesa dell’età nuova nella spiritualità della fine del medioevo (Todi, 1962),
249–261; M. Semeraro, ‘Fra Roberto Caracciolo e gli Ebrei’, in: Idem, Studi storici
(Bari, 1974), 43–60; Z. Zafarana, ‘Caracciolo Roberto’, DBI XIX (1976), 446–452;
C. Piana, ‘Scritti polemici tra Conventuali ed Osservanti a metà del ’400 con la
partecipazione dei giuristi secolari’, AFH 71 (1978), 339–405; Oriana Visani Ravaioli,
‘Un nuovo testimone del Quaresimale padovano del 1455 di Roberto da Lecce’, Il
Santo 2nd ser. 30, 2–3 (1990), 157–179; Idem, ‘Testimonianze della predicazione di
Roberto da Lecce a Padova’, in: Predicazione francescana e società veneta nel quattrocento,
2nd ed. (Padua, 1995), 185–220; Angelo Bardelloni, ‘Celestino V nelle prediche di
Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce’, in: S. Pietro Celestino nel settimo centenario dell’elezione
pontificia, ed. Biancamaria Valeri (Casamari, 1995), 85–97; M. Bigaroni, ‘B. Francesco
Beccaria da Pavia e fra Roberto Caracciolo. Precisazioni cronologiche’, AFH 89
(1996), 251–262; Oriana Visani Ravaioli, ‘Roberto Caracciolo e i sermonari del
secondo Quattrocento’, Franciscana 1 (1999), 275–317.
164
For an introduction to Giovanni’s life and works, see especially E. Jacob,
To the extent that we are able to access Giovanni’s sermons,165 it

seems beyond doubt that he frequently preached on the articles of
faith, not only in front of Christians in need of catechistic instruction
but also in front of Jewish audiences, as is indicated by several of
his sermons held during his German preaching tours. The latter were
obliged to attend sermons of religious instruction by Christian preach-
ers, so that they would see the ‘error of their ways’. On top of these
Johannes von Capistrano I Teil: Das Leben und Wirken Capistranos (Breslau, 1903); J. Hofer,
Johannes Kapistran. Ein Leben im Kampf um die Reform der Kirche, ed. O. Bonmann,
Bibliotheca Franciscana 1, 2 Vols. (Rome-Heidelberg, 1964–1965); Giovanni da
Capestrano dalla storia della Chiesa alla storia d’Europa. Studi in occasione delle celebrazioni
nel VI centenario della nascita di S. Giovanni da Capestrano, francescano e europeo di sei
secoli fa (Bologna, 1986); S. Giovanni da Capestrano nella Chiesa e nella Società del suo
Tempo. Atti del Convegno storico internazionale ott. 1986, ed. E. & L. Pásztor (L’Aquila,
1989) (esp. the article of K. Elm, ‘Die Bedeutung Johannes Kapistrans und der
Franziskanerobservanz für die Kirche des 15. Jahrhunderts’, 375–390); A. Forni &
P. Vian, ‘Per un’edizione delle opere di S. Giovanni da Capestrano. Il Quaresimale’,
in: Santità e spiritualità francescana fra i secoli XV e XVII, Atti del Convegno Storico Internazionale,
L’Aquila, 26–27 ottobre 1990 (L’Aquila, 1991), 127–162; Ovidio Capitani, ‘La figura
da Capestrano alla luce dei problemi del suo tempo’, in: La presenza francescana tra
medioevo e modernità, ed. A. Chessa & M. Poli (Florence, 1996), 125–134; Roberto
Zavalloni, ‘Giovanni da Capestrano (d. 1456)’, in: Mistici francescani III: Secolo XV
(Milan, 1999), 769–796; S. Giovanni da Capistrano: un bilancio storiografico. Atti del Convegno
Storico Internazionale. Capestrano, 15–16 maggio 1998, ed. Edith Pásztor, Quaderni di
provincia oggi, 30 (L’Aquila, 1999).
165
The best overview of Giovanni da Capistrano’s sermon manuscripts is given
in Lucianus Luszcki, De sermonibus S. Ioannis a Capistrano. Studium historico-criticum,
Studia Antoniana, 16 (Rome, 1961), which also offers us a chronological and the-
matical listing of sermons held by Capistrano between 1451 and 1453 in the German
and Polish lands. Most of his sermons are available in old editions, the content of
which has not yet been sufficiently studied. Around 1700, stimulated by Giovanni
da Capistrano’s canonisation, many of his works were gathered in sixteen volumes
by Antonio da Sessa. This collection apparently did not reach the printing press.
For a more or less complete overview of old collections and editions, see Zawart, ‘The
History of Franciscan Preaching and Franciscan Preachers’, 353–354; A. Chiappini,
La produzione letteraria di S. Giovanni da Capestrano (Gubbio, 1927), a work which was
also published in parts in MF 24 (1924), 109–149, 25 (1925), 157–198, 26 (1926),
52–66, & 27 (1927), 54–104; Luszczki, De sermonibus S. Ioannis a Capistrano II, 189–297.
A few of his sermons have been edited in more recent times: Speculum Clericorum sive
Sermo ad Clerum in Synodo Tridentina, ed. E. Jacob, in Idem, Johannes von Kapistran
(Breslau, 1905), II/1; Sermones duo Lipsienses, ed. E. Jacob, in: Idem, Johannes von
Capistrano II/2 (Breslau, 1907), 7–12, 21–23; Sermones in Synodo Wratislaviensi anno
1453, ed. E. Jacob, in: Idem, Johannes von Capistrano II/1, 412–444; Sermones Quad-
ragesimales Wratislavienses anno 1453, ed, E. Jacob, in: Idem, Johannes von Capistrano
II/3 (Breslau, 1907), 1–214; Sermones Octo Lipsienses, ed. G. Buchwald, in: Idem,
‘Johannes Capistranos Predigten in Leipzig 1452’, Beiträge zur sächsischen Kirchengeschichte
26 (Leipzig, 1913), 125–180; Sermo de S. Bernardino Senensi, ed. Ferdinand Doelle,
AFH 6 (1913), 76–90; Sermones Duo ad Studentes & Epistola Circularis (1444) de Studio
promovendo inter Observantes, ed. A. Chiappini, AFH 11 (1918), 97–131 (the second
sermon edited here probably was not composed by Giovanni da Capestrano).
66 chapter one
sermons on the articles of faith, and on top of his rather vitriolic

sermons on the Hussites and on the necessity of crusade warfare
against the advancing Turks, Giovanni da Capistrano produced many
sermons on penance and confession, on the role of Christ and His
Church in the salvation of mankind, on the intercessory function
of the Virgin Mary, on the approach of the end of time (mainly to
convince people to repent) and on pressing moral and social issues
(such as ‘Jewish’ usury, lack of charity, the reform of family life,
obligations of children and parents, the need for social and political
justice). These topics frequently were linked with the precepts of the
decalogue and discussed with recourse to the dual grid of capital
sins and cardinal virtues.
Many sermon cycles by other leading figures of the regular Observ-
ance in Italy likewise await further editorial attention and analysis;
most pressingly so are the important sermon collections put together
by Antonio da Bitonto (c. 1385–1465), Antonio da Vercelli (c. 1410–
1483), Gabriele Rangone da Verona (1410–1486), Cherubino da Spoleto
(1414–1484), Bernardino da Fossa (1420–1503), Michele Carcano da
Milano (1427–1484), Bernardino Caimi da Milano (fl. ca. 1470), and
Bernardino de Busti (d. 1515).
The first-mentioned of these, friar Antonio da Bitonto, was hailed
alike for his theological knowledge—he taught at various Observant
study houses and eventually received the doctorate by papal bull—
and his preaching skills. During his last years in the Atella friary,
he even developed a reputation as a mystic and thaumaturge. In
between his other works (which earlier bibliographers at times attrib-
uted to Antonio da Matelica), Antonio da Bitonto produced at least
three different sermon cycles: the Sermones Quadragesimales de Vitiis, the
Sermones super Epistolas Domenicales per Totum Annum, and the Sermones
de Privilegiis sanctorum. All of these need further study.166
166
The Sermones Quadragesimales de Vitiis can be found in the manuscripts Bologna,
Bibl. Collegii Hispani 54 ff. 209r–335v; Liège, Bibl. Maioris Seminarii 6.G.23 ff.
15–17; Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana Q.18 Sup (saec XV); Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale Nouv. Acq. Lat. 1078; Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria 1917 f. 24a, 131a;
Rome, BAV Vat. Pal. Lat. 447; Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 1237; Verona, Biblioteca
Comunale 779 [517–519] f. 246a; Volterra, Biblioteca Comunale Guarnacciana 32
(6141) ff. 138–148; Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 255 (K.III.31) f. 27r; Firenze,
Biblioteca Laurenziana Gadd. Plut. 89 Sup. 27; Washington, Holy Name College
22, 32 & 42; Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria 934 (1802) f. 85v. The Sermones Super
Epistolas Domenicales per Totum Annum can be found in manuscripts Munich, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek Clm. 18247; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale 3542; Washington D.C.,
At least as productive was Antonio da Vercelli, vicar of the Milan

Observants in 1367, friend of Lorenzo de Medici,167 and esteemed for
his extended preaching journeys throughout Italy.168 The written sub-
strate of these journeys consists of treatises of moral theology (which
we will encounter in another chapter), two important sermon cycles
(namely the Quadragesimale de XII Mirabilibus Christianae Fidei Excellentiis169
Holy Name College, 42. The Sermones de Privilegiis Sanctorum have been traced in the
manuscripts Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VI.D.68 ff. 1r–80rb & 123v–227a (in the
later folia are found additional sermons on saints, among which a sermon on St.
Anthony, edited in SF 3rd ser. 4 (1932), 510); Hispali, Biblioteca Columbina BB.Tab
145.N.15 ff. 170v–195v; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana Scaff. XX, n. 136; Padua,
Biblioteca Universitaria 599 ff. 122a–136d & 769 ff. 1a–33d; Verona, Biblioteca
Comunale 779 (517–519). It would seem that these three collections did not exhaust
Antonio’s homiletic output, as he is also mentioned as the author of a cycle of
Sermones de Doctrina Ecclesiastica: MSS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 4258; Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale VI.D.68 ff. 81ra–93ra; of the Sermo seu Regulae de Cognitione Peccati Mortalis,
found in MS Basel, Universitätsbibliothek A.XI.62 ff. 56r–69v; and of a group of
Sermones de B. Mariae Virginis Festivitatibus. Several of these collections can also be
found in late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century editions. For more information
on these collections and their manuscripts see in particular A. Gaeta, Antonio da
Bitonto, O.F.M., oratore e teologo del secolo XV (Baronissi, 1952); C. Piana, ‘Fr. Antonius
de Bitonto O.F.M., predicator et scriptor saec XV’, FS 13 (1953), 178–197; Antonio
Castellano, Sulle orme di frate Francesco a Bitonto, Insediamenti Francescani in Puglia
(Bitonto, 1982).
167
Cf. ‘Tre lettere inedite di Fr. Antonio da Vercelli a Lorenzo il Magnifico
(1478)’, ed. B. Bughetti, AFH 10 (1917), 591–592.
168
Information on his preaching in Florence (1464) can be found in the exempla
and the excerpt collection in MS Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 2894 ff. 99v–105v
(Esemplo detto per frate Antonio da Vercieli di Lombardia, osservante di S. Franchiescho, adi 22
maggio 1464. Inc: ‘Legiesi in Vita Patrum che fu l’abate Machario overo Panuzio . . .’.;
expl: ‘per Dio prieghe il signiore che m’ascholti’). For more information on Antonio’s
life and works, see: Wadding, Scriptores, 24; Sbaralea, Supplementum I, 74; O. Schäfer,
‘De fr. Antonio a Vercellis O.F.M., eiusque Quadragesimali de aeternis fructibus
Spiritus Sancti’, AFH 36 (1943), 253–272; B. Luigi, ‘Antonio da Vercelli’, Enciclopedia
Cattolica I (Rome, 1949), 1558; B. von Mehr, ‘Notae über neuere Neiträge zur
Geschichte der vortridentischen Franziskanischen Predigt’, CF 18 (1948), 257–8;
O. Bonmann, ‘‘Memoriale’ Antonii de Vercellis ad Laurentium Magnificum de
Medicis coniuratione pactiana (a. 1478) effectu frustrata’, AFH 43 (1950), 360–410;
L. Spätling, ‘Tractatus pro canonizatione divi Bonaventura a Fr. Antonio de Vercellis
conscriptus’, AFH 48 (1955), 381–397; R. Pratesi, ‘Antonio da Vercelli’, DBI III
(Rome, 1961), 580–581.
169
Some fragments of this Quadragesimale would be present in MSS Naples,
Biblioteca Nazionale VI.F.12 ff. 19v–21v; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.D.22 ff.
128a–130d (?); Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.A.7 ff. 101–102 (?); and Assisi,
Biblioteca Comunale. 443 ff. 162v–167v. It was published repeatedly: Quadragesimale
de XII Mirabilibus Christianae Fidei Excellentiis (Venice: Giovanni & Gregorio de’Gregori,
1492; Venice: Albertinus de Lisona Vercellensis, 1505; Lyon: Nicolaus Chatelanus,
1504). Cf. also C. Cenci, Manoscritti francescani della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli,
Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, VII & VIII (Napoli, 1971) I, 343, 455 & II, 645;
Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke II, 506–7. In the prologue to the 1492 edition, Antonio
68 chapter one
and the Quadragesimale de Aeternis Fructibus Spiritus Sancti ),170 and a

lengthy sermon on confession that just as well can be read as an
independent treatise of moral theology in its own right (Sermone de’
dodici frutti della confessione).171 Whereas all of these sermons testify to
Antonio’s wide reading in theology and law, they also have a strong
catechistic character.172
announces: ‘Et licet quadragesimale istud non sit tante excellentie sicut forte liceret:
respectu ornatus: quia rudi latino et inculto sermone utor. Et respectu sententiarum:
quia respectu ornatus non sum professus talem artem et doctrinam [i.e. artem
rhetoricam], sed magis legem sacri Evangelii et sanctissime charitatis que legi Tuliane.’
170
Quadragesimale de Aeternis Fructibus Spiritus Sancti, found in MS Rome, Biblioteca
Casanatense, 157R (B.III.14), which contains the cycle’ prologue and 61 sermons
from dominica septuagesimae to the feria quinta in Coena Domini; MS Rome, Biblioteca
del Collegio S. Isidoro 1/17–1/57, which also contains the prologue and 17 ser-
mons from dominica septuagesimae to the feria tertia post quinquagesimam; and MS Siena,
Archivio della Asservanza I.
171
Cf. De Duodecim Fructibus Confessionis/Sermone de’ dodici frutti della confessione (Modena:
Dominicus Roccociola, 1491/Parma: Andrea Portilia, 1479); O. Schäfer, ‘De fr.
Antonio a Vercellis O.F.M., eiusque Quadragesimali de aeternis fructibus Spiritus
Sancti’, AFH 36 (1943), 259; Gesamtkalalog. der Wiegendrucke II, 505 (no. 2259).
172
This can easily be illustrated with recourse to the rubrics of the Quadragesimale
de Aeternis Fructibus Spiritus Sancti as found in manuscript Rome, Casanatense 157R
(B.III.14) and presented by Schäfer, ‘De fr. Antonio a Vercellis O.F.M., eiusque
Quadragesimali de aeternis fructibus Spiritus Sancti’, 261ff.: Feliciter incipit. Dominica
in Septuagesima de paucitate electorum et salvandorum in comparatione prescitorum et damnan-
dorum. Sermo primus (ff. 3rb–12ra); Feria II post dominicam Septuagesime de benefactione et
bona operatione necessaria et certitudine prescitorum et damnandorum, necnon electorum et sal-
vandorum. Sermo II (ff. 12ra–24va); Feria 3 post dominicam Septuagesime de magna et numerosa
multitudine hominum electorum a divina clementia glorificandorum in summa patria. Sermo III
(ff. 24va–35ra); Feria 4 post dominicam Septuagesime de indubitabili certitudine eterne felici-
tatis quam contra quorumdam Grecorum et nonnullorum aliorum hereticorum oppinionem conse-
quuntur anime tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti sine suis corporibus etiam ante penale iudicium.
Sermo IV (ff. 35ra–44rb); Feria 5 post dominicam Septuagesime de copiosa mercede et ineffabili
beatitudine electorum. Sermo V (ff. 44rb–64ra); Feria 6 post dominicam Septuagesime. De spi-
rituali scala virtutum cuilibet anime rationali necessaria, ad hoc ut in celum seu paradisum ascen-
dat, ut eterna Dei visione perfruatur. Sermo VI (ff. 64ra–76rb); Sabbato post dominicam
Septuagesime. De pia et credibili atque probabili pietate et bonitate Dei circa salutem et eternam
electionem diversorum infidelium. Sermo VII (ff. 76va–81v); Dominica in Sexagesima. De mirabili
excellentia, fructu et necessitate doctrine evangelice seu divini Verbi. Sermo VIII (ff. 81va–91va);
Feria 2 post dominicam Sexagesime. Iterum de ineffabili excellentia divini verbi. Sermo IX (ff.
91vb–100rb); Feria 3 post dominicam Sexagesime. Iterum de ineffabili excellentia divini verbi.
Sermo X (ff. 100rb–111va); Feria 4 post dominicam Sexagesime. De necessaria sequella et imi-
tatione exterioris vite Salvatoris nostri Xhu Xpi. Sermo XI (ff. 111va–119ra); Feria 5 post
dominicam Sexagesime. De 2 contemplatione sequelle Christi, que dicitur spiritualitatis. In qua
ostenditur, quod Xps septem virtues nobis precipue reliquit imitandas (ff. 119ra–129rb); Feria
6 post dominciam Sexagesime. Rubric fails: yet another sermon on the imitation of the
seven virtues shown to us by Christ (ff. 129rb–136rb); Sabbato post dominicam Sexagesime.
De firma deliberatione et propositio amplius non peccandi, seu a peccatis abstinendi. Sermo XIV
(ff. 136rb–145vb); Dominica in Quinquagesima. De sanctissima caritate erga proximos habenda,
Gabriele Rangone da Verona, a pupil and collaborator of Giovanni

da Capistrano,173 gathered three decades of homiletic experience in his
Flores Paradisi.174 This bouquet of ‘flowers of Paradise’ is a comprehensive
summe omnibus necessaria ad salutem. Sermo XV (ff. 145vb–161ra); Feria 2 post dominicam
Quinquagesime. De infernali scala peccatorum damnandorum et de 12 eius gradibus. Sermo XVI
(ff. 161ra–176v); Feria 3 post dominicam Quinquagesime. De preclara excellentia et necessitate
humani liberique arbitrii. Sermo XVII (ff. 176va–186rb); Feria 4 Cinerum seu feria 4 post
dominicam Quinquagesime. De saluberrima summeque necessaria penitentia peccatorum. Sermo
XVIII (ff. 186rb–192vb); Feria 5 post dominicm Quinquagesime. De 2 contemplatione penitencie
salutaris, que dicitur causalitatis. Sermo XIX (ff. 192vb–204vb); Feria 6 post dominicam
Quinquagesime. De tercia contemplacione penitencie salutaris, que dicitur celeritatis seu de subita
conversione peccatoris ad Deum. Sermo XX (ff. 204vb–219rb); Sabbato post Cineres seu post
dominicam Quinquagesime. De ineffabili benivolentia et ardentissima Dei dilectione erga peccatores
penitentes. Sermo 21 (ff. 219rb–231rb); Dominica I in Quadragesima. De summo odio pecca-
toris contra mortale peccatum ob suam gravitatem a cunctis habendo. Sermo 22 (ff. 231rb–249vb);
Feria 2 post I dominicam Quadragesime. De numerosa multitudine iudicandorum et maledicen-
dorum in finali iudicio. Sermo 23 (ff. 249vb–258va); Feria 3 post I dominicam Xlme. De 2
contemplatione multitudinis iudicandorum et maledicendorum in finali iudicio, que dicitur veritatis.
In qua ostenditur veritas benedicendorum et maledicendorum a Christo. Sermo 24 (ff. 258va–268rb);
Feria 4 post I dominicam Xlme. De 3 contemplatione multitudinis maledicendorum in finali iudi-
cio, que dicitur consummationis. In qua licet novem concurrunt ad hanc consummationem, in pre-
senti tamen sermone tria potissime ponuntur et declarantur. Sermo 25 (ff. 268 rb–279ra); Feria
5 post I dominicm Xlme. Iterum de 3 contemplatione multitudinis maledicendorum in finali iudi-
cio, que dicitur consumationis. In qua ultra tria precedentia 5 alia declarantur, que necessario
concurrunt ad finalis iudicii consumationem. Sermo 26 (ff. 279ra–295va); Feria 6 post I domini-
cam Xlme. Iterum de 3 contemplatione multitudinis maledicendorum in finali iudicio, que dicitur
consumationis. In qua ultra octo precedentia iam declarata, ponitur nunum et ultimum necessa-
rium, quod dicitur irrevocabilis sententia. Sermo 27 (ff. 295va–307ra); Sabbato post I domini-
cam quadragesime de salutifera et summe necessaria peccatorum contricione. Sermo 28 (ff.
307ra–313vb); Dominica II in quadragesima. Iterum de salutifera et cuilibet adulto peccatori
summe necessaria peccatorum contritione. Sermo 29 (ff. 313vb–323ra); Feria 2 post II domini-
cam Xlme. Iterum de salutifera et cuilibet adulto peccatori summe necessaria contritione. Sermo
30 (ff. 323ra–332vb); Feria 3 post II dominicam Xlme. De regulis decem et cognitione pec-
catorum mortalium. Sermo 31 (ff. 332vb–344rb); Feria 4 post II dominicam Xlme. De salu-
berrimo et cunctis fidelibus summe necessario confessionis sacramento. Sermo 32 (ff. 344rb–352vb);
Feria 5 post II dominicam Xlme iterum de saluberrimo et cunctis fidelibus summe necessario con-
fessionis sacramento. Sermo 33 (ff. 352vb–361va); Feria 6 post II dominicam Xlme. Iterum de
saluberrimo confessionis sacramento. Et precipue de condictionibus confessoris eligendi. Sermo 34
(ff. 361va–376ra); Rubric fails: Sabbato post II dominicam Xlme. Sermon on the condi-
ciones ad salutiferam confessionem faciendam necessariae. Sermo 35 (ff. 376ra–385rb); Dominica
III in Xlma. Iterum de saluberrimo confessionis sacramento, videlicet de reliquis sex condicionibus
vere et salutifere confessioni necessariis, que restant declaranda. Sermo 36 (ff. 385rb–394va);
Feria 2 dominice III in Xlma. Iterum de saluberrimo confessionis sacramento de 7 stupendis
fructibus eiusdem confessionis, et potest esse sermo I de 7 fructibus peccata derelinquentium propter
Xpm. Sermo 37 (ff. 394va–401rb); Feria 3 dominice III in Xlma. Iterum de salutifero con-
fessionis sacramento, videlicet de reliquis sex fructibus sacratissime confessionis qui erant declarandi.
Sermo 38 (ff. 401rb–403rb); Feria 4 post III dominicam in Xlma. De scandalo proximorum
a cunctis studiosissime evitando. Sermo 39 (ff. 403va–411va); Feria 5 post III dominicam
Xlme. De triplici adversione seu tribulatione, videlicet corporali, temporali et spirituali, per Dei
amorem patienter tolleranda. Sermo 40 (ff. 411ra–417va); Feria 6 post III dominicam Xlme.
70 chapter one
collection of catechistic sermons, especially written to facilitate

young Franciscan preachers in need of catechistic topics, who did
not have access to a large library or lacked time for lengthy prepa-
Iterum de triplici adversitate patienter propter Deum tolleranda. Et precipue de XII causis que
inducunt unumqquemque omnia adversa libenter ferre. Sermo 41 (ff. 417va–426va); Sabbato
post III dominicam in Xlma. Iterum de reliquis sex inducentibus unumquemque ad patienter omnia
adversa sustinendum et tollerandum. Sermo 42 (ff. 426va–431ra); Dominica IV in Xlma. De
restitutione et satisfactione iniuste ablatorum. Sermo 43 (ff. 431ra–435va); Feria 2 post domini-
cam IV in Xlma. Iterum de restitutione male ablatorum. Sermo 44 (ff. 435va–440vb); Feria
3 post dominicam IV in Xlma. Iterum de restitutione male ablatorum. Sermo 45 (ff. 440vb–444ra);
Feria 4 post IV dominicam Quadragesime. De sanctissime fidei necessitate, unitate et veritate.
Sermo 46 (ff. 444ra–447va); Feria 5 post IV dominicam Quadragesime. Iterum de sanctissima
fide. Sermo 47 (ff. 447va–452ra); Feria 6 post IV dominicam Xlme. Iterum de sanctissima
fide. Sermo 48 (ff. 452ra–465rb); Sabbato post IV dominicam Xlme. De obsequio ac servitute
Creatori nostro ac Redemptori exhibendo. Sermo 49 (ff. 465rb–475vb); Dominica de passione.
De obstinatione peccatorum et de penis eorum. Sermo 50 (ff. 475vb–490ra); Feria 2 post domini-
cam V de Passione. De 12 excellentiis divini amoris. Sermo 51 (ff. 490ra–501va); Feria 3
post V dominicam Xlme. De dilectione proximorum et condictionibus eius. Sermo 52 (ff.
501va–512ra); Feria 4 post dominicam de Passione. Iterum de reliquis sex circumstantiis ad
meritoriam omnium proximorum nostrorum dilectionem necessariis. Sermo 53 (ff. 512ra–519ra);
Feria 5 post dominicam XLme, videlicet de Passione. De mutuo caritativo gratis proximis inpen-
dendo. Sermo 54 (ff. 519ra–529rb); Feria 6 post dominicam Passionis. De 12 regulis seu scutis
preservantibus omnem statum, rempublicam et civitatem a scandalis, ruinis et malis conspirationibus
ac conservantibus in omni pace. Sermo 55 (ff. 529rb–532va); Sabbato ante dominicam Palmarum.
Iterum de reliquis sex regulis preservantibus omnem civitatem seu rempublicam ab omnibus scan-
dalis, damnis et ruinis. Sermo 56 (ff. 532va–538rb); Dominica Olivarum seu in Palmis. De
pia iniuriarum remissione et dilectione inimicorum. Sermo 57 (ff. 538rb–545vb); Feria 2 post
dominicam Olivarum. De reprehensibili ornatu et damnabili vanitate mulierum. Sermo 58 (ff.
545vb–559ra); Feria 3 post dominicam Olivarum. Iterum de reprehensibili ornatu et damnabili
vanitate mulierum. Sermo 59 (ff. 559ra–569ra); Feria 4 post dominicam Olivarum. Iterum de
reprehensibili ornatu et damnabili vanitate mulierum. Sermo 60 (ff. 569ra–579va); Feria 5 in
Cena Domini. De duodecim preparationibus ad sacram Communionem faciendam summe neces-
sariis. Sermo 61 (ff. 579va–595vb).
173
On his career as a (social and antiheretical) preacher in Austria, Bohemia and
Poland, as an order administrator, and as a papal ambassador, bishop, archbishop
and cardinal, see Gianfrancesco Ghedina da Venezia, Fra Gabriele Rangoni di Chiari,
vescovo e cardinale (Venice, 1881); R. Brenzoni, ‘Nuovi documenti su Fra Gabriele da
Verona’, Le Venezie Francescane 2 (1933), 20–26; U. Betti, I cardinali dell’Ordine dei Frati
Minori (Rome, 1963), 55–58; G. Giraldi, ‘La “Oratorio de Laudibus Gabrielis Rangoni
S.R.E. Cardinalis” di Giovanni Michele Alberto Carrara’, AFH 50 (1957), 83–98
& 65 (1972), 541; Pierre Péano, ‘Rangone (Gabriel)’, DSpir XIII, 90–91. Gabriele
Rangone also wrote a Vita S. Joh. de Capistrano and treatises related to his task as
anti-hussite preacher and order administrator. See: J. Hofer, ‘Gabriel von Verona
(. . .) als Biograph Kapistrans’, FrSt 25 (1938), 89–93; P. Joachimsohn, ‘Die Streitschrift
des Minoriten Gabriel von Verona gegen den Böhmenkönig Georg von Podiebrad
vom Jahre 1467’, Historisches Jahrbuch 18 (1897), 468; G. Morin, ‘Une relation inédite
du nonce franciscain Rangone sur la situation de l’Allemagne en 1455–1471’,
Historisches Jahrbuch 56 (1936), 507–508.
174
The Flores Paradisi, finished in November 1465 in the Santa Maria in Paradiso
convent (Venice) and dedicated to Gabriele’s friend and fellow friar Cristoforo da
Varisio, can be found in the manuscripts Vienna, Dominikanerkloster 293 (replete
rations.175 In all, the Flores contain 42 sermons divided over thirteen

small treatises, dealing with 1.) the creation of man in a state of
innocence and his fall through disobedience; 2.) a call for man to
come back to the road that leads to beatitude (elaborating the bib-
lical story of the paterfamilias sending his workers into the vineyard);
3.) the meaning and importance of preaching the word of God; 4.)
the excellence of the virtue of charity, its necessity, its ‘signs’, and
its fruits; 5–8.) aspects of the sacrament of penitence; 9.) the vari-
ous temptations and their remedies; and 10–13.) the ‘novissima’ (that
is last judgement, hell, the penalties of the damned, and the glory
of the beatified).
with a tabula super libro isto secundum ordinem alphabeti litterarum); Melk, Benediktinerkloster
890 ff. 3r–293v; Olomuc, Kathedralbibliothek 383. The prologue to the work has
been edited by G. Fussenegger, ‘“Flores Paradisi,” opus concionatorium Gabrielis
Rangone de Verona O.F.M.’, AFH 46 (1953), 487–493.
175
The work’s scope and its divisions can be deducted from the Prologue: ‘(. . .)
Meus autem hic labor an superfluus sit, an inutilis futurus, illorum iudicio relinquo
qui soliti sunt omnia secundum caritatem et non emulationem iudicare, necnon
devotorum fratrum experientie, qui salutem animarum non solum bonorum ope-
rum exemplis sed etiam verbi Dei predicationibus libenter procurant. Horum namque
precibus exoratus huic me quam laborioso studio submisi, ratus quod nulli noceret
et saltem mihi prodesset si otium, quod ab externis occupationibus sive domi sive
foris quandoque surriperem, divine legis et sanctorum doctorum lectioni aliqua in
parte accomodarem. Considerans igitur ipsos fratres novitatem fundationis sue in
hac provincia Austrie, Bohemie et Polonie magnam penuriam originalium librorum
pati quos etiam, sicubi aliquos habent, deferre secum de loco ad locum non pos-
sunt, et ob eam rem magno sepe tedio affici et vano labore per diversa sermoci-
nalium volumnina ut wlgo appellantur, multum discurrere, priusquam materiam
aliquam coadunare valeant, plurimumque preterea temporis quod in aliis devotis
operibus expenderent, frustra consumere, compassus eisdem, a me ipso plus quam
humanitas mea patiebatur sepe exigens, divinarum scripturarum viridarium ingres-
sus, Dei mihi virtute et Gabrielis archangeli cuius nomen immeritus gero interces-
sione favente, flores inde collegi hoc [!] materias ad predicandum populis meo
arbitratu magis communes magisque utiles quas etiam, illis amputatis que ad dis-
putationem potius quam ad populi edificationem pertinent, quantum potui integras
coacervavi ita ut non multum necesse sit ei qui Flores Paradisi habuerit—sic enim
hoc opus quod in sancto loco Paradisi congestum sit appellandum duxi—pro eis-
dem predicandis materiis ad alias collecturas recurrere.’ (. . . .) ‘Ex his autem materiis
sive tractatibus licet omni fere tempore anni utiliter et convenienter predicare pos-
set (. . .)’ (. . . .) ‘Liber hic preterea, prout in sequenti tabula conspicitur, in tredecim
partes principales sive tractatus dividitur iuxta tredecim materias de quibus precipue
agit. Tractatus vero vel in sermones vel in partes ut dictum est distingwntur, sed
sermones quandoque per partes quandoque per articulos, nunnumquam per puncta
sive conclusiones, misteria, considerationes vel etiam questiones, contemplationes aut
alia nomina ordinantur, adiuncta etiam aliquando per capitula subdivisione. Hac
autem varietate dividendi usus sum, ut quisque predicans et maxime novelli intel-
ligant non esse perdendum tempus, ut semper uno modo sermones distingwant.’
Flores Paradisi, ed. Fussenegger, AFH 46 (1953), 491–493.
72 chapter one
Cherubino da Spoleto, yet another prolific Observant preacher,

initially did not follow the rules of the ‘Bernardine school’, but chose
to embellish his sermons with cunning rhetorical games and lengthy
citations from profane poetry. After receiving severe reprimands from
Giovanni Buonvisi da Luca, Cherubino radically changed his preach-
ing method, becoming one of the most faithful followers of the
Bernardine preaching style, to the extent that many of his sermons
are closely modelled on those of Bernardino da Siena. For his own
use, Cherubino compiled abbreviations of Bernardino’s sermons
and gathered exemplary sermons from other famous preachers, such
as Roberto Caracciolo, Giacomo della Marca, and Antonio da
Bitonto.176
Cherubino’s surviving quadragesimal sermons have a strong didactic
character. In their sixteenth-century Venice editions, these sermons are
grouped together into small treatises on individual dogmatic, moral,
and spiritual issues.177 The published cycle also comprises a series of
Sermones ad Status, specifically tailored to the various social classes and
age groups found in Italian urban society. These latter sermons point
towards Cherubino’s better-known educational treatises, such as the
Regola della Vita Spirituale and the Tractatus de Cura Filiorum.178
The Franciscan preacher and hagiographer Bernardino da Fossa,
well-known for his catechism, his hagiographical writings and most
of all for his Chronica Fratrum Minorum Observantiae (ca. 1480), in which
he traces the origin and development of the Observant movement
back to the activities of Angelo Clareno and Paoluccio Trinci,179 left
176
On Cherubino’s life and works, see in general Sbaralea, Supplementum I, 201–203;
Rafaele Piergrossi, ‘Chérubin de Spolète’, DSpir II, 824–825; Roberto Rusconi,
‘Cherubino da Spoleto’, DBI XXIV (Rome, 1980), 446–453; Gabriella Zarri, ‘La
vita religiosa femminile tra devozione e chiostro: testi devoti in volgare editi tra il
1475 e il 1520’, in: I frati minori tra ’400 e ’500, Atti del XII Convegno Internazionale
Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986), 125–168; L. Canonici, ‘Fra Cherubino
da Spoleto predicatore del sec. XV’, SF 92, 1–2 (1995), 107–125.
177
Sermones Quadragesimales Praeclarissimi candido et ornatissimo stilo editi ab eximio divini
verbi praecone frate Cherubino de Spoleto Ordinis Minorum regularis observantiae, ed. Serafino
da Mantua (s.l., ca. 1500/Venice: Georgius Arrivabene, 1502/Venice, 1511). These
editions contains 91 sermons for the period from domenica in septuagesima until domenica
in Albis (the octave of Easter), with additional sermons for Ascension day, Pentecost,
Trinity, Corpus Domini etc. The sermon on the passion found in these editions is
not unlike its homologues in the sermon cycles of Bernardino da Siena.
178
See on these and related treatises of Cherubino my chapter on literature of
edification.
179
Edited as the Chronica Fratrum Minorum Observantiae, ed. L. Lemmens, Fragmenta
Franciscana (Rome, 1902). On Bernardino see DBI II, 778–780; F. Wagemans,
‘Bernardin d’Aquila’, DSpir I, 1514; A. de Amicis, L’Araldo dell’amore. Bernardino da
behind more than 300 thematically organised homiletic outlines.

These are collected in a Centurio of 100 sermons,180 a Tractatus de
Quolibet Statu Fidelium,181 a small Tractatus Praedicabilis Intitulatus de
Floribus,182 a cycle of Sermones Diversi,183 and a Peregrinus Sermonum.184
Among these collections, the Tractatus de Quolibet Statu Fidelium is par-
ticularly interesting, as it more or less accompanies the life and death
of the believer. The first part of this collection (de statu fidelium labo-
rioso) consists of 52 sermons de tempore filled with doctrinal informa-
tion for the religious instruction of the believer.185 The second part
Fossa (Benevagienna, 1951); Campagnola, Le origini francescane come problema storiografico,

89ff; Roberto Zavalloni, ‘Bernardino da Fossa (1421–1503)’, in: Mistici francescani III:
Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 845–848; Santa Casciani, ‘La ‘Passione’ del beato Bernardino
da Fossa e il ‘topos’ del Christus patiens’, Bollettino Dep. Abruz. Storia Patria 87 (1997),
95–137.
180
Cf. the autograph manuscript Venice, Biblioteca di S.Marco Z.L. LXXXIX
Bess ff. I–IX & 1–350. Inc. (Proemium): ‘Centurio autem et qui cum eo erant cus-
todientes Jesum viso terraemotu et his, quae fiebant, timmuerunt valde dicentes:
vere filius Dei erat iste (Math. 28, 54) (. . .) Centurio a centenerio dicitur, et quia
hoc volumen centenarios sermonum continet, merito centurio vocari potest et, ut
vocetur, decerno.’ Three sermons from the Centurio collection (namely those found
in MS Venice, Biblioteca di S.Marco Z.L. LXXXIX Bess ff. 46, 102, 103) have
been published under the title Tractatus de Nubere Volentium Doctrina in: Tractatus Universi
Juris Illustrium in Utraque tum Pontificii, tum Caesarei Juris Facultate Jureconsultorum de
Matrimonio et Dote, IX, ed. Antonius Amucius (Venice, 1584), ff. 113r–v.
181
MS Venice, Biblioteca di S.Marco Z.L. CXLIII Bess. ff. 1–216.
182
MS Venice, Biblioteca di S.Marco Z.L. CXLIII Bess. ff. 218–223. Three ser-
mons, two about good works and the third on the love for one’s enemies.
183
See the autograph manuscript L’Aquila, Archivio di Stato 11, where, on
f. Vv, we can read: ‘Perlegi ego Antonius u.j.d. minimus de Fossa hujus beati patris
Bernardini de Fossa itidem ex fratre pronepos opus hoc et pluries suspiravi et non-
nullas lacrimas effudi, cum tot bona et sancta dicta hic considerarem annotata, quae
jam conscripta et exemplata perfecta erant et ordinatissime in alio libro, dicto nempe
Quodlibetum vel Centurio (. . .).’ The manuscript contains 154 sermons and ser-
mon outlines with praedicable materials ‘. . . de Virgine gloriosa secundum dicta
Dantis; de verbo Dei; de impedimentis omnium bonorum; de jejunio; de ludo; de
peccato in communi; de honore parentum; de pace; de passione Domini; de res-
urrectione Domini; de quocumque sancto; de abdicatione saeculi; de obedientia; de
oratione etc.’ The first sermon of this collection was edited twice: Un sermone del
B. Bernardino Amici da fossa sulla Vergine Gloriosa, ed. Leosini (Aquila, 1865) & Beati
Bernardini de Fossa super Laude ad Beatam Virginem in 33. Cantico Paradisi Dantis Alighieri
(Florence, 1896).
184
Peregrinus, ed. Antonius Amicius (Venice, 1572). A treatise of 25 short sermons
(sermones diaetae), dealing with different topics (starting with peregrinus and ending with
ingratitudino). This collection was written by Bernardino in 1498. On f. 1 of the edi-
tion we can read: ‘Cum diu desideraverim habere tractatulum unum de sermonibus
brevibus et compendiosis, qui esset meus familiaris et socius, cogitavi imponere
nomen peregrinus.’
185
A dominica septuagesimae usque ad feriam tertiam resurrectionis, MS Venice, Biblioteca
di S.Marco Z.L. CXLIII Bess ff. 1–103.
74 chapter one
(de statu fidelium periculoso) addresses the moment of death, its proper
preparation and the necessary after-care (by those left behind). This
part consists of 40 sermons de mortuis.186 The third part contains 53
sermons on saints. The last one of these is an eulogy on the new
Observant saint Bernardino da Siena.187
Michele Carcano da Milano, whom Bernardino da Feltre eulo-
gised as an alter sanctus apostolus Paulus et Christi tuba, likewise had a
preaching career of more than 30 years. His intensive Lenten preach-
ing rallies can be charted in the historical and administrative sources
of nearly all major towns in Northern and Central Italy. Late in his
life, he was asked by the pope to organise crusade preaching mis-
sions against the Turks (1482–1484). A driving force behind the
establishment of various montes de pietà and hospitals, Michele was a
very pronounced anti-Judaic preacher. He frequently connected the
Jews with usury, and played an ominous role in the denunciation
and the bloody persecution of Jews in the wake of the alleged rit-
ual sacrifice of the Christian child Simoncino. Michele’s extravagant
anti-Semitism eventually enticed Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza to
expel him from Milan in 1471, and again in 1475 (although Michele
apparently remained the spiritual counsellor of the Duke’s wife and his
other female relatives). Most of Michele’s surviving Latin and ver-
nacular sermon collections contain outlines of Lenten cycles and con-
centrate on penitential issues. They are heavily influenced by the
teachings of Bernardino da Siena. Nevertheless, Michele’s sermons
as well as his other works of religious instruction display a far more
negative world view, exchanging Bernardino da Siena’s cautious
optimistic vision of a redeemed and virtuous Christian society for a
bleak portrayal of a world of sin, destined to suffer retribution and
punishment.
Alongside of his individual sermons scattered in convolute manu-
scripts, we can distinguish a number of full cycles.188 Among these
186
MS Venice, Biblioteca di S.Marco Z.L. CXLIII Bess ff. 104–126. It ends with
the statement: ‘Cum plerique fratres minores me saepius incitaverint, ut pro praed-
icatione ad funera sermones aliquos ordinarem, eo maxime, quia in nostra civitate
Aquilae saepissime ad ea praedicare contingit, eorum inclinatus sum precibus rem
ipsam aggredi.’ This second part of De Quolibet Statu Fidelium was printed in 1572
as the Funerale B. Bernardini Aquilanae de Fossa (Venice, 1572).
187
MS Venice, Biblioteca di S.Marco Z.L. CXLIII Bess, De statu fidelium glorioso,
ff. 128–216.
188
For a more complete listing (and for additions to the materials described in
cycles I would like to single out Michele’s Quadragesimale de Poenitentia,189

his Quadragesimale de Fide et de Articulis Fidei,190 and his Sermonarium per
Adventum et Quadragesima.191 Reworkings of these cycles and additional
materials have found their way into several early editions, such as
the Sermonarium Triplicatum per Adventum et per Duas Quadragesimales de
Peccatis Capitalibus,192 the Quadragesimale seu Sermonarium Duplicatum Scilicet
per Adventum et Quadragesimam de Poenitentia et eius Partibus,193 the Sermones
the following notes), see: P.M. Sevesi, ‘Beato Michele Carcano O.F.M. Obs., 1427–
1484’, AFH 33 (1940) 366–408 & AFH 34 (1941), 95–114; Idem, ‘Il B. Michele
Carcano e il Consorzio della Carità di Milano’, AFH 46 (1953), 251–278; P. Valugani,
Il Beato Michele Carcano da Milano (Milan, 1950); DSpir X, 1174–1176; Roberto
Rusconi, ‘Michele Carcano da Milano e le caratteristiche della sua predicazione’,
PS 10 (1973), 196–218; Roberto Rusconi, ‘Carcano Michele’, DBI XIX, 742–744;
Rosa Maria Dessi, ‘Entre prédication et réception. Les thèmes eschatologiques dans
les ‘reportationes’ des sermons de Michele Carcano de Milano’, Mél. Archéol. Hist.
Ecole Française de Rome, Moyen Age 102/2 (1990), 457–479.
189
This collection, also known as the Casus Conscientiae per Totam Quadragesimam in
Diebus Ferialibus et Primo in Die Cinerum, can be found in the manuscripts Naples,
Biblioteca Nazionale VI.D.60 ff. 1a–197d; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.E.25 ff.
1r–165v; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.A.15 ff. 3r–81v; Pavia, Biblioteca
Universitaria Aldini 62 ff. 258–289. It provides a treatment of 111 ‘cases’ in the
form of sermons, dealing especially with female vanity, usury, and the vices of com-
merce and trade. Cf. P.M. Sevesi, “I ‘sermones’ ed I ‘casus conscientie’ del B.
Michele Carcano nel codice Aldini 62 della Biblioteca dell’Università di Pavia”, SF
28 (1931), 324–338; Idem, ‘Il B. Michele Carcano da Milano O.F.M.’, AFH 4
(1911), 456–481 (479–481).
190
This can be found in the manuscripts Oxford, Bodleian Add. A. 282 (15th
cent.); Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana Cod. L.65 sup.; Padua, Biblioteca Universitari
530; Mantua, Biblioteca Comunale G.II.22, and contains 160 catechistic sermons.
191
Found in MS Naples, Biblioteca Naz. 644 ff. XIV.E.27 ff. 1a–139ab.
192
Sermonarium Triplicatum per Adventum et per Duas Quadragesimales de Peccatis Capitalibus
(Venice: Franciscus de Hailbrum & Nicolaus de Franckfordia, 1476/Basel, 1479/Venice,
1487). In all 150 sermons, divided over three collections. Their fear-based instruc-
tion is announced in the introduction of the 1476 Venice edition (as found in the
studies by Rusconi et. al mentioned before): ‘arbitratus sum nihil utilius nihil fruc-
tosius posse texere, quam de vitiis animas ad eternam damnationem trahentibus
insinuare ipsa detestari et reprehendere. Est enim regula generalis quod initium
salutis est notitia peccati, quo cognito per intelligentiam voluntas refugit per displi-
centiam veramque penitentiam, quare fit [quod] illi qui non curant scire peccata
nullatenus corrigentur.’
193
Quadragesimale seu Sermonarium duplicatum scilicet per Adventum et Quadragesimam de
Poenitentia et eius Partibus/Quadragesimale de Poenitentia (Venice: Nicholaus Franchfort,
1487/Venice, 1496). It contains 92 sermons on penitence. The sermons fall apart
in three groups, connected with different periods in the liturgical year: for the period
from the first Sunday of Advent to the Nativity of Christ the collection offers daily
sermons on penitence in general. The period until sexagesima Sunday contains Sunday
sermons dealing with the impediments to penitence and man’s reliance on God’s
mercy. For the period beginning with Ash Wednesday, the collection again con-
tains daily sermons, this time on the doctrine of the sacrament of penance. Michele
76 chapter one
Quadragesimales de Decem Preceptis,194 and the Sermonarium de Commendatione

Virtutum et Reprobatione Vitiorum.195
Very valuable from a catechistic point of view is the Quadragesimale
de Articulis Fidei by Bernardino Caimi da Milano, another of Bernardino
da Siena’s epigones. Bernardino Caimi was guardian of the Lodi
convent in 1475 and custos of the Holy Land in 1478 and in 1487.
During a stint as a provincial vicar at Milan (1490–1493), Bernardino
created in the newly established convent S. Maria delle Grazie (Sacro
Monte di Varallo), a reproduction of the Holy Land passion sanc-
tuary. Thus he hoped to stimulate commemorative passion exercises
among friars and convent visitors. Bernardino’s 79 Quadragesimale ser-
mons from 1488 make ample use of the homiletic examples pro-
vided by Bernardino da Siena (notably the latter’s Sermones de Christiana
Religione), but contain even more streamlined catechistic materials for
purposes of popular preaching on the Christian faith, the twelve arti-
cles of the Creed and the requirements for living a virtuous life.196
explains that the sacrament of penance is the cornerstone for the spiritual renova-
tion of man. Only with proper penitence do good works have any significance.
Without penitence, all other Christian works of virtue and charity are meaningless.
Hence: ‘Cum igitur per penitentiam peccatum expellatur, et in penitentia vita intro-
ducatur per quam potest mereri et bene operari, sequitur penitentiam esse ipsorum
bonorum operum et meritorum vivificativam (. . .) Ex quibus omnibus apparet quanta
sit damnificatio in peccato diutissime perseverare, quia omnia bona que facit perdita
sunt, necnon et alia beneficia que in ecclesia fiunt . . .’ ed. Venice, 1487, sermon
18 f. 31ab. And the road towards penitence is fear and fear alone: ‘Consideremus
ergo diligenter et crebre illa que ad timorem inducunt: horam scilicet mortis, penam
inferni, nec non et horribilem diem iudicii: non enim immerito sancta mater eccle-
sia in principio adventus et quadragesime facit memoriam de iudicio, quia maxime
istis temporibus conatur animas ad penitentiam inducere per incussionem timoris.’
Ibidem, sermo 6, f. 11a (as found in the studies by Rusconi et al. mentioned before).
In connection with the sacrament of penance, Michele also deals with the Eucharist
sacrament, for which confession is presented to be a necessary preliminary. Hence,
in this collection, the sermons dealing with contrition, confession and satisfaction
are followed by sermons dealing with the obligation of, and the conditions and the
preparation for receiving the body of Christ.
194
Which for instance has been published as Sermones Quadragesimales de Decem
Preceptis (Venice: Joannes & Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1492).
195
Sermonarium de Commendatione Virtutum et Reprobatione Vitiorum, ed. Raphaël Peragalus
(Milan: Uldericus Sczinzenzeler, 1495). This collection contains 72 sermons on the
virtues and vices. Cf. Hugues Dedieu, ‘Incunables de la Bibliothèque Franciscaine
de Toulouse’, AFH 63 (1970), 140–141.
196
Quadragesimale de Articulis Fidei: MS Como, Biblioteca Comunale I.3.17. sec-
onda parte del manoscritto ff. 1r–224d (inc.: ‘Incipit XL.le de articulis fidei et primo
de fide . . .’; expl.: ‘Et per exemplum quod habes in vita S. Francisci (. . .) de latrone
illo. Finis. Frater Bernardinus de Mediolano de Caymis’). Bernardino also produced
a collection of Sermones de Tempore (109 sermons for the Sundays and principal feast
Bernardino da Busti, a disciple of Michele Carcano and one of

the most important Italian Observant preachers during the closing
decades of the fifteenth century (entering the order in 1475),197 nowa-
days is valued predominantly for his influential Mariale de Singulis
Festivitatibus Beatae Virginis Mariae (63 sermons that together form a
large mariological treatise),198 and the connected Thesauro Spirituale.199
days of the liturgical year): MS Como, Biblioteca Comunale cod. I.3.17, prima
parte del manoscritto ff. 1r–266a (missing ff. 231–240) (Inc: ‘Voca operarios et redde
illis mercedem.’; expl.: ‘Deum videre et Deum habere in eternum [et]ultra. Quod
nobis concedat ipse benedictus [Deus] qui vivit.’) For an in-depth description of
these manuscripts and further analysis, see C. Piana, ‘Il Beato Bernardino Caimi
da Milano. Un epigono della predicazione Bernardiniana nell’ultimo Quattrocento’,
AFH 64 (1971), 303–336. Several sermons in the De Tempore collection likewise are
of interest for our insight in Franciscan religious instruction to the laity, notably
Bernardino’s sermons for Passion Sunday (the Sermo de morte (f. 71d) and the Sermo
de octo remediis contra mortem (ff. 77a)), a sermon held on Palm Sunday (the Sermo de
pace et remissione iniuriarum, f. 96d), and a Sermo de preparatione ad suscipiendum comu-
nionem sacratissimam (f. 113c) meant for the feria quinta. Additional information on
Bernardino is given in E. Motta, Il B. Bernardino Caimi predicatore. Documenti e lettere
inedite (Milano, 1891); P.M. Sevesi, ‘Il B. Bernardino Caimi da Milano predicatore
della Crociata’, AFH 19 (1926), 300; A. Salsa, Biografia del B. Bernardino Caimi (Varallo
Sesia, 1928); P.M. Sevesi, ‘Il B. Michele Carcano e il Consorzio della Carità di
Milano’, AFH 46 (1953), 270.
197
Nicolaus Glassberger, Chronica, in: AF II, 396f.; Wadding, Scriptores, 38ff., 55;
Wadding, Annales Minorum XIII, 508; XIV, 107, 293; XV, 261s; Gubernatis, Orbis
Seraphicus (Rome-Lyon, 1682–1685) III, 77; Sbaraglia, Supplementum I, 133; Zawart,
‘The History of Franciscan Preaching and of Franciscan Preachers (1209–1927)’,
318; DBI XV, 593–595; Roberto Zavalloni, ‘Bernardino de Bustis’, in: Mistici frances-
cani III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 849–852.
198
Bernardino’s Mariale has survived in a large number of manuscripts. For its
incunable editions, see Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke V, nos. 5802–5813. The last
edition dates from 1607. Cf. Bernardino de Busti e il Mariala (Busto, 1982).
199
Thesauro Spirituale. Corona della Beatissima Vergine Maria (Milan: G.A. de Honate,
1488 & 1489/Milan: Ulderico Scinzenzeler, 1492/Brescia, 1588/Cologne 1588).
Sometimes, this work was published as the Opera Omnia Bernardini de Bustis. The
Thesauro consists of liturgical treatises on the Virgin Mary and Christ (Officium et
Missa Gloriosissimi Nominis Iesu Officium et Missa Immaculatae Conceptionis Beatae Mariae
Virginis (which received papal approbation by Sixtus IV, on 4 October 1480; Officium
et Missa de Gaudiis Beatae Mariae Virginis; Officium et Missa Sanctae Crucis et Passionis
Domini; Officium de Planctu Beatae Mariae Virginis), with an additional series of 63 ser-
mons or chapters, which are sometimes found separately under the name Corona
della Beatissima Vergine Maria. Cf. Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke V, no. 5802–5813. The
Officium et Missa Immaculatae Conceptionis Beatae Mariae Virginis has also been published
in some editions of the Mariale. See especially: G. Galli, ‘Due ignote edizioni quat-
trocentine della ‘Corona della beatissima Vergine Maria’ di fra Bernardino da Busti’,
in: Miscellanea. Bibliografica in Memoriam Don T. Accurti, ed. L. Donati (Rome, 1947),
103–124. On Bernardino da Busti as a mariological author, see F. Cucchi, La medi-
tazione universale della Sanctissima Vergine negli scritti di Bernardino de Busti (Milan 1945);
K. Balic, ‘Die Corredemptrixfrage innerhalb der Franzisk. Theologie’, FrSt 39 (1957)
78 chapter one
On top of these predominantly mariological works, an additional

eulogy on the third order,200 and a typical anti-Judaic Defensorium
Montis Pietatis,201 Bernardino produced a well thought-out florilegium
for preaching purposes: the Rosarium Sermonum Praedicabilium ad Faciliorem
Predicantium Commoditatem.202 This Rosarium presents 80 compilatory
sermons, addressing the needs of busy preachers who did not have
the leisure to search for proper themes and authorities to develop
their Lenten and Sunday sermons. The Rosarium not simply provides
these preachers with ready-made sermon outlines, but enhances their
access to individual moral and religious issues with a number of
indices. The large success of the Rosarium throughout the Catholic
world from its first edition (1498) until the seventeenth century makes
it one of the more influential late Observant preaching handbooks.
It therefore deserves further study.203
D. The Observant homiletic output outside Italy
The fact that the Italian Observance had an exceptionally rich

homiletic output should not entice us to forget the large Franciscan
Observantist homiletic contribution in other areas of Europe after
ca. 1450, when the regular Observance as well as Observant groups
sub ministris made headway in many provinces. Perusing the existing
219, 238–44, 255, 262, 265; M, Mückshoff, ‘Die mariologische Prädestination im

Denken der franzisk. Theologie’, FrSt 39 (1957) 449s; M. Petrocchi, ‘La devozione
all Vergine negli scritti di pietà del cinquecento italiano’, in: Problemi di vita relig. in
Italia nel Cinquecento (Padua, 1960), 281s.; Bernardino de Busti e il Mariale (Busto, 1982).
200
Tractatus de Imitatione Christi (Napoli, 1621).
201
Defensorium Montis Pietatis Contra Figmenta Omnia Aemulae Falsitatis (Milano: Ulrich
Scinzenzeler, 1497/Lyon, 1518). Several later editions followed. Cf. Anna A. Villa,
‘Bernardino de Busti e la polemica antiebreica’ in: Il franciscanesimo in Lombardia
(Milano, 1983), 49–52.
202
Rosarium Sermonum Praedicabilium ad Faciliorem Predicantium Commoditatem Noviter
Compilatum (Venice: G. Arrivabene, 1498). It saw many later editions.
203
The best introductions to the work are R. Rusconi, ‘La predicazione frances-
cana sulla penitenza alla fine del Quattrocento nel “Rosarium Sermonum” di
Bernardino Busti’, Studia Patavina 22 (1975), 68–95; María Elisa Lage Cotos,
‘“Auctoritates” clásicas para la salvación humana: el “Rosarium Sermonum” de
Bernardino de Bustis’, Euphrosyne 27 (1999), 165–177; Christian Mouchel, Rome fran-
ciscaine. Essai sur l’histoire de l’éloquence dans l’Ordre des Frères Mineur au XVI e siècle (Paris,
2001), 124ff. Mouchel explains how Bernardino’s homiletic ‘éloquence d’abondance
mesurée’ found approval among the Jesuits (responsible for a 1607 re-issue of the
Rosarium and the Mariale), who disliked the more exuberant rhetorics of celebrated
Franciscan counter-reformatory preachers such as Cornelio Musso and Panigarola.
source materials, it would seem that particularly the Observants of

the various German order provinces were actively engaged in com-
piling complete sermon cycles and auxiliary praedicabilia.
The surviving sermon cycles of these Observant friars frequently
had their origin in preaching encounters at convents of Franciscan
nuns and tertiaries. This is for instance the case with the Sermoenen
composed by the prolific Dutch Franciscan preacher Johannes Brugman
(c. 1400–1473), 204 who was a fervent promoter of the regular
Observance in the Cologne province. Most of Brugman’s Sermoenen
or sermons date from the mid 1460s. Carefully edited before their
distribution, these texts normally address female religious (Franciscan
nuns and tertiaries, as well as members of the Modern Devotion
movement), and show Brugman’s predilection for the works of Ludolph
von Sachsen and the spiritual highlights of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries (notably the sermons and the meditative texts of Bernard
de Clairvaux, Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, Tommaso d’Aquino,
David von Augsburg, and Ubertino da Casale).205
Among the various surviving sermon collections written by Hendrik
Herp (ca. 1400–1477), yet another Dutch Observant friar from the
Cologne province, and one of the more important ascetical and mys-
tical authors of the later fifteenth century,206 only one, namely De
Processu Humani Profectus, addresses the specific envisaged religious
needs of (female) religious communities. This cycle describes the reli-
gious life as a processus towards union with God, which is interpreted
204
Several of his works will be dealt with in the following chapters. For a bio-
bibliographical introduction to Johannes Brugman, see F.A.H. van den Hombergh,
Leven en werk van Jan Brugman, O.F.M. Met een uitgave van twee van zijn tractaten, Teksten
en Documenten, VI (Groningen, 1967); De Troeyer, Bio-bibliographia Franciscana I,
65–102; Nico Lettinck, Praten als Brugman. De wereld van een Nederlandse volksprediker aan
het einde van de Middeleeuwen, Verloren Verleden, 5 (Hilversum, 1999).
205
For modern editions, see: Verspreide Sermoenen, ed. A. van Dijk (Amsterdam-
Antwerpen, 1948); Onuitgegeven sermoenen, ed. P. Grootens (Tielt, 1948); Een onuitgegeven
sermoen [including a Littera ad Fratres Buscodenses], ed. A.W. Wijbrands, Archief der
Nederlansche Kerkgeschiedenis 1 (1885), 208–228.
206
Herp’s mystical works (such as the Spieghel der Volcomenheit and the Theologia
Mystica) fall outside the scope of this volume. See on these works P.L. Verschueren,
‘Leven en werken van Hendrik Herp’, Collectanea Neerlandica Franciscana, 2 (1931),
345–393; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana neerlandica Saeculi XVI II, nos. 212–
244; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica, ante Saeculum XVI I, 108–123
& II, 76–82; Mees, Bio-Bibliographia Neerlandica Ante Saeculum XVI, Incunabula II, 76,
no. 57–63 & III, 93–104; Leonhard Lehmann & Gilberto Aquino, ‘Enrico Erp
(d. 1477)’, in: Mistici Francescani III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 217–449.
80 chapter one
as a return to the soul’s true origin.207 His other sermon collections,

which to my knowledge have not yet been studied, seem to consist
of more traditional cycles de tempore and de sanctis.208
Less intellectual, though clearly aiming to provide a complete pro-
gramme of asceticism and contemplation, are the surviving vernac-
ular sermons of the Observant friar Johannes Alphart from Basel
(d. 1492). Three-times provincial vicar of the regular Observants in
the Upper Germany province (between 1474–1477, 1481–1484, 1487–
1490), and an active promotor of the regular Observance among
male and female communities in the Munich area, Alphart preached
regularly before communities of Poor Clares and Franciscan ter-
tiaries. The written sermons resulting from these encounters unfold
207
De Processu Humani Profectus, ed. Georgette Epiney-Burgard, Veröffentlichungen
des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abt. Abendl. Religionsgeschichte,
Band 106 (Wiesbaden, 1982). The 21 sermons can be distinguished into six groups.
Sermons one to five (De interiori cubiculo regis aeterni, De sacramenti sumptione, De spiri-
tuali nativitate contemplativorum, De duplici iugo Christi, De piscina divinitatis et quinque poti-
cibus) introduce major topics of the spiritual life and speak about the nature of
divinity and spiritual union. Sermons six, seven and eight (De tribus quae ducunt ingra-
tum ad detestabilem recidivationem, De septem gradibus recidivationum, De gratiarum actione red-
denda et gratitudine) analyse the consequences of ingratitude and the benefits of gratitude
towards God. Sermon nine (De divina voluntate et nostrae voluntatis perfecta conformitate)
speaks about the possible perfect conformity between human and divine will. Sermons
ten and eleven (Quomodo ad custodiendum Dei tabernaculum quadruplicem respectum habere
debemus, De quatuor affectibus, quibus cor iustorum debet esse ornatum) provide a spiritual
and symbolical exegesis of Exodus texts. Sermons twelve and thirteen (De anima Deo
dicata quomodo eam Christus quadrupliciter ingreditur, Qualiter anima Deo erit speciosa et deli-
cata) speak about the coming of Christ into the soul and its subsequent sanctification.
Sermons fourteen to seventeen (Quod ad veram perfectionem non requiritur ingressus reli-
gionis et in quibus consistit perfectio viatoris, Qualiter ad perfectionem tendens humilitate et pau-
pertate ornatus esse debet, Qualiter ad perfectionem aspirans obedientia praeditus esse debet, Qualiter
ad perfectionem laborans patientia et caritate fulcitus esse debet) describe the state of spiri-
tual perfection, with its accompanying virtues (showing that true perfection can and
should be pursued by every Christian). Sermons eighteen to twenty (De effectibus primi
et infimi gradus amoris divini, De effectibus sex graduum amoris sequentium, De sex quae requirun-
tur ad debitam formam dilectionis proximi exemplo Christi ) speak at length about the various
degrees of divine and human love. Finaly, sermon twenty-one (De martyrio corporali
et sextuplici martyrio spirituali.) presents the ascetic aspects of the spiritual life, with its
corporal and spiritual ‘martyrdom.’ Herp’s style is rather scholastic. He makes his
points with pro and contra arguments, and with recourse to a wide range of bib-
lical and theological authorities. This implies at least a relatively well-educated public.
208
See for instance Sermones de Tempore, de Sanctis, de Tribus partibus Poenitentiae, de
Adventu (Cologne, 1480 (?)/Nuremberg: A. Koburger, 1481/Speyer: P. Drach,
1484/Hagenau: H. Grau per J. Rynman de Oringau, 1509). This cycle contains
282 sermons, namely 165 sermons de tempore (two of which focus on the passion of
Christ), 49 sermons de sanctis (twelve of which deal with Francesco d’Assisi), 48 ser-
mons de tribus partibus paenitentiae, and 20 sermons de adventu.
a hierarchical pathway of spiritual growth through meditative exer-

cises and the cultivation of virtues.209
Hendrik van Santen (d. 1493), one of Hendrik Herp’s successors as
the guardian of the Malines (Mechelen) convent, and shortly interim
provincial minister of the Cologne province (1487–1488), is the author
of several collections with catechistic sermons on the Eucharist and
209
Alphart’s German sermons have survived in several manuscripts. See for
instance MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cod. Germ. 5140. One sermon
from this manuscript (ff. 317b–322b) has been edited by Lucidius Verschueren in
FrSt 15 (1928), 121–125. Another sermon has been edited by Landmann in FrSt
15 (1928), 320–322. The sermon edited by Verschueren—probably given for the
first time before Franciscan nuns or tertiaries between 1487 and 1490—provides a
good insight in Alphart’s teachings: ‘Uff das Ewangelio von den zehen sünder
siechen, als Lucas schribt am xvii [Lucas 17,11–19], wie die alle gesund wurden,
und es kam nün ainer zü dem hern, was danckbar, und der her sprach: stand uff
und gang hin. Da sind zway stuck, die ainen yeden menschen nottürfftig sind zü
dem ewigen leben. Das erst, das er gang uff den berg der tugent ains gütten leben.
(. . .) So das nit gnüg ist, volgt hernah: gang hin; verstand, zü übung gütter werck.
(. . .) Und bey dem ersten ist zü mercken, das drii ding hindert den menschen am
uff ston von den sünden. Das erst ist die angeborn naiglikait zü den sunden. (. . .)
Das ander ist der begirlikait zü zeitlichen dingen. (. . .) Das dritt ist die rü der
schowung und sines aigen gevallens. (. . .) Die erst hindrung ist von inen, die andern
von ussern, die dritt von obnen. Bey dem andern so er spricht: Gang, da sind nun
geng zü mercken als da schribt Jordanus, die der mensch sol gan, so der her spricht:
Gang. Sü dem ersten spricht gott zü dem menschen: Gang usz mir durch die
Schöpfung. Spricht augustin: Es sind alle creaturen gewesen in gott bildlich als ain
huus (. . .) Züm andern spricht gott: gang von mir durch haltung der gebott und
volbringung mins willens und wolgevallens in gütten wergken. (. . .) Züm dritten
spricht gott: Gang von mir durch demiettigkait nach der achtung (. . .) Züm vierten
spricht gott zü dem menschen: Gang in dich selbs durch bekantnisz diner gebrechen,
kranckheit und arbaitsäligkait. (. . .) Züm funfften spricht gott: Gang usz dir selbs,
usz dinem aignen willen und verstentnisz, also das der mensch im selbs absag und
sin verlögne. (. . .) Züm sechsten spricht gott: Gang von dir selbs, das ist von aller
besitzung. (. . .) Das ist das der mensch gang von der sel, dem leib und dem güt
(. . .) Züm sübenden spricht gott zü dem menschen: Gang nach mir in nachvol-
gung mins lebens. (. . .) Züm achtenden spricht gott: Gang zù mir: dis ist durch
volkomne verschmechung aller ding. (. . .) Bedeut das der mensch alle flyssig ding
zeitlicher ding müs undertruckt haben, will er den weg gän. (. . .) Züm nunden
spricht gott zü dem menschen: Gang in mich: nit verstand, als wir am ersten in
gott sye gewesen bildlich, sunder durch liebe ains mit gott werden, durch ainen
ewigen anhang. Und das ist der weg unser rü von dem Augustinus spricht. (. . .)’
ed. Verschueren, 122–125. For more information, see J. Schlageter, ‘Johannes
Alphart’, LThK V (1996), 878–9; VL2 I, 261–262; P. Minges, Geschichte der Franziskanern
in Bayern (Munich, 1896), 55–56, 59; P.L. Verschueren, ‘Eine Predigt des P. Johannes
Alphart O.F.M.’, FrSt 15 (1928), 121–125; F. Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der
Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz in den letzten Zeit des Mittelalters’, FrSt 15 (1928),
320–322; M. Miller, Die Söflinger Briefe (Wurtzburg, 1940), 240–242; Ruh, Bonaventura
Deutsch, 57; K. Morvag & D. Grube, Bibliographie der deutschen Predigten des Mittelalters
(Munich, 1974); K.S. Frank, Das Klarissen Kloister Söflingen (Ulm, 1980), passim.
82 chapter one
the virtues and vices.210 He also fathered a number of rather more

successful Collacien or ‘Lesepredigten’. These texts for spiritual read-
ing targeted female religious and literate lay people who were in
search for a more fulfilling religious life. Hendrik wanted to bring
these people to the threshold of contemplation, teaching them how
to reform the inner self, how to flee vanity, how to master one’s
speech, and how to exercise daily prayers. An intriguing aspect of
Hendrik’s teachings in these texts is the command to reach out to
other human beings. Charity to the poor and the sick and teaching
the illiterate was part of the itinerary towards religious fulfilment.211
210
1.) Sermones de Sacramento Altaris (in Latin and in Dutch), MSS Brussels, Koninklijke
Bibliotheek cod. 1268–1269 ff. 196r–232v (1524); Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
cod. 2805–2809 (early sixteenth cent.); 2.) Sermones super Evangeliam (Latin and Dutch),
MS Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek cod. s.n. 12847 ff. 221r–268v. On
these sermon manuscripts and on Hendrik’s life and work in general, see A. Houbaert,
‘Henri de Santen’, DSpir VII, 233; B. De Troeyer, ‘Bio-bibliografie van de min-
derbroeders in de Nederlanden vóór 1500. 7: Hendrik van Santen (d. 1493)’,
Franciscana 28 (1973), 82–99; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia Neerlandica Ante S. XVI I, 141–156;
Kurt Ruh, ‘Hendrik van Santen’, VL2 III, 1003–1005.
211
Cf. A. Ampe, ‘Naar aanleiding van Hendrik van Santen’s Collaciën’, OGE 49
(1975), 366–380; Idem, ‘Nog eens Hendrik van Santen’s Collaciën’, OGE 50 (1976),
207–212. Parts of the Collacien can be found in the manuscripts Brussels, Stadhuis
cod. 2915 ff. 262r–276r; Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek 895 ff. 273r–289r; Den Haag,
Koninklijke Bibliotheek 73 F 28 (olim K 60) ff. 12r–14v; Vienna, Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek Series Nova 12847 (olim Fidei Commisbibliothek Wien, 7924).
None of these manuscripts contain the full text. This is only to be found in Die
Collacien van den Eerwaerdighen Vader Broeder Henricus van Sancten Gardiaen van Mechelen
(Leyden: Jan Severszoon, c. 1500/Antwerp: Hendrik Eckert van Homberch, c. 1500
[two times]) The work is heavily indebted to the De Monte Contemplationis by Gerson
and Bonaventura’s Soliloquium. Additional sermon fragments from MS Gent,
Universiteitsbibliotheek 895 ff. 289r–291r have been edited in: Ampe, ‘Naar aan-
leiding van Hendrik van Santen’s Collacien’, 376–380. Most of these fragments are
very short and apodictic meditative considerations. The second fragment (Seven pun-
ten, die een minsche aen hem hebben sal ) is the most developed: ‘Allen die vanden hei-
lighen geest ghedreven werden tot eenen inghekeerden leven, suelen dese seven
punten aen hen hebben. Dat eerste datmen god minnen sal boven al (. . .) Dat
ander punt es, dat sij meer den lof god selen meijnen ende begheren vort te set-
ten in haeren doen ende laeten dan ghelost of gherief (. . .) Dat deerde punt es
willich armoede, niet meer begheeren dan slecht noet. Want het sijn cristus jhesus
worde: wilstu volcoemen wesen, soe laet al dattu hebts ende volghe mij nae. Dat
vierde es reijnicheit. In een reijn herte wilt god woenen, ende willen wij reijn bli-
jven, soe es ons goeder hoeden noet. Wij sullen dan scuwen stede ende stont per-
soen. (. . .) Dat vijfde punt es ghehorsamkeit. Een recht ghehoersam minsche doet
gheen sunde. Onder ghehorsaemheit moet der minsche sijn selfs uut-gaen, hem
laeten onder eenen vreemden, moet scijnen dwaes, op dat hij voer gode wijs werde.
(. . .) Dat sesde punt dat die minsche sal laeten sijns vaders huijs, troest ende ghe-
noecht der werelt. Niet wel en machmen gode ende der welt dienen. (. . .) Dat sev-
ende punt di minsche sal sterven der natueren ende gode alleen leven. Als die
natuer sterft, soe wert der geest levende.’ ed. Ampe, OGE 49 (1975), 377–379.
The Observant lector, convent preacher and novice master Stephan

Fridolin (c. 1430–1498) still is known for his Andachtsbücher 212 or ser-
mon-treatises produced in the wake of his task as the convent preacher
and spiritual guide for the Poor Clares of Basel (the Gnadental con-
vent, 1487–1489) and Nuremberg (ca. 1480–1487 and 1489–1498).213
On top of these fully reworked sermon-treatises, Stephan left behind
some texts that are closer to their original homiletic format. His
Predigten über Prim, Terz, Non und Komplet, which probably go back to
sermons given between ca. 1492 and 1494 and thereafter circulated
in written form among the Poor Clare communities of Nuremberg
and Söflingen, interpret the hymns and psalms for the small Sunday
hours (Prime, Terce, None, Compline) of the Roman breviary. In
his allegorical explanation of these hymns and psalms, Fridolin takes
the suffering of Christ and associated christological themes as his
basic interpretatory matrix, always trying to provide answers to the
envisaged spiritual needs of female religious aspiring to become ‘true
brides of Christ.’214
212
These meditative works, such as Der Schatzbehalter, Der geistliche Herbst, Der geistliche
Mai, and the Lehre für angefochtene und kleinmütige Menschen will be dealt with in another
chapter.
213
On Stephan, see especially N. Paulus, ‘Der Franziskaner Stephan Fridolin,
ein Nürnberger Prediger’, Historisch-politische Blätter 113 (1894), 465–483, 119 (1897),
545–548 & 120 (1897), 150–152; U. Schmidt, P. Stephan Fridolin. Ein Franziskaner
Prediger des ausgehenden Mittelalters, Veröffentlichungen aus dem Kirchenhistorischen
Seminar München III, n. 11 (Munich, 1910); Ottokar Bonmann, ‘Fridelini (ou Fridolin;
Étienne)’, DSpir V, 1525–1528; Petra Seegets, ‘Das alles menschlich heyl an dem leiden
Christi steet’. Stephan Fridolin—ein spätmittelalterlicher Frömmigkeitstheologe zwischen Kloster und
Stadt, Diss. (Tübingen, 1995); Idem, Passionstheologie und Passionsfrömmigkeit im ausge-
henden Mittelalter. Der Nürnberger Franziskaner Stephan Fridolin (gest. 1498) zwischen Kloster
und Stadt, Spätmittelalter und Reformation, Neue Reihe 10 (Tübingen, 1998).
214
These sermons are found in the manuscripts Munich, Bayerisches National-
museum 3801 ff. 1r–230v (originating in the convent of the Poor Clares of Nuremberg
and based on a transcript by Caritas Pirckheimer); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer
Kulturbesitz mgf 1040, I ff. 1r–222r & II, ff. 1r–42v (a manuscript from the con-
vent of the Poor Clares in Söflingen, and partly written by sister Elisabeth Minsinger);
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz mgq 1592 ff. 1r–166r (a manu-
script dating from 1519). For partial editions, see: Mittelalterliche Deutsche Predigten des
Franziskaners P. Stephan Fridolin, 1. Heft: Predigten über die Prim, ed. Ulrich Schmidt,
VKHSM 4, Reihe 1 (Munich, 1913); Gaben des katholischen Preßvereins in der Diözese
Seckau für den Jahr 1887 (Graz, 1887), 1–117 (An edition of the Compline sermons,
based on MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz mgq 1592 ff. 1r–166r.
Seegets, Passionstheologie und Passionsfrömmigkeit im ausgehenden Mittelalter, 62–63 remarks
on this manuscript: ‘Obgleich es sich bei dieser lange Zeit in Privatbesitz befindlichen
Handschrift um diejenige Textversion handelt, die am weitesten vom urspünglichen
Wortlaut der Predigten des Nürnberger Minoriten entfernt ist, liegt gerade sie in
einer neuzeitlichen, jedoch unkritischen Druckausgabe durch die österreichische
84 chapter one
Fridolin was not the first Observant preacher active at the convent
of Poor Clares in Nuremberg. An older colleague of his, friar Petrus
Christiani from Breslau (Petrus Christmann, d. 1483, the first guardian
of the Franciscan Observant community at Nuremberg), might have
preceded him as the designated convent preacher among the Nurem-
berg Poor Clares. Two Latin sermon collections and a homiletic
Pater Noster explanation from his hand still survive.215 Another possi-
ble predecessor of Fridolin was Johann Einzlinger (d. 1497), guardian
of Landshut (1477) and preacher at Nuremberg between 1481 and
1487. His written German sermons, in fact simplified German rework-
ings of chapters taken from Rudolph von Biberach’s De Septem Itineribus
Aeternitatis, at least imply an audience of Poor Clares (with ample use
of similes and examples from the life of Chiara d’Assisi). They teach
the nuns the elements of ‘anfangende, zunehmende und vollkommene
Liebe’ for the suffering Christ and God.216
An attested colleague of Stephan Fridolin as the spiritual guide
of the Nuremberg Poor Clares was Heinrich Vigilis (d. 1499) from
Weißenburg in the Alsace. Prior to this Nuremberg assignment (in
and after 1487), Heinrich had performed the same function for the
Poor Clares in Alspach (west of Colmar).217 Most of Heinrich’s ser-
Diözese Seckau aus dem Jahr 1887 vor. Bereits 1868 hatte Hasak einen Teil der
Auslegung von Psalm 30,3 auf der Grundlage von mgq 1592 herausgegeben.’)
215
For his sermon collections, see MSS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm.
8728 & Clm. 11928. His catechistic sermon Ein schöne auslegung uber den pater noster
die der geistlich vater und gardian des ordens sant franczisen der opserfancz, genant prüder Peter,
gepredigt hat cze Munchen in irem klöster can be found in MS Graz, Universitätsbibliothek
Cod. 1972 (ca. 1500) ff. 96v–97v. This text has also been edited in Franziskanisches
Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter, Band II: Texte, ed. Kurt Ruh, Dagmar Ladisch-Grube
& Josef Brecht, (Munich, 1985), 259–260. See also Bavaria Franciscana Antiqua
(Landshut, 1957) III, 90f.; Glassberger, Chronica, in: AF II, 473, 486; AF VIII, 688,
691, 694, 697, 701, 790f., 813; Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger
Franziskanerprovinz’, 317f.
216
MSS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4575 ff. 2r–411r (late 15th cent.); Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek Mgo 385 ff. 1r–223r (late 15th cent.). In MS Munich, Staatsbibliothek
Cgm. 4439 ff. 54r–57r (c. 1500), which also contains materials of Olivier Maillard
and Stephan Fridolin, we encounter a German sermon by Johann Einzlinger on
‘Gelassenheit’. See on this A. Linsenmayer, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Predigt in Deutschland
am Ausgang des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1889), 51–53; Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der
Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz, 319f.; AF VIII, 691, 697, 699, 702, 712, 751, 758,
809f.; Rudolf von Biberach, Die siben strassen zu got. Die hochalemanische Übertragung
nach der Handschrift Einsiedeln 278, ed. Margo Schmidt, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum,
6 (Quaracchi, 1969), 50*–52*; VL2 II, 432–433.
217
On Heinrich’s activities in Alspach, see MSS Colmar, Bibliothèque Municipale
274 f. 278v; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 164 f. 1r; St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 1859
mons, as well as some of his independent treatises and translations

of spiritual texts,218 were transcribed by the Poor Clares of Alspach
and Nuremberg and subsequently corrected and authorised by Stephan
Fridolin himself. Just like his more independent spiritual treatises, all
of his surviving sermon cycles were primarily meant to steer the reli-
gious edification of the Alspach and Nuremberg female religious,
although they may also have had a more general implied audience
(such as lay people who visited the churches of the Poor Clares on
Sun- and feast days). Heinrich’s homiletic output comprises two cycles
of Predigten ueber die evangelische Räte (sermons de tempore, preached at
Sundays at the convent of the Nuremberg Poor Clares in 1492 and
1493),219 the Die VIII Seligkeiten (72 sermons for the Poor Clares of
Nuremberg),220 the Advent cycle Die VII Gaben des hl. Geist (95 Advent
sermons for the Poor Clares of Nuremberg),221 the long sermon De
p. 469. For more information, see Glassberger, Chronica, in: AF II, 461; Necrologium
Provinciae Argentinae Fratrum Minorum Obervantium, ed. P. Schlager, AF VII (1917), 263;
Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz’, 318ff.; J. Kist,
Das Klarissenkloster in Nürnberg (Nuremberg, 1929), 113, 116, 119–121, 134, 137;
Idem, ‘Heinrich Vigilis, ein Franziskanerprediger am Vorabend der Reformation’,
Zeitschrift für Bayerische Kirchengeschichte 13 (1938), 144–150; Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch,
58ff., 77, 110–117, 127, 164, 283; Georg Steer, ‘Die Rezeption des theologischen
Bonaventura-Schrifttums im Deutschen Spätmittelalter’, in: Bonaventura. Studien zu
zeiner Wirkungsgeschichte, ed. Ildefons Vanderheyden OFM, Franziskanische Forschungen,
28 (Werl, 1976), 146–156; Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter Band II:
Texte, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (1985), 128–150; Uwe Ruberg, ‘Von dem heilgen swygen-
halten’, VL2 III, 615–617; Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘Vigilis, Heinrich, von Weißenburg’,
VL2 X, 342–350; V. Honemann, ‘Vigilis’, DSpir XVI, 751–752.
218
On these texts, such as the Buch von geistlicher Einkehr und Auskehr and the
Ermahnung zu einem wahren klösterlichen Leben, see my chapter on edificatory works.
219
Predigten ueber die XII evangelische Räte: MS Bamberg, Stadbibliothek Msc. Patr.
58 (B.V. 43) ff. 389r–603r (1492, written by Ursula Kollerin, d. Nuremberg 1508).
In the manuscript these sermons are situated after a copy (again by Ursula Kollerin)
of Bonaventura’s Lignum Vitae. Incipits of these sermons are given by Kist, ‘Heinrich
Vigilis, ein Franziskanerprediger am Vorabend der Reformation’, 147–150. Another
group of Predigten ueber die evangelische Räte is found in MS Bamberg, Metropolitankapitel
Man. 29 (Summerpart, running from Easter to the 24th Sunday after Pentecost.
This manuscript was copied by Barbara Stromer (d. 1494 in the Nuremberg con-
vent) on the basis of a draft by Caritas Pirckheimer) and MS Munich, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek Cgm 749 (sermons for Christmas and some additional pieces). A
partial edition is found Beiträge zur Geschichte der Predigt in Deutschland am Ausgang des
Mittelalters, ed. A. Linsenmayer (Passau, 1889), 8–12. Cf. Caritas Pirckheimer, 1467–1532.
Katalog, ed. L. Kurras & F. Machilek (Nürnberg, 1982).
220
MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 1120 ff. 5vb–440rb. Partly
edited in: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Predigt in Deutschland am Ausgang des Mittelalters,
12–25. The work is mentioned in the Necrology of the Nuremberg Poor Clares.
221
MSS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4338 ff. 1r–589v (early 16th
cent.; sermons one to 43); Munich Cgm 4339 ff. 1r–759v (1505, from the Franciscan
86 chapter one
VII Gradibus Amoris/Von den Sieben Graden der volkommenen Liebe (held at
the Alspach convent),222 the Sieben Predigten für Nonnen,223 and the Drei
Predigten von den Anfechtungen der Closterlut.224
Johann Meder (d. 1518), who left his mark in the schools and on
the pulpit in many Franciscan convents of the Upper Germany
province, not only lectured the Poor Clares of Alspach but also those
of Gnadental. One result of his teachings is a rather peculiar sermon
collection: the Quadragesimale Novum Editum de Filio Prodigo et de Angeli
Ipsius Ammonitione Salubri per Sermones Divisum.225 This collection of 50
sermons for Advent, Lent and Easter saw its first imprint in Basel
(in 1495, replete with a poetic preface by Meder’s friend Sebastian
Brant). Breaking with existing conventions, Meder’s collection pre-
sents an ongoing dialogue between the prodigial son and his guardian
angel on the sins of man and his redemption through the passion
convent in Munich; sermons 48 to 95). Some parts are edited in: Beiträge zur Geschichte
der Predigt in Deutschland am Ausgang des Mittelalters, 25–32.
222
Von den Sieben Graden der volkommenen Liebe, found in MSS Colmar, Bibl. de la
Ville 274 ff. 250r–278v (late 15th cent., originating from the Poor Clare convent
of Alspach near Kaisersberg. On f. 278r, we can read: ‘Disse sermon het gedon
herr heinrich von wissenburck, ein armer barfuesse, der ein bichter ist gewesen zu
alspach. Dis hat er geben schwester barbel welden.’); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq
ff. 253v–268r (late 15th cent.); Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 853 ff.
23r–35r; Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek Rep. IV 106 Band I ff. 78r–96v (17th cent.).
This long sermon was printed in the early seventeenth century as Eine schoene Lehr
von den sieben Graden oder Staffeln der volkommenen Liebe in denen die Gesponß Christi wan-
deln soll (Frankfurt a. M.: Daniel Sudermann, 1622). A modern edition is given in
Franziskanisches Schrifttum, Band II: Texte, 129–146. The work, which relies heavily on
Bernard de Clairvaux, Gerson, and Dionysius the Carthusian, describes the mar-
riage of the soul with Christ in seven steps, each of which again is subdivided in
three parts. The Latin theological terms (such as amor, caritas etc.) connected with
the soul’s mystical union with Christ are presented first, followed by German elu-
cidations.
223
MSS Munich, Universitätsbibliothek (deutsch) 4° 490 ff. 1r–105r (16th cent.);
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 853 ff. 1r–74r, 80r–129v (early 16th cent.)
& Cgm. 1120 ff. 1ra–4va (1509; contains the second sermon). Some of these ser-
mons are identical with the sermons on the evangelical councils dating from 1493.
224
The ascription of this collection is not fully secure. They are somewhat rem-
iniscent of the Lehre für angefochtene und kleinmütige Menschen by Stephan Fridolin. These
sermons can be found in the manuscripts Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale et
Universitaire 2797 ff. 96r–189r; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgf 1056 ff. 34vb–48vb,
73ra–90rb: Überlingen, Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek 1 ff. 245ra–279ra.
225
Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 103; M. Bihl & A. Wagner, ‘Tabulae Capitulares
(. . .) Observantium argentinensium’, AF VIII (Quaracchi, 1946), 820–821; Zawart,
‘The History of Franciscan Preaching and Franciscan Preachers’, 345–346; Landmann,
‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz, 302–307; Cl. Schmitt,
‘Jean Meder’, DSpir X, 901f; Josef Frey, ‘Meder, Joannes’, VL2 VI, 270–271.
of Christ. The longest sermon of this rather learned cycle (which

cites a wide range of theological authorities, privileging authors from
the twelfth to the early fourteenth century), evolves into an allegor-
ical passion treatise, whereas another sermon reworks in a spiritual
fashion the famous Pyramus and Thisbe story.226
A younger colleague of Meder was Erasmus Schaltdorfer (1440–
1536). He had joined the Observance following his lectorate studies
at the Franciscan studium of Strasbourg (1477), preaching assignments
in Munich, Schlettstadt and Schaffhausen, and a stint of higher
studies at Venice. Following his switch to the Observance, Erasmus
Schaltdorfer continued his career as a preacher and administrator
in the Bavaria custody. The written fruits of his activities can be
found in his Latin sermon booklet, which, on top of his own sermons
(predominantly for the Poor Clares of Schaffhausen and Strasbourg,
ca. 1477–1478), contain copies of sermons by other friars and addi-
tional praedicabilia.227
A possible acquaintance of Erasmus Schaltdorfer in the Bavaria
custody, the Observant friar Kaspar Schatzgeyer (1464–1527), taught
theology at Landshut and Ingolstadt, to take up positions as a con-
vent preacher, guardian (in Munich, 1498–1507, and Ingolstadt,
1513–1514) and provincial minister of the Strasbourg or Upper
Germany province. In the course of his career, he had to defend
the Observant cause against the Conventuals and the Coletans, and
finally (in the 1520s) against the Lutherans. The spin-off of all these
struggles was a series of polemic works.228 During his preaching and
226
Quadragesimale Novum Editum de Filio Prodigo et de Angeli Ipsius Ammonitione Salubri per
Sermones Divisum (Basel: M. Furster, 1495/Basel: M. Furster, 1497/Basel: M. Furster,
1510/Paris: Barbier, 1511). Cf. Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, nos. 13628 & 13629
and Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz, 305–306,
who states: ‘Wir haben es hier also nicht mit einem homiletischen Magazin gewöhn-
licher Art, sondern eher mit einem aus gehaltenen Predigten hervorgegangenen lit-
erarischen Erbauungswerke zu tun.’
227
MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 8940. For a description of this
manuscript, see F. Landmann, ‘Erasmus Schaltdorffer O. Min., ein Straßburger
Klosterprediger aus dem Jahre 1477’, Archiv für elss. Kirchengeschichte 7 (1932), 161–178;
Volker Honemann, ‘Schaltdorfer, Erasmus OFM’, VL2 VIII, 598–600.
228
Some of his spiritual works will be dealt with in another chapter. For more
information, see Nikolaus Paulus, Kaspar Schatzgeyer, ein Vorkämpfer der katholischen Kirche
gegen Luther in Süddeutschland, Strassburger theologische Studien, 3, book 1 (Strasbourg,
1898); V. Heynk, ‘Zur Rechtfertigungslehre des Kontroverstheologen Kaspar Schatz-
geyer’, FrSt 28 (1941), 129–151; H. Klomps, Kirche, Freiheit und Gesetz bei dem Franziskaner
Kaspar Schatzgeyer (Münster, 1959); E. Komposch, Die Messe als Opfer der Kirche. Die
88 chapter one
guardian assignments, he had the habit of giving exegetical confer-

ences for his fellow friars.229 In the course of his Lenten preaching
tours for a wider public, Schatzgeyer moved beyond such exegetical
forays to teach his lay audience the ten commandments and the
importance of the spiritual struggle against sins. The substrate of
these more catechistic teachings was gathered in his Quadragesimale
Tractans de Decem Preceptis Dei and his Quadragesimale de Pugna Vitiorum
et Illi Annexis (going back to sermons held in 1511–1512).230
Schatzgeyer’s successor as the provincial of the Upper Germany
province, the Observant friar Heinrich Kastner (d. 1530), fulfilled a
variety of preaching assignments in and around the various Franciscan
convents in the Basel, Rhine, Schwabia and Bavaria custodies.231 In
support of these assignments, Heinrich produced a number of sermon
collections, with titles as the Sermonarium Viarum Vitae et Mortis, the
Sermones Extravagantes, the Eytlposs, the Sermones Ulmenses, and the Sermones
de Sanctis et Aliis Variis in Principio Annotatis. Of these various collections,
only the Sermones de Sanctis have come down to us. This cycle contains
113 Latin sermon outlines for the special feast days during the litur-
gical year. Most of these outlines provide in sermo modernus-fashion
the introductio, the divisio (in Latin rhyme, sometimes with German
Lehre Kaspar Schatzgeyers (Munich, 1965); Paul Nyhus, ‘Caspar Schatzgeyer and Conrad
Pellikan: The Triumph of Dissension in the Early Sixteenth Century’, Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte 61 (1970), 179–204; W. Klaiber, Katholische Kontrovers-theologen und
Reformer des 16. Jahrhunderts (Münster, 1978), passim; Clément Schmitt, ‘Schatzgeyer
(Gaspard)’, DSpir XIV, 403–404.
229
‘. . . Schatzgeyer habe als Guardian die Gewohnheit gehabt, dem versammelten
Konvent erbauliche Vorträge zu halten, zu deren Gegenstand er die verschiedenen
Bücher der Hl. Schrift wählte.’ Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen (. . .)’, 341.
230
The Quadragesimale Tractans de Decem Preceptis Dei can be found in MS Munich,
Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Ms 61 ff. 56–126. The Quadragesimale de Pugna Vitiorum
et Illi Annexis is found in the same manuscript on ff. 1–53 and in MS Munich,
Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Ms 62 ff. 105–246. Other sermons by him are found
in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 7803 ff. 44–142 (sermons dating from
the period 1526–1527 and copied by Matthias Walch in 1529), and MS Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 9056.
231
For his attested presence as a preacher at Heidelberg (1495–96), Ingolstadt
(1496–1501), Nuremberg (1501–1507, 1513–1514, 1519–1520), Heilbronn (1508–1510),
Ulm (1511–1513), and Freiburg i. Breisgau (1515–1519), his literary activities and
his lectorate and administrative assignments, see Glassberger, Chronica, in: AF II
(1887), 551, 555, 562; P. Minges, Geschichte der Franziskaner in Bayern (Munich, 1896),
85; F. Landmann, ‘Das Ingolstadter Predigtbuch des Franziskaners Heinrich Kastner’,
in: Festschrift H. Finke (Munich, 1904), 423–480; Idem, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der
Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz’, 344–348; AF VIII (1946), 810–812, 872; Ruh,
Bonaventura Deutsch, 59; Bavaria Franciscana Antiqua 5 (1961), 200; Jürgen W. Einhorn,
‘Kastner, Heinrich’, VL2 IV, 1051–1053.
translation), and the dilatatio (authorities and exempla). Of special inter-

est are the sermon outlines 27 to 36, which focus on the suffering
of Christ, and might reflect the decision of the 1464 Franciscan gen-
eral chapter (Malines), to emphasise the suffering of Christ in pop-
ular sermons. It would seem that these Latin outlines form the basis
of the sermons preached by Kastner in German between 1498 and
1501 (Ingolstadt), and again between 1506 and 1522.232
The Swabian friar Johann Wild (1495–1554) had joined the
Observants in the upper Germany or Strasbourg province in 1515,
inspired by the preaching of and example set by Kaspar Schatzgeyer.
Johann spent most of his religious life as a convent preacher at
Mainz, were he habitually gave long morning and afternoon sermons
on Sun- and feast days. He supplemented these convent sermons
with public sermons at the Mainz cathedral, at Franciscan provin-
cial chapters and at the Mainz diocesan synod of 1548. In the course
of this long preaching career, during which Johann provided both
catechistic teachings and more in-depth exegetical forays into the
Old and New Testament, he collected a mass of homiletic materials.
At the urging of his fellow friars and on request of the Archbishop
of Mainz (Prince-Elect Sebastian von Heusenstamm)—who held
Johann’s sermons in high esteem, thinking that, once published, they
could be a strong weapon in the struggle against the reformation—
Johann reworked many of these materials into more than 30 pub-
lishable collections. These appeared for the first time between ca.
1550 and 1562, and were repeatedly re-issued in the decades there-
after. Looking at their volume, he might have been one of the most
productive Franciscan homiletic authors of the sixteenth century,
whose enormous legacy for the most part remains terra incognita to
modern scholars.233
232
Sermones de Sanctis et Aliis Variis: MS Colmar, Bibliothèque Municipale 115
(early 16th cent. probably from the Franciscan convent of Rufach). For a more in-
depth analysis of these sermon outlines, their use of authorities (such as Augustine,
Bernard de Clairvaux, Tommaso d’Aquino, Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, Alexander
of Hales, and John Vitalis), proverbs, similes from nature, rhetorical devices, and
references to contemporary political and religious concerns, see the articles of Einhorn
and Landmann mentioned in the previous note.
233
Johann Wild was assisted in the publication of his books by his friend Philipp
Agricola, a local priest. Due to the religious climate, several of Wild’s writings ended
on the index of forbidden books, whereas others appeared in purged editions. For
purposes of religious instruction, the most accessible of Wild’s many writings prob-
ably is the Quadragesimal, das ist Fasten Predigt von der Buss, Beicht, Bann, Fasten, Communion,
90 chapter one
In addition to these and many other significant Observant figures

from the Upper Germany province, we might point out some other
friars from the Cologne province, who in the generations after
Johannes Brugman and Hendrik Herp played a major role in devel-
oping the Observant Franciscan homiletic and spiritual profile in the
Low Countries, such as Dietrich Colde (1435–1515) and Matthias
Weynsen from Dordrecht (ca. 1480–1547). Dietrich Colde, by far
the most famous of these two, only entered the Franciscan Observants
after a preaching and writing career of ca. 30 years in the Rhine
valley and The Netherlands as an Augustinian friar. Following his
transfer to the Franciscan Observants in the Cologne province,
Dietrich lived and preached for several years in the Boetendaal con-
vent (near Brussels), earning a reputation for himself as a caretaker
of plague victims, peace broker and convent reformer. In 1491, the
Archbishop of Cologne appointed him praedicator generalis for the
Rhineland and Westphalia. From the mid 1490s onwards, we find
him fulfilling the office of guardian in the Observant Franciscan con-
vents of Brussels (c. 1495), Brühl (near Cologne, 1497), Boetendaal
(1502), Antwerp (1508), and Louvain (1510).234
Dietrich Colde’s reputation as a preacher and an exemplary
Christian even moved critical humanists like Erasmus.235 Whereas
these humanists applauded Dietrich’s lifestyle and apostolic elan, they
Passion und Osterfesten, auff die zwey letste Capitel des Ersten Büchlins Esre und auff die his-
tory von der büssenden Sünderin (Mainz, 1551/Mainz, 1563). A Latin translation appeared
in Antwerp (1554), Lyon (1554, 1557 and 1567), and Venice (1567). Many other
sermon collections have a more intellectual exegetical character. Some of Wild’s
prayer books and related spiritual texts will be dealt with in another chapter. For
a full overview of his many collections and their editions, see N. Paulus, Johannes
Wild: Ein Mainzer Domprediger des 16. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1893); P. Schlager, Geschichte
der Kölnischen Franziskanerprovinz (Regensburg, 1909) II, 103, 128, 192, 274; AF VIII
(1946), 667–894; and especially H.-M. Stamm, ‘Wild’, DSpir XVI (1994), 1435–1441.
234
R. Ernsing, ‘Zu dem Leben und den Werken Dietrich Koldes’, Historisches
Jahrbuch 12 (1891), 56–68; J. Goyens, Un héros du Vieux-Bruxelles. Le Bienheureux Thiérri
Coelde (d. 1515). Notes et documents (Mechelen, 1929); A. Groeteken, Dietrich Kolde von
Münster. Ein Held des Wortes und der Tat in deutschen Landen (Munster, 1935); K. Zuhorn,
‘Neue Beiträge zur Lebensgeschichte Dietrich Koldes’, FrSt 28 (1941), 107–116,
163–194; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Saeculi XVI II, no. 281–307; Idem,
Bio-Bibliografia Franciscana Neerlandica ante Saec. XVI I, 196–248; Mees, Bio-Bibliografia
Franciscana Neerlandica ante Saec. XVI, II & III: Incunabula II, 45–55 (no. 1–21) & III,
7–40; De Troeyer, ‘Dietrich von Münster (um 1435–1515)’, FrSt 65 (1983), 156–204;
Idem, ‘Kolde, Dietrich, von Osnabrück’, VL2 V, 19–26.
235
Erasmus, Opus Epistolarum, ed. P.S. Allen et al. (Oxford, 1906–1958) V, 249f
& X, 124–138.
kept silent about the form and content of his teachings (which in
their eyes may have looked rather traditional). On top of the vari-
ous versions of his Christenspiegel/Der Kerstenen Spiegel, a catechetical
‘Andachtsbuch’ that saw more than 45 editions in Dutch, German
and Latin,236 Dietrich wrote a range of smaller Latin and vernacular
religious texts, among which can be identified a smattering of ser-
mons and sermon-like materials. These consist of a small number of
Sermoenen,237 an exegetical Collacie on Apocalypse 3,15,238 and the Die
seven getzide seyr devotelichen geprediget durch den gelarden und furigen geistlichen
herren broder Dederich van Munster. This last-mentioned sermon collec-
tion for devotional reading (which eventually found its way into the
final version of the Der Kerstenen Spieghel ) contains a progressive set
of explanatory exercises to underscore the recitation of the Pater
Noster, with supplementary prayers and meditations on the passion
(to be held at the various liturgical hours).239
The younger Matthias Weynsen from Dordrecht, responsible for
the creation of the new Lower Germany province (severing it from
the Cologne province), and for many years a devoted administrator
within the order (guardian, provincial minister, and general com-
missioner for the Ultramontan provinces) in the years that the breach
between the Observants and the Conventuals was finalised, became
236
See on this Chapter VII.
237
These Sermoenen on the love and compassion of God, on faith, diligence, and
on Mary’s ascent into heaven, as well as some comparable additional texts can be
found in MS Brussels, Stadtsarchief Cod. 2915 ff. 71–79 & ff. 79–88 (c. 1500).
They have been edited by M.G. des Marez, in Revue des bibliothèques et archives Bruxelles
5/5–6 (1907) and by Goyens, in Idem, Un héros du Vieux-Bruxelles. Le Bienheureux
Thierri Coelde. Notes et documents, 55–75. Goyens also presents the additional texts
(75–91), of which the ascription to Dietrich Colde can not be verified.
238
MS Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Cod. Theol. 8° 141 ff.
21r–29r (late 15th cent.) This Dutch Collacie or sermon on Apocalypse 3,15 con-
tains interesting admonitions about the importance of listening to sermons (pre-
sented as a Christian activity as important as receiving the host) and concerning
the ways in which Christians can obtain divine grace, reaching back to Bonaventura’s
Sermo de Modo Vivendi. Some other texts in this manuscripts might also have been
written by Colde. Parts of this Collacie have been printed by Ernsing in Historisches
Jahrbuch 12 (1891), 56 and in Franziskanisches Schrifttum Band II: Texte. Cf. De Troeyer,
‘Dietrich von Münster’, 198 & Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch, 61–62.
239
Dit synt die seven getzide seyr devotelichen geprediget durch den gelarden und furigen geistlichen
herren broder Dederich van Munster des observanten ordens (Cologne: Johann van Sollyngen,
1518/Cologne: S. Lupus, ca. 1526). The booklet closes with additional prayers. A
modern German translation of these ‘sermons’ can be found in Groeteken, ‘Der
älteste gedruckte deutsche Katechismus’, 400–402.
92 chapter one
an important preacher in the struggle against Protestantism.240 He

also stimulated the publication of a variety of spiritual works in Lower
German and Dutch.241 Matthias was less concerned with the publi-
cation of his own pastoral writings. As a result, only two of his Dutch
sermons seem to have come down to us: Een scoen sermon op die olyven
boems condicien hoe een claeris hoert te leven and Noch drie scoene punten van
des voerseyden vaders sermoen. In both cases, we are dealing with teach-
ings once given to the Poor Clares of Amsterdam (in 1521), and
transcribed by a Poor Clare present at the occasion.242 Using the
popular symbol of the Olive tree, the first Scoen sermon lists and elab-
orates upon the true virtues of a Poor Clare.243 The second sermon
analyses the three conditions that provide certitude about the prospect
of eternal life: fidelity to a chosen religious vocation, a good con-
science, and a profound disdain for the world.
Jan Royaert (c. 1476–1547), a contemporary friar from Audenaarde
in the Southern Low Countries, spent most of his adult life lectur-
ing and preaching at the Franciscan convent of Bruges.244 At the
240
Sbaralea even suggests that ‘contra Lutheri haeresim pugilem fortissimum qui
et Coloniam a nefaria ista peste conservavit.’ Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 233–4. On
Matthias, see in general S. Dirks, Histoire littéraire des Frères Mineurs en Belgique (Antwerp,
1885), 34–37; P. Schlager, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kölnischen Franziskaner-Ordensprovinz
während des Reformationszeitalters (Regensburg, 1909), 18–19, 26–27, 29, 33, 36–41,
49–51, 225, 228, 230–231, 282–283; C. Sloots, ‘Pater Matthias Weynsen’, Bijdragen
voor de Geschiedenis van de Provincie der Minderbroeders in de Nederlanden 2 (1947), 348–365;
Benjamin De Troeyer, ‘Weynsen’, Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek I (Brussel, 1964),
967–968; Idem, ‘Matthias Weynsen’, Franciscana 20 (1965), 19–25; Idem, Bio-
Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica, Saeculi XVI I, 31–40 & II, nos. 127–50, 708–709;
Heinz-Meinolf Stamm, ‘Weynsen’, DSpir XVI (1994), 1404–1406.
241
He supported Jan van Alen’s translation of Raymond Jourdan’s Contemplationes
Idiotae (1535), and published in Lower German the Fasciculus Mirre (1517), a work
written by an anonymous friar from the Cologne province. In 1535, Matthias pub-
lished the De verweckinghe der godlijcker liefden, a translation in Dutch of Giacomo da
Milano’s Stimulus Amoris. It is not known whether Matthis himself was the transla-
tor, or whether he merely facilitated the publication.
242
Found in MS Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 11151–55, ff. 184r–196v.
243
The ‘three hard roots’ of the tree symbolise the three vows; the hard wood
of the olive tree symbolises the fundamental virtues of patience, spiritual strength,
and faithfullness; and the green leaves of the olive tree symbolise different virtues
of speech (the sister only speaks to accuse herself, to praise God, and for charitable
purposes) and modes of piety. These green leaves are contrasted with white, yellow,
red and black leaves, which stand for vices such as anger, gossip, and bad temper.
The odor of the olive symbolises the good reputation of the convent; the olive and
its oil (scone vette olye) symbolise the love for God and one’s fellow sisters.
244
Besides, he disputed with Lutherans in Gent (1521), fulfilled guardianships in
Ypres, Sluis, and Dunkirck, and went on special assignments to Scotland (1535–1536).
request of his provincial Matthias Weynsen, who desired the prolif-

eration of doctrinally safe sermons to keep people within the Catholic
fold, Royaert reworked and published a large number of the sermon
cycles that he initially had compiled for his own use. His published
collections, dedicated to Matthias Weynsen and directed to homiletic
practitioners in the frontline of religious dissent, are deliberately con-
ventional, and carefully cite only from fully accredited patristic sources,
monastic writers and scholastic authorities of the via antiqua. Traditional
as they were, these cycles turned out to be a popular Catholic answer
to Lutheran and budding Calvinist novelties, defending the veneration
of saints and many other practices under attack by the reformers.245
The works of Hervé Martin have shown the importance of Fran-
ciscan Observant preaching in the French provinces during the
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.246 However, this is only partly
reflected in the surviving literary production, which can not com-
pare with the written homiletic output of Observant friars in the
German and Italian provinces. Among the French Observant friars
whose sermons have been preserved, three figures stand out: the
internationally oriented preacher Olivier Maillard (c. 1430–1502),
For more information, see AF VIII (1946), 24; Optat de Veghel, ‘Spiritualité
Franciscaine: 16e siècle’, DSpir V, 1386; B. De Troeyer, ‘Bio-bibliografie van de
minderbroeders in de Nederlanden 16e eeuw, voorstudies XXI: Jan Royaert’,
Franciscana 21 (1966), 3–9; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI
I, 129–136 & II, nos. 332–413; Idem, ‘Royaert (Royard: Jean)’, DSpir XIII, 1025–1026.
245
De Troeyer mentions the following collections: Homiliae super Epistolas Feriales
Quadragesimae (Antwerp, 1535/Antwerp, 1542/Antwerp, 1544/Paris, 1544/Paris,
1547/Antwerp, 1550/Paris, 1551/Paris, 1552/Paris, 1554/Antwerp, 1561); Enarratio
Passionis. Eligia Insultatoria Hierosolymorum Civitati (Antwerp, 1535 (in the 1535 edition
of the Homiliae super Epistolas Feriales Quadragesimae)/Antwerp, 1542/Antwerp, 1544/Paris,
1544/Paris, 1547/Antwerp, 1549/Paris, 1551/Paris, 1552/Antwerp, 1560); Homiliae
in Omnes Epistolas Dominicales Pars Hiemalis (Antwerp, 1538/Antwerp, 1543/Paris,
1544/Paris, 1553/Paris, 1560); Homiliae in Omnes Epistolas Dominicales Pars Aestivalis
(Antwerp, 1538/Antwerp, 1543/Paris, 1544/Paris, 1553/Paris, 1560); Homiliae in
Festivitates Sanctorum Pars Hiemalis (Antwerp, 1538/Antwerp, 1543/Paris, 1544/Paris,
1550/Paris, 1553); Homiliae in Festivitates Sanctorum Pars Aestivalis (Antwerp, 1538/Antwerp,
1543/Paris, 1544/Paris, 1550/Paris, 1554); Homiliae in Epistolas Dominicales et Festivitates
Sanctorum, 4 Parts (Antwerp, 1546/Antwerp, 1555/Antwerp, 1567); Homiliae in Evangelia
Dominicalia, Trium Feriarum Paschalium et totidem Pentecostalium, 2 Vols. (Antwerp,
1542/Paris, 1543/Antwerp, 1544/Paris, 1546/Antwerp, 1549/Antwerp, 1550/Paris,
1550/Paris, 1553/Antwerp, 1559); Homiliae in Evangelia Feriarum Quadragesimae (Antwerp,
1544/Antwerp, 1546/Paris, 1548/Paris, 1551/Antwerp, 1557); Opera Omnia & Passionis
Elucidatio (Cologne, 2 Vols., 1550/Lyon, 5 Vols., 1573).
246
See in particular Hervé Martin, Le métier de prédicateur en France septentrionale a
la fin du moyen age (1350–1520) (Paris, 1988).
94 chapter one
the local erudite Jean Vitrier from St. Omer (ca. 1456–1519), and
Jean Glapion (ca. 1460–1522), confessor of Emperor Charles V.
Following his entrance in the order (either in the Aquitaine or in
the Touraine province) and several years of study at the Parisian
Franciscan studium generale, Olivier Maillard quickly made a career in
the various French provinces of the regular Observance. He com-
bined his various vicariate charges in the order provinces of Touraine,
Aquitaine and Francia and his responsibilities as the administrator
of the Ultramontan Observant provinces (1487–1490, 1493–1496,
1499–1502), with lengthy preaching tours throughout France, Germany
and the Low Countries. Many of the texts resulting from these
preaching rallies quickly found their way to the printing press.247
Among these we can distinguish Latin and French advent and quares-
imal cycles, de tempore and de sanctis cycles for the full liturgical year,
and a number of sermones variae on virtues and vices.248 Apart from
247
On Maillard, see Nicolaus Glassberger, Chronica, in: AF II (1887), 502, 505,
510, 521, 525–530, 535; Wadding-Chiappini, Annales Minorum XIV & XV; Sbaralea,
Supplementum II, 298–300; A. De La Borderie, Oeuvres françaises d’Olivier Maillard
(Nantes, 1877); A. Samouillan, Étude sur la chaire et la société française au quinzième siècle:
Olivier Maillard, sa prédication et son temps (Toulouse-Paris, 1891); D.H. Carnaham,
‘Some Sources of Olivier Maillard’s Sermon on the Passion’, Romanic Review 7 (1916),
144–169; A. Mabille de Poncheville, Beatus Olivier Maillard, le moine au franc parler
(Paris, 1946); AF VIII (1946), 819f.; M.-Th. Chevreux, Comparaison des principaux
thèmes dans la prédication de Gerson et celle de Maillard, Mémoire (Nancy, 1965), Cf. Revue
d’Histoire d’Eglise de France 54 (1968), 500; Hugues Dedieu & André Rayez, ‘Maillard
(Olivier)’, DSpir X, 106–109.
248
It is difficult to establish the full corpus of Maillard’s Latin sermons. Partly
based on the information provided by Samouillan, Zawart, Chevreux and by inci-
dental references in catalogues and journals, I come to the following provisional list
of early editions: Sermones de Adventu (Paris, 1494 & 1497), containing 44 sermons
preached at Paris; Sermones de Adventu, Sermones Variae & Sermones de Stipendio Peccati
et Gratiae Proemio (Lyon, 1498/Paris, 1500/Lyon, 1503/Strasbourg, 1512); Sermones
de Sanctis (Paris: Gerlier, 1507/Paris: Bocard, 1507); Sermo de Iustitia & Opus Quadragesimale
(Paris, 1498 & 1508/Lyon, 1498); Expositio Epistolarum Totius Anni (Paris, 1497);
Sermones Domenicales post Pentecosten (Paris, 1498); Novum Diversorum Sermonum Opus (Paris,
1502), containing an Adventuale Breve (32 sermons), a Quadragesimale (60 sermons
preached during Lent 1501 at Bruges), Sermones de Miseriis Animae (8 sermons), and
several sermons for Sun- and feastdays; Opus Quadragesimale (Paris, 1507/Paris,
1513/Paris, 1518), containing quadragesimal sermons preached at Nantes before
1470 (Many of these sermons are preached to a fictional audience that continually
asks its preacher what should be done to obtain eternal life. Others form a
Quadragesimale Criminosi, addressed at a ‘criminal sinner’). A number of Maillard’s
French sermons were published separately, namely the Sermon de Carême (Antwerp,
1503) and the Histoire de la Passion Douloureuse de Notre Doux Sauveur et Rédempteur
Remémorée es Sacrés et Saints Mystères de la Messe (Paris, 1493). This collection saw at
least seven editions before it was re-issued again in the early nineteenth century.
these cycles, which have not yet received the attention they deserve,
I would like to mention a sermon and some spiritual Ansprachen to
the Poor Clares of Nuremberg, which show Maillards extraordinary
relationship with this important community of Franciscan nuns.249
249
These can be found in the manuscripts Brixen, Franziskanerkloster S 11 ff.
33r–50v (Early 16th cent. This manuscript once was in the possession of the Poor
Clare Justina Plebin, who ended her life in 1521 in the Poor Clare convent of
Brixen); Dresden, Ehemalige Bibliothek des Prinzl. Sekundogenitus 8° 12 f. 172r
(c. 1500); Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4439 ff. 48v–50v; Prague,
University Library cod. XVI G 31 ff. 28v–33v (early 16th cent.). The last three
manuscripts only contain parts of these texts. For a diplomatic edition of the com-
plete corpus, based on the Brixen manuscript, see: M. Straganz, ‘Ansprachen des
Fr. Oliverius Maillard an die Klarissen zu Nürnberg’, FrSt 4 (1917), 68–85. These
letters and the sermon have survived in German, and maybe were translated from
French or Latin by Stephan Fridolin, confessor of the Nuremberg Poor Clares.
Maillard visited this Poor Clare convent at least twelve times. See on this also
K. Ruh, VL2 V, 1173–1175 & P. Kesting, VL2 V, 1258. The first of these Ansprachen
or spiritual teachings are connected with the feast of Mary’s birth and provide coun-
cil on the reception of host: ‘Disse ler hat uns geton der aller wirdigist und wolsel-
lig vater pater Oliverius Mailardi zu der zeit vicarius generalis am freitag vor
nativitatis Marie anno domini MCCCCXCIII. Transite ad me omnes, qui concu-
piscitis me; also spriht die sellig kristragend iunkfrau Maria durch den weissen man
(Eccl. 24, 26); trettend zu mir alle jünger die mein begeren, wan wer mich fint,
der fint daz leben und schopft daz heil von got dem hernn. Zu disser edeln muter
solt ir aller libsten kinder treten durch zwii, daz ist durch betrachtung und gepet
(. . .) Nu furpas aller liebsten kinder und paupercule filie sult ir mercken, was gut
dar zu ist, daz ir auf dicz zu kunftig hochzeit und sust alzeit eurn behalter und
erlosser wirdiglich in dem heiligen sacrament zu euch mugt enpfachen. Darzu sind
vi dinck not: czwei vor, ee man zu gangen ist, czwei im zugang, czwei nach dem
alz man zugangen ist. Wer zu dissem sacrament wil gen, dem ist not, daz er mit
reinigkeit zugang. Ist aber iemand auf erden, der mit reinem herczen sol er zugan,
so sult ir es sein fur ieder man euers geistlichen stands halben. Czu disser reinigkeit
sind vor dem zugang not zwei dinck: puratio et cessatio, reinigung oder puß der
sunden und aufhörn von den sunden. (. . .) Aber in dem zugang dez h. Sacramencz
sind auch zu mercken zwei dinck: meditatio et oratio, betrachtung und gepet (. . .)
Aber nach der Communion sind aber zwei dinck, graciarum accio et suscepti reten-
cio, got dancken umb diß groß gut und allen fleiß haben, wie ir den mugt behal-
ten, den ir habt enpfangen (. . .) Dar umb sult ir euch nach dem heilligen sacrament
besunder den selben tag vor aller außkerigkeit, magkfaltigkeit, zerstreuligkeit und
leichfertigkeit mit fleiß hutten und beleiben in einigkeit und stilligkeit und euch kern
zu dem herrn, den ir habt enpfangen, und in pitten, daz er pei euch woll beleiben
und sich nimer ewiglich von euch woll scheiden (. . .)’ MS Brixen, Franziskanerkloster
S 11 ff. 33r–40v (these and the following citations are derived from the diplomatic
editon of M. Straganz). The second spiritual advice, MS Brixen, Franziskanerkloster
S 11 ff. 41r–46v develops comparable themes, emphasising (f. 42v) the ‘spiritus
devocionis, aqua compunccionis, sanguis passionis, der geist der andacht, daz wasser
der reu und daz plut dez mitleidens.’ The last element again should bring the sis-
ters back to Christ: ‘Also so ein kint get in sein zellein oder kamerlein und etwen
stet vor einem crucifix, so merckt es, daz der herr jhesus, der so unschuldiglich
getotet ist, ein warer mensch ist gewesen (. . .) Also aller liebsten kindt und pau-
percule filie! Hebt auf eure augen als yoseph und secht an euren pruder benyamyn
96 chapter one
The uncompromising Observant friar Jean Vitrier, geographically

confined to the custody of Flanders, was important for his contri-
bution to homiletic learning, patristic scholarship and Franciscan spir-
ituality.250 He left us an interesting commentary on Christ’s sermon
an dem creucz stien. Daz ist betrachtet und durch grundet sein heilligs leiden, secht,
was, wie und warumb er gelidten hat; so wird bewegt werden eur inwendigkeit,
daz ist, ir wert mitleiden mit im haben, durch welches mitleiden ir geschickt werdt,
daz er durch sein genad zu euch wirt komen und sein wollust wirt sein, pei euch
zu wonnen, daz er euch verleich, qui vivit et regnat in secula seculorum. Amen.’
MS Brixen, Franziskanerkloster S 11 ff. 82–83. The spiritual letter in MS Brixen,
Franziskanerkloster S 11 ff. 47r–48r. is more particularly concerned with the way
in which the sisters should spend their days: ‘die Zeit sult ir nit unnuczlich verz-
ern, sunder nun heillige leczen, denn reu und miltte betrachtung, denn fruchtpere
arbeit sollen den maisten teil eur zeit in zu eigenen; manigfeltigkeit unnuczer wort
und unnuczer erfarung neuer mer sullen ferr von euch sein, wann sy zerstreuen
daz gemut und schopfen auß denn geist, wie wol den noch meßige ergeczligkeit
mit den swestern nit sind zu verberffen. Yr sult euch schir an aller stat und in einer
ieglichen creatur gewenen, got den herrn, eurn gesponßen eintweder zu bekennen
oder zu pitten.’ Hence, at all times the nuns should make mental correspondences,
weighing their own thoughts and actions in relation so heavenly blessings and the
punishments of hell. Most of all (f. 47v): ‘aber uber alle dinck solt ir oft mit den
armen dez herczen den stamen dez heiligen creuczes an euch trucken und da an
schauen den bunderlichen got seiner weißheit halb, seiner gerechtigkeit halb, seiner
guttigkeit halb.’ The fourth spiritual advice (MS Brixen, Franziskanerkloster S 11
ff. 48v–50v) deals with the ‘Anfechtungen’ that threaten the religious: ‘Item ir sult
gewarnt sein vor dem hinter listigen feint der nit auf hort nacht und tag zu veriren
die got geweichten junkfrauen, die dy upikeit der welt versmechen und christo
begeren an zu hangen. Wenn der selb listig temptator kumpt so sult ir gewarnt
sein; wann er wirt nit losen, er wirt sein pfeil auch etwan zu euch schiesen. Es sey
mit anfechtung von der welt, von den menschen, von dem flaisch, etwan mit unges-
tumen, grewenlichen, groben anfechtungen von gotz lesterung, von dem gelauben
und schwermutigkeit.’ Most importantly (f. 50r): ‘Aber vor allen dingen sult ir euch
huten vor swermutigkeit die schier den grosten schaden thut in der gaistlikeit. Sunder
mit frolichen hertzen begirlichen dienen; denn der euch zu seinen dienst geschafen
hat erlost und beruft, und solt nit besorgen ob ir von der zal der auserwelten seit
oder nit.’ On the contrary, they should love Christ, trusting that Christ does not
leave those who love him.
250
As a preacher and as a guardian of the Namur Observants and of St. Omer,
Vitrier repeatedly got into serious trouble. His vehement accusations against non-
reformed religious houses and secular clerics drew the attention of the Parisian the-
ology faculty, which censored sixteen positions in his sermons. His protests against
indulgences (and particularly the general jubilee indulgences of 1500) brought about
his temporary excommunication. Finally his brusque reforms of the St. Marguerite
convent of Poor Clares (St. Omer) lead to an abortive attempt of murder. For
Erasmus of Rotterdam, Vitrier’s uncompromising religiosity as well as his Origen
scholarship were cause for great praise. See A. Derville, ‘Jean Vitrier et les religieuses
de Sainte Marguerite (1500–1530)’, Revue du Nord 42 (1960), 207–239; A. Godin,
‘De Vitrier à Origène. Recherches sur la patristique érasmienne’, in: Colloquium
Erasmianum (Mons, 1968), 47–57; Idem, ‘Érasme et le modèle origénien de la prédi-
cation’, in: Colloquia Erasmiana Turonensia, ed. J.-C. Margolin (Toronto, 1972) II,
on the mount251 and 23 French homilies. These latter texts hoped to

arouse in their audience the desire to move beyond an initial under-
standing and acceptance of the principles of Christian faith, towards
an interiorisation of the spiritual meaning of Scripture. For Vitrier,
the major instruments to bring this about were the practice of char-
ity in the world, the exercise of prayer, the cultivation of a sacra-
mental life centred on the Eucharist, and frequent meditative encounters
with the suffering Christ. In principle, this spiritual programme was
designed for all Christians. Yet it was directed more in particular to
the local communities of Poor Clares and associated female convents
for which Vitrier had specific pastoral responsibilities.252
The last Observant friar from the French provinces who I would
like to mention is Jean Glapion. After his theological studies at Paris,
he had become the guardian of the Observant Bruges convent. This
assignment was followed by provincial vicariate positions in Northern
France and Burgundy, defending the cause of the regular Observance
against the policies of the Coletan minister general Boniface de Ceva.
Subsequently, Glapion distinguished himself with his homiletic activ-
ities at the court of the Duke of Lorraine (1520), and with his coun-
sellor and confessor assignments at the court of emperor Charles V
(maybe on the recommendation of Francisco de Quiñones).
Glapion gave a large number of Lenten and Easter sermons dur-
ing his sojourn at the court of the Duke of Lorraine. 48 of these he
gathered in a cycle entitled La cité du coeur divin (The city of the
divine heart). The central focus of this collection is the passion of
Christ and the presence of Christ’s sacrificial body in the Eucharist.253
807–820; Erasme, Vies de Jean Vitrier et de John Colet, trad. & pres. A. Godin (Antwerp,
1982); ‘Jean Vitrier of St. Omer’, in: Contemporaries of Erasmus, ed. P.G. Bietenholz,
Vol. 3 (Toronto, 1987); André Godin, ‘Vitrier’, DSpir 16 (1994), 1052–1060.
251
L’Exposition sur le sermon que nostre seigneur fit en la montaigne contenant les huyt beat-
itudes (Paris, F. Regnault, 1511/Paris, S. Vostre/Paris, Veuve J. de Brie, 1541/Paris,
N. Buffet & A. Foucault, 1544).
252
Found in MS St. Omer 300 and edited as L’homéliaire de Jean Vitrier, ed.
A. Godin (Genève, 1971). Cf. also the laudatory review of G. Chantraine in RHE
68 (1973), 892–898. Godin provides additional information on other Franciscan
spiritual texts floating around in Artois and Flanders, referring to the manuscripts
St. Omer 320, 362, 406, 410, 414, 416, 428.
253
MS Nancy, Bibliothèque Municipale 74 (93). For a description of the Nancy
manuscript, see H. Lippens, ‘Jean Glapion. Défense de la réforme de l’Observance’,
AFH 45 (1952), 49–57. One of the sermons held during passion week 1520 was
reworked into an independent treatise: La passion de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ représen-
tée dans les cérémonies de la messe: MS Besançon Bibliothèque Municipale 231 ff.
98 chapter one
More catechistic is Jean’s surviving sermon for Ash Wednesday 1522.

This latter sermon stems from his pastoral activities at the court of
Charles V in Brussels (this sermon apparently was held in the pres-
ence of the emperor Charles, his brother Ferdinand and a selection
of high court officials). Glapion offers in it both a doctrinal and a
spiritual elucidation of the Pater Noster prayer, presenting this prayer
as the cornerstone of the religious life for lay people. In this fun-
damentally catechistic exposition, Glapion took care to denounce
superstitious magical prayer practices that he had encountered in the
course of his apostolate.254
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the Polish Observant
friars Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvar (d. 1504) and Ladislaus von
Gielniow (ca. 1440–1505), and to the Spanish friar Francisco Ortiz
Yáñez (1497–1547). Ladislaus de Temesvar, one of the most impres-
sive late medieval authors from the Franciscan Polish vicariate, joined
the Observants during his theology studies at Cracow University
(where he became a baccalaureus sententiarum in 1463 and possibly a
doctor in 1471). From 1483 onwards, we find him in the Franciscan
convent of Buda (Hungary), where he fulfilled lector and preacher
assignments and where he wrote a number of his works. Ladislaus
is especially famous for his biblical commentaries (particularly on the
religious songs contained in the Bible)255 and his Aureum Sacrae Theologiae
Rosarium (a large theological synthesis, finished by his pupil Oswald
Lasko).256 Yet Ladislaus also took care to publish several cycles of
75r–145v. Cf. Lippens, AFH 45 (1952), 64–65. On f. 75r we can read: ‘Pour ce
que la messe a este ordonnee quant a sa premiere institution de Nostre Saulveur
et Redempteur pour rememorer sa douloureuse passion, il ma semble que on ne
poulroit trouver signes plus expressement representatifs de laditte passion que laditte
messe. Et pourtant que aujourdhuy Dieu devant avons a declarer la passion de nos-
tre Saulveur suys delibere de proceder selon les misteres que nous voyons estre cele-
bres et faicts es messes parochiales principalement selon lusaige roman.’
254
Sermon du jour des Cendres cinquiesme de mars mil cinq cens vingt et deux, faict sur Pater
noster et recueilly soubs le révérend père confesseur Jehan Glapion, ed. Nicolas Volcir, in the
latter’s Collectaneorum Poligraphi Libellus: Collectaneorum Poligraphi Libellus (Paris, 1523).
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Réserve D. 67938. In the Collectaneorum Poligraphi Libellus
the text of Glapion’s sermon is printed together with other popular catechistic and
edificatory pieces.
255
Expositio Compendiosa et Familiaris Sensum Litteralem et Mysticum Complectens Libri
Psalmorum, Hymnorum, Soliloquorum Regii Prophetae, item Expositio Canticorum V. et N.
Testamenti, Symboli Athanasii, Hymni Universales Creaturae (a.o. Strassbourg, 1487/Hagenau,
1504 & 1513).
256
Aureum Sacrae Theologiae Rosarium iuxta Quattuor Sententiarum Libros Pariformiter
Quadripartitum, IV Vols. (Hagenau: Heinrich Gran, 1503–1508/Venice, 1586 & 1589/
homiletic ‘fruits’: the Pomerium Sermonum de Tempore, the Pomerium

Sermonum de Sanctis, and the Pomerium Sermonum Quadragesimalium. These
soon became standard collections in many religious libraries in Poland,
Bohemia and Hungary, and probably had a significant impact on
Catholic religious teaching in Middle and Eastern Europe during the
first decades of the sixteenth century.257
His namesake Ladislaus von Gielniow (ca. 1440–1505) likewise
spent his formative years in Cracow, where he joined the Polish
Observants by 1462. He took up various administrative positions
within the Polish vicariate (guardian of the Observant Cracow con-
vent by 1487, two times provincial vicar in the 1490s, and guardian
of Warsaw in 1504). He was a driving force behind new provincial
constitutions and the erection of Observant houses. Thanks to his
barefooted journeys through the large Polish vicariate (between 1487–
1490 and again after 1496), Ladislaus obtained a profound reputa-
tion of sanctity. On top of his constitutions for the Polish vicariate,
Ladislaus left behind a substantial number of sermons for Sun- and
feast days, many of which addressed the passion of Christ and its
moral and eschatological implications. In addition, he composed a
series of religious songs, to be sung or recited by the audience dur-
ing and after his preaching sessions.258
Brescia, 1590). This is a dogmatic reference work along scotist lines. It follows the
structure of Lombard’s Sentences and predominantly combines the theological posi-
tions of Scotus, Bonaventura, Tommaso d’Aquino and Guillaume de Vorrilon.
Ladislaus also published a Stellarium Coronae Mariae Virginis (a.o. Hagenau, Heinrich
Gran & Johannes Rynman, 2 Maii, 1498/Strasbourg, 1496/Basel, Jacobus Wolff
de Pforzheim, 1497–1500).
257
Pomerium Sermonum de Tempore (s.l., 1489/Hagenau, 1498 & 1500); Pomerium
Sermonum de Sanctis (a.o. Hagenau, 1499 & 1500); Pomerium Sermonum Quadragesimalium/
Quadragesimale Triplex (a.o Hagenau, 1499 & 1500). The first of these collections saw
at least twelve editions before 1520. The second one saw a comparable number of
editions, whereas the Quadragesimale collection went through 10 editions between
1499 and 1520. For more information on all these works, see Wadding, Scriptores,
181, 183–4; Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 316–317; Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum IV,
no. 6371; A. Teetaert, ‘Pelbart Ladislai de Temesvar’, DThC XII (1933), 715–717;
Wegerich, ‘Bio-bibliographische Notizen über Franziskanerlehrer des 15. Jahrhunderts:
12. Pelbart von Temeswar O.F.M. de Obs.’, FrSt 29 (1942), 190–193.
258
Ladislaus also devised a lengthy devotional exercise (taking up ca. one hour)
for after Vespers. This exercise consists of eight Pater Noster and 72 Ave Maria recita-
tions, interspersed with meditations on the joys and sorrows of the Virgin. For all
information about his sermons, his religious songs and his devotional exercises, I
refer the reader to K. Kantak, ‘Les données historiques sur les bienheureux Bernardins
(Observants) polonais’, AFH 22 (1929), 444–451 and Clément Schmitt, ‘Ladislas de
Gielniow’, DSpir IX, 60. Ladislaus also figures in Wadding, Annales Minorum XV
100 chapter one
The intriguing Observant preacher Francisco Ortiz Yáñez (1497–

1547) was a Spanish friar of Jewish descent. In his adolescent years
he pursued philosophical and theological studies at Salamanca and
Alcalá de Henares. A deep spiritual crisis followed, resulting in his
embrace of the regular Observants in the Castilian province. Francisco
Ortiz embarked on a rather successful teaching and preaching career
until April 1529, when, during one of his sermons in the Toledo
convent, he lashed out against the activities of the Spanish Inquisition.
This led to his imprisonment and a trial that lasted until 1532. He
was condemned to two years of exile and five years of homiletic and
confessional silence. In response, Francisco retreated into the Torre-
laguna convent, spending the rest of his life with study, writing and
prayer. Most of his surviving homiletic, ascetical and spiritual works
received their final redaction during this period. His problems with
the inquisition apparently did not stand in the way of their publi-
cation.259 In 1549 and again in 1599 appeared his Homiliae super
Psalmum L per totam Quaresimam, which present 56 moral and alle-
gorical Lenten sermons on themes taken from Psalm 50.260 These
sermons encourage frequent confession and frequent communion.
They also exhibit a highly developed mariology and an interpreta-
tion of the spiritual life reminiscent of the Spanish Alumbrados.261
(Quaracchi, 1933), 349–351 (an. 1505, no. 25–30); Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 163;
J. Komoroswski, ‘Memoriale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum (. . .) Specialiter de Provincia
Poloniae’, Monumenta Poloniae Historica 5 (Lwow, 1888), 256–258, 266, 291–293. For
vitae and cults devoted to Ladislaus, see V. Morawski, Lucerna Perfectionis Christianae
sive Vita B. Ladislai Gielnovii (Warschaw, 1633); AASS May I (Antwerp, 1680), 561–614;
Bibliotheca Sanctorum VII (Rome, 1966), 1067–1068; H. Wrobel, Hagiographia Polska 2
(Poznan, 1972), 555–572; CF 44 (1974), 172–173.
259
His ascetical and spiritual works will be dealt with elsewhere. For a first intro-
duction into his life and works, see Wadding, Annales Minorum XV, 505; Sbaralea,
Supplementum I, 490; Juan de San Antonio, BUF I, 414–415; J.M. Sánchez, Bibliografía
aragonesa del siglo 16 (Madrid, 1914), 22–24; E. Böhmer, Fr. Hernández und Fr. Francisco
Ortiz (Leipzig, 1865); B. Llorca, ‘Sobre el espíritu de los alumbrados. Fr. Hernández
y Fr. Ortiz’, Estudios Eclesiásticos 12 (1933), 383–404; J. Meseguer, ‘Fr. Francisco de
Ortiz en Torrelaguna’, AIA 8 (1948), 479–529; A. Selke, El S. Oficio de la Inquisicíon.
Proceso a fr. Francisco Ortiz (1529–1532) (Madrid, 1968); A. Márquez, ‘Consciencia
personal o consciencia social? Un franciscano frente al S. Oficio’ Hispania Sacra 22
(1969), 447–458; Mariano Acebal Luján, ‘Ortiz Yánez’, DSpir XI, 1004–1008;
M. de Castro, Los manuscritos franciscanos de la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid (Valencia,
1973), 206.
260
Homiliae super Psalmum L/Quadragesimale/Expositio super novem versus Psalmi L per
totam Quaresimam (Alcalá, 1549/Madrid, 1599).
261
For further instruction of his fellow preachers, Francisco produced a Tratado
de Predicación/Avisos para Predicadores, found in MS Madrid, Nac. 3620 ff. 1–2v. Cf.
E. The Conventual contribution after 1400
Between the early fifteenth and the early sixteenth century the
Observants carried the day. Yet it would be a mistake to assume
that the Conventual branch of the order had gone fully in decline
and did not contribute to the fifteenth-century preaching renaissance.
As I have suggested above, the second half of the fourteenth cen-
tury was not such a bleak period of crisis as is sometimes assumed.
Neither did the conservative pastoral revolution asked for by Gerson
and the early fifteenth-century councils pass by the Conventual fold
unnoticed, as can be illustrated with a few examples.
The discrepancy between Observant and non-Observant homiletic
authors with a considerable written output is most significant within
the Italian peninsula, where the Observance was quick to make head-
way, and where the number of prolific Observant authors was enor-
mous. Exceptions such as Roberto Caracciolo notwithstanding—who
returned to the Conventual fold after a training in preaching tech-
niques and years of practice among the Observants—not many
fifteenth-century Italian Conventuals could vie with the homiletic
energy and the written output of their Observant rivals.
Among those that could, I would like to mention Francesco Michele
del Padovano (d. ca. 1472), Francesco Vaccari da Argenta (fl. late
15th cent.), and Baldassare Olimpo degli Alessandri di Sassoferrato
(fl. early sixteenth century). The learned and humanistically inclined
Francesco Michele, who graduated as a master of theology in 1423,
had an impressive teaching career in several Franciscan Italian study
houses (such as the St. Croce in Florence, 1433 (?)/1439–1441), and
for some time fulfilled the role of confessor and procurator for the
San Gimignano and Pistoia Poor Clares. Francesco took his pastoral
work very seriously and took considerable effort to narrow the breach
between the Observant and Conventual branches, coming up with
reform proposals to make the Conventual study system and way of
life commensurate with the new challenges of the fifteenth-century
apostolate.262 In the course of his life, he produced some thirteen
Castro, Los manuscritos franciscanos de la Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, no. 198. This
work was frequently published in old editions of the Modus Concionandi by Diego de
Estella. A modern edition appeared in AIA (1948), 479–529 (522–525: Carta de Fr.
Francisco Ortiz sobre la Predicación).
262
Cf. his De Non Negligendo vel Etiam Abdicando Litterarum Studio, in manuscript
102 chapter one
works, none of which, however, circulated widely beyond the Florentine

boundaries, maybe because they were on average slightly on the
intellectual side.263
This certainly holds true for his Quattordici Discorsi:264 a series of
funerary sermons and more elaborate lectures on the Eucharist, the
incarnation of Christ, virginity, the cross, and the lives of Domingo de
Guzmán (Dominic) and Francesco d’Assisi. Nine of these elegantly
styled Discorsi originally were presented at the papal court. Of par-
ticular interest in this collection is the Oratio per quamdam dedictam
Christo iuvenculam ad sanctimoniales recitata virginalis continentiae privilegia: an
eulogy of virginity, and a praise of the religious life of female reli-
gious.265 It would be interesting to see whether the same intellectual
approach is found in his Sermones de S. Francisco ad Plebem (ca. 1448),
a series of sermons and sermon outlines on Francesco d’Assisi, Louis
de Toulouse, the Franciscan Regula Bullata, and issues pertaining to
evangelical poverty and other aspects of the true evangelical life.266
Francesco Vaccari, a Conventual friar from the next generation,
obtained his theology degree in 1473 (Ferrara), and preached many
quaresimal cycles at Ferrara, Venice and Bologna in the 1480s and
1490s.267 A large number of these sermons were gathered in an as
yet not fully studied three-volume collection, now found in the
Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 23593 and the Advisamenta pro Reformatione Facienda
Ordinis, in manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana Plut. XXVI cod.
19. The latter text has been edited by R. Pratesi, in: AFH 48 (1955), 72–130.
263
Until the 17th century, when some of his works were plagiarised by another
friar, none of these texts were printed. In addition to the works mentioned in the
previous note and in addition to the Speculum Christianae Probitatis and the Christianorum
Institutionum Liber (which will be dealt with in another chapter), Francesco Michele
composed a range of smaller texts of theological and/or humanist interest, all of
which written in an elegant, humanist Latin. Cf. R. Pratesi, ‘Francesco Micheli del
Padovano di Firenze, teologo ed umanista francescana del secolo XV’, AFH 47
(1954), 239–366 & AFH 48 (1955), 73–130; Idem, ‘Discorsi e nuove lettere di
Francesco Micheli del Padovano, teologo e umanista del sec. XV’, AFH 49 (1956),
83–105.
264
MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Landau Finaly 152 ff. 56r–59v, 62v–88v,
93v–100r.
265
Ibidem, ff. 93v–97r.
266
These sermons can be found in manuscript Florence, Biblioteca Mediceo
Laurenziana cod. 19 Plut. XXVI.
267
Cf. A.M. Berengo Morte, ‘Francescani predicatori nella basilica di S. Marco
in Venezia. Nei ‘Diarii’ di Marin Sanudo’, Le Venezie francescane 13 (1946), 10ff.;
Celestino Piana, Ricerche su le Università di Bologna e di Parma, Spicilegium Bonaven-
turianum, 2 (Quaracchi, 1963), 199; Idem, ‘Lo Studio di S. Francesco a Ferrara
nel Quattrocento. Documento inediti’, AFH 61 (1968), 144–145.
Biblioteca Estense of Modena.268 One Pater Noster sermon taken from

one of his quadragesimal cycles was published in Bologna in 1489.269
Maybe contrary to what one might expect after the 1517 division
of the Franciscan order family, which reversed the official picking
order between the Conventuals and the Observants, the Italian
Conventual homiletic output redeemed itself in the early sixteenth
century. A first important sign of this was the success of the published
sermon collections of Baldasare Olimpo da Sassoferrato. The Sermoni
(1519) and Problemi (1522) written by this Conventual friar circulated
not only in Conventual circles, but also found a reading public among
preachers in the emerging Capuchin movement.270 From the 1230s
onwards followed the astounding successes of Cornelio Musso and his
direct Conventual confreres, both in North and Central Italy, and at
the Council of Trent. Their prominence indicated that the Conventuals
had regained their position as a driving force behind the Catholic
preaching offensive. With Musso taking the lead, they began to mani-
fest an abundant homiletic rhetoric, meant to express in an adequate
fashion the triumphs and certitudes of the Catholic faith.271
268
Manuscript Modena, Bibl. Estense, cod. y.J.I.II contains the first volume of
this collection. It comprises 43 quadragesimal sermons, described by the compiler
as: ‘Summa de vitiis et virtutibus, necnon de septem donis Spiritus sancti per modum
sermonum atque praedicationum, ut patebit infra; quos sermones ego fr. Franciscus
de Vachariis de Argenta ord. Minorum, sacrae theologiae doctor immeritus, verbi
Dei praedicator unutilis, necnon provinciae Bononiae minister, composui in famo-
sissima urbe Ferrariae anno 1486, dominante illustrissimo et excellentissimo principe
duce Hercule, et illos per totam quadragesimam in religiosissimo episcopatu Ferrariae
praedicavi, quos antea Venetiis praedicavi in sancto Salvatore.’. Manuscript Modena,
Bibl. Estense, cod. y.J.I.12 contains the second and third volumes with an addi-
tional 82 sermons. On f. 2r of this manuscript we can read: ‘Registrum sermonum,
qui continentur in hoc volumine, quos ego composui anno 1487 in alma civitate
Ferrariae, dum illic morarer et officio ministeriatus provinciae Bononiae fun-
gerer . . . praedicavi Venetiis in conventu praesantissimo ‘Domus magnae’ de Venetiis,
qui dicitur conventus fratrum Minorum et in almo templo divi Marci, ad quem
locum crebro vocitatus fui ab illo serenissimo ac sacratissimo principe et duce d.
Augustino Barbadico, mihi familiarissimo . . .’ At the beginning of volume III, fur-
ther on in the same manuscript, we read: ‘Haec est tabula sermonum, qui conti-
nentur in hoc volumine, qui compilati fuere per me fr. Franciscum de Vacchariis
de Argenta ord. Minorum, sacrae theologiae doctorem mediocrem et verbi Dei
evangelizatorem indignum; finiti sunt in meo studio anno 1506, die 23 novembris,
hora XX.’
269
Pater Noster gratiae predicati per maestro Francisco de Argenta, predicatore in santo Petronio
a Bologna MCCCCLXXXIX (Bologna, 1489). Cf. AFH 47 (1954), 54, note 2.
270
R. Avesani, ‘Alessandri Caio Baldassare Olimpo da Sassoferrato’, DBI II,
162–166.
271
H. Jedin, ‘Der Franziskaner Cornelius Musso’, Römische Quartalschrift 41 (1933),
104 chapter one
In the other Franciscan provinces, where the regular Observance

was slower in its progress, the later fifteenth-century imbalance between
Observant and non-Observant published sermon collections is less
outspoken. This holds true in particular for the English and the
German provinces, where many non-Observant friars continued to
make their mark in the field of preaching.
It would seem that in the English province the regular Observance
hardly took hold during the medieval period. There, the Franciscans
very much carried on along the pathways set out by previous gen-
erations. The Franciscan preachers in this tradition always had been
more concerned with actual preaching itself than with the composi-
tion and publication of complete model sermon cycles. However,
they did compile a significant number of miscellaneous sermon book-
lets that were both testimonies of and instrument for the homiletic
activities in the field. An example from the fifteenth century is offered
by the English friar and itinerant preacher Nicholas Philip (fl. ca.
1433), whose preaching rallies brought him between 1430 and 1436
from Lynn, via Oxford and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to Lichfield. In
the process he compiled an interesting series of sermon booklets, not
unlike the English sermon booklets of his fourteenth-century prede-
cessors mentioned before. The booklets of Nicholas Philip do not
contain full sermon cycles for the complete liturgical year, but mix
sermon outlines with accompanying praedicabilia, predominantly in
Latin, but sometimes interspersed with English elements (poems and
outright macaronic passages). Among the sermons contained in these
booklets (which possibly already during Philip’s lifetime were gath-
ered in one manuscript and continued to be used by Franciscan fri-
ars until the sixteenth century), we find some texts directed at clerics
and friars (going back to sermons held at Oxford University, at syn-
odal meetings, during convent visitations, and at the occasion of
207–275; G. Cantini, ‘Cornelio Musso, O.F.M. Conv., predicatore, scrittore e teol-

ogo al Concilio di Trento’, MF 41 (1941), 146–174, 424–463; R.J. Bartman, ‘Cornelio
Musso, Tridentine Theologian and Orator’, FS 5 (1945), 247–276; G. Odoardi, ‘Fra
Cornelio Musso, O.F.M. Conv., padre, oratore e teologo al Concilio di Trento’,
MF 48 (1948), 223–242, 450–478 & 49 (1949), 36–71; G. de Rosa, ‘Il Francescano
Cornelio Musso dal Concilio di Trento al Dioceso di Bitonto’, RSCI 40 (1986),
55–91; John O’Malley, ‘Form, Content, and Influence of Works about Preaching
before Trent: The Franciscan Contribution’, in: I frati minori tra ’400 e ’500, Atti
del XII Convegno Internazionale Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986), 46–47;
E. Normann Corrie, ‘The franciscan preaching tradition and its XVIth-cent. legacy.
The case of Cornelio Musso’, Catholic History Review 85 (1999), 208–232; Mouchel,
Rome franciscaine, 245–326 & passim.
receiving novices into the fold). Yet most of the outlines and frag-
ments seem to constitute the mnemotechnic written substrate of ser-
mons preached in the English vernacular to the populace at large,
or to mixed congregations of clerical and lay people during the
periods of Lent and Easter.272
This tradition might have been characteristic for the English
province. At the same time it seems to have had an impact on for-
eign friars studying or working at English order studia, such as Johann
Sintram from Würzburg (c. 1380–1450). After initial studies in the
provincial study houses of Regensburg (1403–04) and Ulm (1405),
Sintram probably completed his lectorate studies at Strasbourg (1408)
and Oxford (1412), to embark on a long lectorate career in conti-
nental Franciscan study houses in the decades thereafter.273 In 1444
he handed over no less than 61 manuscripts to the Franciscan con-
vent of Würzburg (many of which he had copied by his own hands),
where they were chained on four lecterns in the public library.274
These manuscripts, rather more ambitious sermon booklets than those
of friar Philip, contain Latin and German sermons, glosses, marginal
remarks, and divisiones that testify to their use in actual preaching
situations. Several of these manuscripts contain Sintram’s own ser-
mon rhymes (‘Predigtverse’): in part translations of English verses
gathered during his sojourn at Oxford, in part Sintram’s own com-
positions or verses he had found in German sources.275
272
The booklets are found in manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library Lat.th.d.1
(ad 1430–1436) ff. 5r–177v. Alan J. Fletcher, ‘The Sermon Booklets of Friar Nicholas
Philip’, Medium Aevum 55 (1986), 188–202 (reprinted in: Alan J. Fletcher, Preaching,
Politics and Poetry in Late-Medieval England (Four Courts Press, 1998), 41–57) has given
an exhaustive description of the manuscript, identifying 70 different items and point-
ing out some musical annotations (which might shed light on the way Philip accom-
panied his sermons with religious songs). Philip might have been the author of many
of these, yet it is likely that some of them were originally the work of other preach-
ers, such as Philip’s possible socii William Melton (sermons no. 61–4, ff. 157r–166r)
and friar Holbeche (not further identified: sermons no. 51 & 68 ff. 142v–143v,
175v–176v).
273
Lector in Reutlingen (1415), Cologne (1415), Halle (Schwaben, 1415–16), Paris
(1421, after some time spent in Augsburg), Colmar (1420–1421), Esslingen and
Augsburg (1422). Lector and preacher in Würzburg (1425–27) and Ulm (1428).
Attested in Zabelstein in 1433 (where he copied a breviary) and Schloß Schwarzenberg
in 1435 (where he apparently was active as lector, and where he copied Die 24
Alten by Otto von Passau). Again lector in Würzburg in 1437 and guardian in the
same convent in 1437.
274
Cf. MS London, British Library Add. 30049 f. 96v.
275
See for more information D.K. Coveney, ‘Johannes Sintram de Herbipoli’,
Speculum 16 (1941), 336–339; T.C. Petersen, ‘Johann Sintram de Herbipoli in two
106 chapter one
In the German provinces, it remained popular to produce extended

sermon cycles, meant both as model sermons for the use of preach-
ers and as ‘Lesepredigten’ catering to a more heterogeneous read-
ership. One of the most important Franciscan authors in this regard
was Johann von Werden (d. 1437), a member of the Cologne con-
vent and the composer of the famous Dormi Secure or Dormi Sine Cura,
which combines the qualities of a preaching manual with those of
a comprehensive model sermon collection. After a rather modest
fifteenth-century manuscript proliferation,276 the work quickly became
one of the most popular printed sermon books in the German lands
and the Low Countries. It appeared in no less than 40 incunable
editions before 1500 and in a large number of additional sixteen-
century re-issues.277 The secret of its success may have been that it
took note of the needs of all priests and preachers (omnibus sacer-
dotibus, pastoribus et capellanis), providing this diversified audience of
pastoral workers not only with practical advice on matters of pre-
sentation and content, but also with two complete series of sermones
de tempore and two complete series of sermones de sanctis. Thus, these
priests and preachers had at their disposal both a practical perfor-
mance manual and a large number of ready-made catechistic ser-
mons for all occasions during the liturgical year. Johann von Werden
broke with the more scholastic elements of the sermo modernus. Instead,
he developed his sermon themes more freely, with recourse to attrac-
tive and memorisable forms of explicatory symbolism, and a lot of
vivid imagery and examples drawn from the apocryphal gospels, the
of his manuscripts’, Speculum 20 (1945), 75–83; L. Meier, ‘Aufzeichnungen aus ver-

nichteten Handschriften des Würzburger Minoritenklosters’, AFH 55 (1951), 191–209
(204–208); A. Büchner, ‘Franziskaner-Minoritenkloster in Würzburg’, in: Bavaria
Franciscana Antiqua II (1955), 88–136; J.R.H. Moorman, Medieval Franciscan Houses
(New York, 1983), 526; and especially Nigel F. Palmer, ‘Sintram, Johannes OFM’,
VL2 VIII, 1284–1287 and Cl. Schmitt, ‘Jean Sintram’, DHGE XXVII, 633.
276
See for instance the manuscripts Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 23855 (old-
est dated manuscript, 1449); Cologne, Hist. Arch. GB f ° 119; Oxford, Trinity College
71; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 11451 (mentions Magister Johannes Müschelburg
as compilor/author). Cf. J.B. Schneyer, Beobachtungen zu lateinischen Sermoneshandschriften
der Staatsbibliothek München (Munich, 1958), 28f., 32f., 67, 86, 88, 127, 134.
277
Its first edition appeared in Cologne around 1480. For a more or less com-
plete overview, see Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, nos. 15955–15979; Copinger,
Supplement, nos. 5971–5978; E. Voullième, Der Buchdruck Kölns bis zum Ende des 15.
Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1978), nos. 695a, 697; Histoire littéraire de la France 25 (1869),
77f. (on post 1500 editions); Schlager, Beiträge zur Geschichte der kölnischen Franziskaner-
Provinz, 165ff.; Zawart, ‘The History of Franciscan Preaching and Franciscan
Preachers’, 346, 328–9; F.J. Worstbrock, ‘Johannes von Werden’, VL2 IV, 811–813.
Historia Scholastica by Peter Comestor, Giacomo da Varazze’s Legenda

Aurea and comparable compilations.278 In order to make his book
acceptable to all preachers, Johann von Werden refrained from putting
overmuch emphasis on Franciscan saints.
The works of the lector and provincial minister Conrad Böhmlin
(ca. 1380–1449) from Eßlingen, known for his preaching activities
at Strasbourg and in other urban centres of the Upper Germany
province, apparently had a more immediate success. At least 47 of
his Latin sermons for the advent period, as well as many of his
German sermons still survive in late medieval manuscripts.279 These
sermons are clearly inspired by the homiletic works of Marquard
von Lindau, and concentrate on passion devotion280 and catechistic
instruction. The latter can be illustrated with remarks from the edited
vernacular sermon Unus Est Magister Vester Christus, held at Strasbourg
in 1436 for a community of Franciscan nuns.281 The preacher-voice
278
Because he used ‘faulty’ medieval compilations (instead of the ‘genuine’ patris-
tic and classical sources), kept his Latin simple, was not very critical in his use of
explicatory symbolism, and had such an enormous success, the work was scorned
by humanists like Erasmus.
279
For more information on these texts, see Paul Gerhardt Völker, Die deutschen
Schriften des Franziskaners Konrad Bömlin, I, MTU, 8 (Munich, 1964) and Landmann,
‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz’, 102–105.
280
Good examples are the sermon ‘Christus Passus est pro Nobis’ in MS Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek Germ. Quart. 206 ff. 207v–215v. This sermon was held at Strasbourg
in 1436 (‘. . . predie (. . .) herre Conrat Boemele an dem fritage XIII tag noch ostern,
zu sand Johanse über die epistel Petri 2o Christus passus est pro nobis reliquens
exemplum ut sequamini vestigia eius, und seit von dem lyden unsers herren . . .’),
and the Predig von dem hailigen sacrament & Predig von deme liden unseres herren christi Jhesu,
found in MS Maihingen, Fürstliche Öttingen-Wallersteinsche Bibliothek MS III, 1
4° 9 on f. 80a (‘Dyß predige haut getän brueder Conratt bömlin Ain barfüß zu
Straußburg. Disß ist ain predig von dem hailigen sacrament etc. Venite ad me
omnes, qui laboratis et onerati estis, ego reficiam vos (Matthew 11, 28)’) and f. 89a
(‘Diß predig haut gemachett und getän Brueder Conratt bömlin ain barfues ze
Strasburg. Diß ist ain predig von deme liden unseres herren christi jhesu.’). The
latter manuscript was made in the reformed Dominican monastery of Kirchheim
im Ries, and is written by Stephan May. On top of Conrad’s two sermons, the
manuscript contains a series of small treatises on the spiritual life.
281
This sermon can for instance be found in manuscript Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
MS Germ. Quart. 206 ff. 200v–207v. For a full description of the manuscript (and
those mentioned in the previous note), see Völker, Die deutschen Schriften des Franziskaners
Konrad Bömlin, 97–101. The manuscript states that this sermon, written down by
Agnes Sachs in order to function as a ‘Lesepredigt’, was held by ‘herre Cunrat
Beumole, lesemeyster zu den Barfüßer an dem fritage noch dem ostertage zu sand
Johans zu dem Grünenwerde über das wort: Unus est magister vester Christus. Mt.
23o und seit vil von dem touffe und von dem heiligen sacramente.’ On the basis
of the Berlin manuscript, the sermon has been edited in Franziskanisches Schrifttum im
108 chapter one
in this sermon stages its religious instruction as a fictive dialogue

between a pupil and his master. Having arrived at the end of a
series of Lenten conferences in which the fictive pupil had requested
and obtained from his master instruction on a range of catechistic
issues, now the audience is going to hear a sermon in which the
same pupil expresses his wish to receive instruction on the way to
live a perfect life.282 This staged request gave Conrad Böhmlin the
angle to recapitulate his catechistic teachings on the necessary pre-
conditions for living a satisfying life of spiritual perfection, from the
sacrament of baptism (the entrance into the spiritual life for each
and every Christian) to the sacrament of the Eucharist (its signification
and the proper approach towards it, elaborated in six points).
The same catechistic import can be discerned in a single surviv-
ing catechistic sermon by Sigmund the ‘shoe-less’ friar (der barfues,
i.e. the Friar Minor), a German or Swiss colleague of Conrad Böhmlin
in the Upper Rhine region during the mid-fifteenth century. The
manuscript record containing his text stems from the Dominican
monastery of Unterlinden, where Sigmund apparently presented the
sermon to an audience of Dominican nuns. The narrative voice in
Sigmund’s sermon addresses its public directly (mine liebe kind ), and
teaches the sisters with evocative similes and in an emotional style
1.) why God wants them to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist;
2.) that this sacrament offers wonders and healing power; and 3.)
how human beings have to enjoy its consumption and should behave
thereafter (with instructions for ‘proper’ passion meditation and the
expression of gratitude in prayer).283
deutschen Mittelalter. Band II: Texte, 83–90. For another reference to such catechistic
sermons, see Bonaventura Deutsch, 56.
282
‘Nun, lieben Kinder, dem worte ein ende zu geben, das ich gefueret diß heilge
zit der vasten, do ir hant gehoeret wie der junger hat gefroget den meister zu dem
ersten von der suenden und was schaden do von kumpt und ouch von dem liden
unsers herren und von dem heilge sactamente und nun zu leste von der worheit
der urstende: so wil er nun siner rede ein ende geben und begert von dem meis-
ter gantz uß geriht zu werden, wie er muoge vollekumlichen eine lere haben noch
allem sime leben.’ Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter Band II: Texte, 84.
283
Predigt von dem heiligen sacrament: MS Colmar, Bibliothèque de la Ville 210 (268)
(mid 15th cent.) ff. 93r–144v (‘Dise predige det uns der wirdig vater Sygmund der
barfues in der pfingstwuchen und seit von dem heiligen sacrament, wie man sich
vor und nach halten sol. Parasti in conspectu meo mensam etc. (Ps. 22, 5)’ The
sermon has been edited in: Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter Band II:
Texte, 100–116. See: Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskaner-
provinz (. . .)’, FrSt 15 (1928), 108.
Another important Conventual friar from the fertile Upper Germany

province was Conrad Grütsch (ca. 1408–1475). After studies of the
arts and philosophy at the Strasbourg studium, Conrad had pursued
the order’s internal lectorate programme at the studia of Paris and
Vienna (ca. 1435–1437). During these student years, Conrad com-
piled a number of manuscripts with philosophical and theological
extracts that shed light on the curricula of early fifteenth-century
Franciscan study houses.284 Between the 1440s and the 1460s, Conrad
taught at the convents of Zurich, Basel, Bern, Burgdorf and Fribourg
(Switzerland, where he was also mentioned in other assignments,
such as custos, convent preacher and visitator of local tertiary com-
munities). Apparently, Conrad was not on friendly terms with the
regular Observance. Yet he shared their pastoral outlook and had
a good homiletic reputation of his own. We still have several sermon
collections dating from his later teaching and preaching years. These
collections were explicitly compiled for the benefit of other friars and
show all the characteristics of scholastic sermon cycles (complete with
questions, subdivisions, definitions and exempla from a wide range of
authorities), but were sufficiently adapted to the needs of preachers
284
It would seem that, for one winter term (1451/2), Conrad was matriculated
at the university of Heidelberg in the theology degree program (to read the Sentences
pro gradu for his bachelor degree?). There are some interesting testimonials from the
lector and the guardian of Vienna with regard to Conrad’s study results. These tes-
timonials, which date from 20 February 1437, suggest that Conrad had finished his
lectorate programme at the Vienna studium after studies at the Franciscan studium
in Paris. Cf. MS Fribourg, Cordelier 76 f. 124r. MS Fribourg, Cordelier 43 con-
tains in Conrad’s own handwriting the following extracts: Universalia (work of Porphyry,
ff. 5r–24r), De Nominibus Dei (ff. 24v–27v & 196r–198r), Praedicamenta (ff. 29r–64v),
Metaphysica Magistri Nicolai Boneti (ff. 65r–146v), Metaphysica Magistri Petri Thome Ordinis
Minorum (ff. 147r–195v), De Transcendentalibus Francisci de Maronis (ff. 198v–203v), Aliqua
Quaestio Francisci de Maronis (Utrum ens secundum eandem rationem formalem con-
veniat Deo et Creature, ff. 204r–211r), De Universali et Causa Francisci de Mayronis (ff.
211v–214r), Tractatus de Distinctione et Simplicitate Francisci de Mayronis (ff. 214v–219v),
De Modis Intrinsecis Francisci de Mayronis (ff. 220r–232r). MS Fribourg, Cordelier 93
contains on ff. 97r–132v Conrad’s 1429 copy of the Tabula super Textum Libri
Sententiarum Edita de mandato Sanctissimi in Christo Patris et Domini Johannis Papae 22. a
Fratre Francisco Toti de Perusio. For more information on these issues, see: Landmann,
‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz’, FrSt 14 (1927) & 15 (1928),
106; Idem, ‘Die spätmittelalterliche Predigt der Franziskanerkonventualen (. . .)’,
Archiv für elsässische Kirchengeschichte 5 (1930), 19–88; P. Lachat, Das Barfüsserkloster
Burgdorf (Burgdorf, 1955); A. Murith, Jean et Conrad Grütsch de Bâle (Fribourg/Schweiz,
1940); J. Jordan, Le couvent des cordeliers de Fribourg 1256–1956 (Fribourg/Schweiz,
1956), 22ff.; Alemania Franciscan Antiqua VI (1960), 19f.; André Derville, ‘Gruetsch
(Conrad)’, DSpir VI, 1083–1085; Christine Stöllinger, ‘Grütsch, Conrad’, VL2 III,
291–294.
110 chapter one
to have a considerable success, both in manuscript format,285 and in

print.286
From more or less the same region originated friar Johann Pauli
(ca. 1450–1519). Between 1491 and 1493/1494, when a Plague epi-
285
Conrad’s composite collections survive in several manuscripts. His Quadragesimale
& Registrum de Evangeliorum et Epistolarum Thematibus atque Introductionibus, written between
1440 and 1444, can be found in: MSS Basel, Universitätsbibliothek A V 7; Melk,
Monastic Library Mell. 133; Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 384; Colmar, Bibliothèque
consistoriale 1953; Engelberg (Switzerland), Monastic Library 232 (contains the
Quadragesimale on ff. 1ra–295ra, the Registrum de Evangeliorum et Epistolarum Thematibus
on ff. 297ra–344va, a small Commune Sanctorum on ff. 344vb–349rb, a Registrum de
Sanctis on ff. 349va–355rb, a Tabula Materiarum Alphabetica on ff. 356ra–367ra, a
Tabula Introductionum on ff. 368ra–370va, and a Tabula Exemplorum on ff. 371ra–372va);
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Helmst. 379; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm.
3540 (the Quadragesimale is found on ff. 1r–429 and the Registrum on ff. 429ra–464vb);
Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 8825 (contains a Quadragesimale Abbreviatum on ff.
71ra–117va); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 26705 (the Quadragesimale on ff. 1ra–236va;
the Registrum on ff. 236va–254ra; and De Festivitatibus Sanctorum Principalium on ff.
254ra–55rb). This Quadragesimale consists of 50 sermons for Lent, mostly taking the
Gospel reading of each day as thematic point of departure. The Registrum contains
sermon designs and introductions for all Sun- and feast days of the ecclesiastical
year, with references to those parts of the Quadragesimale that elaborate several of
these designs more fully. The work clearly is meant to function as a handbook for
preachers, and presents many useful citations from the Bible, the Fathers, classical
and more recent authors, as well as a wide range of exempla on natural history and
mythology drawn from (predominantly Franciscan?) exempla collections. Conrad’s
other composite collection is the Quadragesimale & Opus Sermonum de Tempore &
Alphabetum Sermonum (c. 1454). This is found in MSS Würzburg, Bibliotheca Minorum
Herb. I 38 (the Quadragesimale can be found on ff. 7ra–238va, and the Opus Sermonum
de Tempore on ff. 239ra–282vb (352vb). On ff. 353ra–371vb we find the Tractatus de
SS. Sacramento Eucharistiae by Marquard von Lindau. Cf. O. Bonmann, ‘Marquard
von Lindaus literarischer Nachlass’ FrSt 21 (1934), 331); Fribourg, Cordelier 23
(This is an autograph manuscript. The Alphabetum Sermonum and the Opus Sermonum
with several indices and parts of the Quadragesimale are found on ff. 2va–306vb. The
Registrum Alphabeticum Exemplorum is found on ff. 307ra–321va). The Quadragesimale in
this composite collection consists of 51 sermons (49 for Lent and two for Easter),
in which most themes are derived from the corresponding Gospel readings for the
day. The 54 sermons in the Opus Sermonum de Tempore likewise derive their themes
from the appropriate Gospel readings. The Alphabetum in its turn presents an alpha-
betically ordered material collection for 217 thematical sermons. On all these man-
uscripts see especially Murith, Jean et Conrad Grütsch de Bâle, 38–75; Christine Stöllinger,
‘Grütsch, Conrad’, VL2 III, 291–294.
286
Conrad’s printed sermons, probably based on the materials found in MS
Würzburg, Franziskanerkloster Herb. I 38 or a similar manuscript, were from the
outset wrongly ascribed to his younger brother Johann Grütsch (a secular cleric,
canon of the St. Peter (Petruskirche) at Basel, doctor in canon law at the University
of Heidelberg and at the University of Basel, and rector of the University of Basel
in 1466). See: Quadragesimale Fratris Johannis Gritsch de Basilea, Ordinis Fratrum Minorum,
Doctoris Eximii, per totum temporis anni spatium deserviens cum thematum evangeliorum et epis-
tolarum introductionibus et tabula peroptima (1475). In all, this collection went through
more than 30 editions. See Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, nos. 8057–8082.
demic quite thoroughly emptied his convent, Johann was lector at

Villingen, near Freiburg. He combined this teaching assignment with
those of convent preacher and confessor at the prominent neigh-
bouring female ‘Bickenkloster’. Later in life, we find Johann Pauli
as a guardian and/or lector in Bern (ca. 1501–1504), Strasbourg
(1506–1510), Schlettstadt (ca. 1513–1515), Basel and Than (ca. 1519).
In Than he finished his humoristic and critical Schimpf und Ernst, a
compilation of little histories, exempla, and anecdotes to strengthen
the Catholic morals of monks and educated lay people. Frequently
re-edited and translated, this became a long-time best-seller (com-
parable with Erasmus’ Adagia), both in the schools and in more infor-
mal edificatory settings.287
Although very motivated in bringing to publication the sermon
cycles made by the celebrated Strasbourg cathedral preacher Geiler
von Keisersberg,288 Johann Pauli did not bother to publish the ser-
mons that he himself delivered to the Franciscan nuns of the Bicken
convent. The Berlin manuscript in which 23 of these sermons survive
(and which forms the basis of Robert Warnock’s modern edition),
harbours lessons for feast days and the commemoration of saints, as
well as homilies for Advent and Lent. Many of these sermons are
shaped as a legal process in which the soul is on trial. The major
underlying themes of these trials are self-knowledge, the cardinal
virtues, the faults and dangers of ‘fake’ religious groups (such as
begards, beghines, bizoche, and Observant friars), the primacy of will
over intellect, and the caution with which (female) religious should
approach visionary experiences (heavily based on De Quattuor Instinctibus
by Heinrich von Friemar).289
287
Most easily accessible are Johannis Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, I: die älteste Ausgabe
von 1522. II: Paulis Fortsetzer und Übersetzer, ed. J. Bolte, alte Erzähler, I & II (Berlin,
1924); Johannis Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, ed. H. Oesterley, Bibliothek des Literarischen
Vereins zu Stuttgart, 85 (Stuttgart, 1866). There exist at least 35 and maybe even
41 sixteenth-century editions, translations, and reworkings, as well as later editions
until ca. 1800. Cf. Paul Heitz & Paul Ritter, Versuch einer Zusammenstellung der deutschen
Volksbücher des 15. Und 16. Jahrhunderts (Strasbourg, 1924), 159–167; Verzeichnis der im
deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Irmgard Bezzel (Stuttgart,
1983) XV, 498–503. The full title of the 1522 edition runs as follows: Schimpf und
Ernst heiset das buch mit namen durchlaufft es der Welt handlung mit ernstlichen und kurtzweili-
gen exemplen, parabolen und hystorien nützlich und guot zuo besserung der menschen. For this
work, Pauli plundered late medieval exempla collections and related compilations,
such as the Gesta Romanorum, the De Proprietatibus Rerum and the Legenda Aurea.
288
L. Pfleger, Der Franziskaner Johannes Pauli und seine Ausgaben Geilerscher Predigten,
Gesellschaft für elsässische Kirchengeschichte 3 (Colmar, 1928).
289
In these sermons Johann Pauli drew heavily on Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s
112 chapter one
Before he took up his custodial tasks in the Bodensee custody and

his provincial assignments in the Upper Germany province (1545–1556),
positions in which he was confronted with the advance of the Reform-
ation, the Conventual friar Heinrich Stolysen (d. 1556) likewise had
fulfilled the role of preacher and confessor of the Poor Clares at
Villingen. Heinrich has left us fourteen Predigten über das Vaterunser, all
of which Lenten sermons (‘in der zit der hailgen fasten’) that origi-
nally would have been given in front of a Poor Clare community.290
Heinrich discusses in these sermons the seven elements of the Pater
Noster, connecting them with seven laudations discerned in Christ’s
sermon on the mount. Heins Machschefes, the only scholar who thus
far has paid serious attention to these texts, found that they ask for
humility (‘Demut’) and emphasise (wo)man’s utter dependence on
the grace of God. In this they show some striking resemblances with
the Pater Noster sermons of Hans Münzinger, Geiler von Kaisersberg,
and . . . Martin Luther.291
Sentences commentary and on other works of the Seraphic teacher, on the basis of
which Johann constituted his own cautious theology of love. Cf. Ruh, Bonaventura
Deutsch, 59–60; Steer, ‘Die Rezeption des theologischen Bonaventura-Schrifttums im
Deutschen Spätmittelalter’, 151: ‘Bonaventura ist Johannes Paulis Lieblingslehrer.
Er nennt ihn des öfteren zärtlich min truts Bönli.’ The source text, written by a Poor
Clare from the Bicken convent, is MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Germ. 4° 1069. The
sermons have been edited as Die Predigten Johannes Paulis, ed. Robert G. Warnock,
Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen, 26 (Münich, 1970). For more information
on Pauli’s life and works, see Th. von Liebenau, ‘Johann Pauli, Guardian in Bern’,
Anzeiger für schweizerische Geschichte Neue Folge 10, no. 5 (1879), 217; Juliana Ernstin,
Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen 1238 bis 1614, ed. Karl Jordan Glatz (Tübingen,
1881), 83; K. Bartsch, ‘Johannes Pauli als Prediger’, Alemannia 11 (1883), 136–145;
J. Bolte, ‘Predigtmärlein Johannes Paulis’, Alemannia 16 (1883), 34–53; K. Eubel,
Geschichte der oberdeutschen (Straßburger) Minoriten-Provinz (Würzburg, 1886), 64–67, 347;
A. Linsenmayer, ‘Die Predigten des Franziskaners Johannes Pauli’, Historisches Jahrbuch
der Görresgesellschaft 19 (1898), 873–891; S.Chr. Roder, ‘Die Franziskaner in Villingen’,
Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv 5 (1904), 253ff.; Robert G. Warnock, ‘Johannes Pauli’s Thirty
Types of Hypocrites’, Res Publica Litterarum 2 (1979), 330ff.; Arlene Epp Pearsall,
‘Johannes Pauli and the Strasbourg Dansers, FS 52 (1992), 203–214; Jean-Claude
Schmitt, ‘Johannes Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst’, in: Exempla médiévaux. Introduction (. . .) la
recherche, suivi des tables critiques de l’Index exemplorum de Frederic C. Tubach, ed. J. Berlioz
& M.A. Polo de Beaulieu, Classiques de la littérature orale (Carcassonne, 1992),
275–282.
290
MS Hamburg, Staatsbibliothek Theol. 2106 (sermons from 1536, copied in a
Low German vernacular by a female religious).
291
Heinz Machschefes, ‘Heinrich Stolysen OMConv., und seine Predigten über
das Vaterunser’, AFH 25 (1932), 484–501. Cf. page 492: ‘Der Hauptinhalt dieser
14 (. . .) Predigten ist die Erkenntnis, dass wir armen, schwachen Erdenkinder zu
aller Zeit mit tiefer Demut im Herzen das Paternoster beten sollen. Aber wir ver-
mögen doch nichts ohne die unendliche Gnade des lebendigen Gottes—auch auf
In the French provinces, there also was a strong continuity with

the pre-Observant period. Before and after the introduction of var-
ious new Observances (such as the Coletan reform and the regular
Observance), Conventual friars continued to produce model sermon
collections and related preaching materials. However, much of this
remains hidden in inadequately studied manuscripts.
An ambiguous figure in the Parisian intellectual landscape around
1400 was the Franciscan Parisian theologian Pierre-aux-Boeufs (c. 1368–
1425), regent master at Paris in 1421 and confessor of the French
queen Isabelle (Isabella of Bavaria). Pierre has been condemned by
modern scholars for his cynical justifications of the assassination of
Louis d’Orleans by the Burgundian party and for his other partisan
activities in favour of the Burgundian cause. Yet in his theological
and pastoral writings a different person emerges: that of a preacher
troubled by the problems in his war-ridden country.292
Recently, Pierre’s sermons have been perused by the French scholar
Hervé Martin,293 who distinguishes two main collections: the Sermones
in Celeberrimis Lutetiae Parisiensi Eclesiis Habiti 294 and the Sermones de Opere
die unglückliche Spaltung innerhalb der christlichen Kirche weist Stolysen an den
bereits erwähnten Stellen hin.’ See also K. Eubel, Geschichte der oberdeutschen Minoritenprovinz
(Würzburg, 1886), 167f., 300.
292
On Pierre’s life and works (which include a Sentences commentary, biblical
commentaries, sermons and polemical works) see in general Wadding, Scriptores, 186;
Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 331–332; CHUP IV, nos. 1803, 1807, 2003, 2111, 2117,
2125, 2183 & 2432; N. Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme (Paris, 1901) III, 458,
615; M.A. Coville, ‘Le véritable texte de la justification du duc de Bourgogne’,
Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 72 (1911), 57–91; AFH 5 (1912), 172–3 & 25 (1932),
198f.; Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum IV, 6432–6434; Stegmüller, Repertorium
Commentariorum in Sententias Petri Lombardi I, 656, 664, 987; V. Doucet, ‘Commentaires
sur les Sentences. Supplément au répertoire de M. Frederic Stegmüller’, AFH 47
(1954), 152; John Chrysostom Murphy, A History of the Franciscan Studium Generale at
the University of Paris in the Fifteenth Century, Diss. U. of Notre Dame (Notre Dame,
Ind., 1965), 135–152; Clément Schmitt, ‘Pierre-aux-Boeufs’, DSpir XII, 1517–1518.
293
Hervé Martin, ‘Un prédicateur franciscain du XV e siècle: Pierre-aux-Boeufs,
et les réalités de son temps’, in: Mouvements franciscains et société française XII e–XX e
siècles. Etudes présentées (. . .) à la Table Ronde du CNRS, 23 octobre 1982, ed. André
Vauchez, Beauchesne Religions, 14 [= RHEF 70] (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984), 107–126;
Idem, ‘Les prédicateurs franciscains dans les provinces septentrionales de la France
au XVe siècle’, in: I frati minori tra ’400 e ’500, Atti del XII Convegno Internazionale
Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986), 245ff.
294
Sermones in Celeberrimis Lutetiae Parisiensi Ecclesiis Habiti: MS Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale Lat 3296 (formerly Colbert cod. 2452). ff. 1–275. These were printed as:
Magistri Petri ad Boves Sermones de Tempore, ed. Jean Lagreni (Lyon: Jacobus Marescal,
April 1520/Paris, 1521/Antwerp, 1643). Cf. Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine Inc. 24671.
In the edition of Lagreni, the first part of the collection contains fifteen sermons
114 chapter one
Magistri Petri ad Boves de Dominicis et Sanctis.295 Both of these collections

indirectly reflect Pierre’s teaching assignments during his study and
teaching years at the University of Paris (and should be compared
with the thirteenth-century ‘university’ sermons mentioned in the
beginning of this chapter). As Hervé Martin makes it clear, the ser-
mons in these cycles are particularly concerned with the ‘malheurs
de son temps et l’accroissement des inégalités entre les riches et les
pauvres,’ due to the frequent wars, the schism, and the utter lack
of charity.296 On top of these university cycles should be mentioned
Pierre’s various Sermones de Passione Christi, which can be characterised
as a homiletic adaptation of the pseudo-Bonaventurian Meditationes
Vitae Christi.297
Michel Menot (1440–1518) probably is the most famous late
medieval Conventual Franciscan preacher from the French provinces.
After lectorate and degree studies at Orleans and Paris, he became
regent master at the Grand Couvent des Cordeliers, to end up as
for the Sundays and feasts of Advent; part two contains 26 sermons for the Lenten
cycle; part three contains 25 sermons from Easter to Trinity Sunday with several
sermons devoted to saints on their appropriate feast days.
295
Sermones de Opere Magistri Petri ad Boves de Dominicis et Sanctis: MS Paris, Bibliothèque
de l’Université 747 (15th cent. parchment, 311 ff. Folios 1 and 266 are missing.
296
Martin, ‘Les prédicateurs franciscains dans les provinces septentrionales’, 245.
297
Sermones de Passione Christi: MS Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 2036 ff.
205r–329v/330r–388v. The sermons on ff. 205r–329v are meant for the period
between the first Sunday after Trinity and the Sunday before Pentecost. On ff.
330r–388v we come across the sermons that completely focus on the passion of
Christ. The incipit shows Pierre’s major source as well as his main audience:
‘Commence la vie et la passion de nostre seigneur Jhesu Christ quil souffry en ce
monde pour nous pouvre pecheurs selon Boneaventure. Laquelle frere pierre aux
beufs cordelier docteur en theologie a preschee devant le roy et autres a Paris.’
Another version of this sermon cycle may be found in MS Tours, Bibliothèque
Municipale 489. These sermons eventually found their way to the printing press:
Magistri Petri ad Boves Sermones de Passione Christi (Poitiers: Jean Bouyer, 1482). Another
incunable edition contains a Sermo de Passione Domini by Pierre-aux-Boeufs in a mac-
aronic language of Latin and French, distinct from the Sermones de Passione men-
tioned earlier. Cf. Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine Inc. 1481. No place, printer or date
are given. Inc (f. 1r): ‘Hoc sentite in vobis quod est in xristo ihesum. Ad philipenses
iio et in epistola dominice curentis. Gallice. Sentir de buons en esprit. La douleur
de ihesu crist.’ Expl. (f. 19r): ‘Explicit sermo de passione xristi quem quondam com-
pilavit doctor Magister petrus ad boves.’ For a vernacular sermon delivered to the
Council of Paris in 1406, see the MSS Paris, Bibliothèque National fr. 23428 ff.
1–7 and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale fr. 17221 (a late fifteenth-century copy). An
Oratio ad Carolum IV Regem does not seem to have survived as such. Some passages
survive in the Journal de Nicolas de Baye, ed. Alexander Tuetey, Société de l’histoire
de France, 222 (Paris, 1885) I, 100–105.
the guardian of the Chartres convent. Menot, nicknamed ‘Lingua

Aurea’, was a legendary preacher, renowned not solely for his prowess
in front of students and university professors, but also for his teach-
ings before mixed audiences in many a parish church.298 Many, but
by no means all of his sermons were published after his death in
four different collections. These published collections are based on
the revised sermon manuscripts produced by Menot in the wake of
his preaching tours, and comprise a Quadragesimale cycle going back
to sermons held at Tours (1508),299 two Quadragesimale cycles on the
basis of sermons held at Paris (1517 and 1518),300 and a shorter
Lenten cycle of penitential sermons.301 A selection taken from these
various collections has been edited in more recent times.302
298
Most studies on Menot are rather dated. See: Johann Georg Veit Engelhardt,
Michel Menot, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Homiletik (Erlangen, 1824), who comments
on p. 27 on the ‘maccaronische Schreibart’ of Menot. Apparently, the concept
‘macaronic sermons’ was not coined by later twentieth-century scholars!; Ch. Labitte,
‘Prédicateurs grotesques du 16e siècle. Michel Menot’, Revue de Paris 8 (1838),
120–141; A. Gasté, Michel Menot (Caen, 1897); Zawart, ‘The History of Franciscan
Preaching and of Franciscan Preachers, 1209–1927’, 305–306; É. Gilson, ‘Michel
Menot et la technique du sermon médiéval’, RHF 2 (1925), 301–350; J.-T. Welter,
L’exemplum dans la littérature religieuse (Paris, 1927), 413; F. de Sessavale, Histoire générale
de l’ordre de S. François (Paris, 1937) II, 157–167. Additional references to Menot can
be found in M. Piton, ‘L’idéal épiscopal selon les prédicateurs franciscains de la fin
du 15e siècle’, RHE 61 (1966), 86–102, 394–400; Martin, ‘Les prédicateurs fran-
ciscains dans les provinces septentrionales’, 254–255; Hugues Dedieu, ‘Menot (Michel)’,
DSpir X, 1027–1028; Martin, Métier du prédicateur, passim.
299
Rev. Patr. Michaelis Menoti Sermones Quadragesimales ab ipso olim Turoni Declamati
(Paris, 1519 & Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1525). A collection of 55 Lenten sermons
preached at Tours in 1508.
300
Perpulchra Epistolarum Quadragesimalium Expositio, secundum ferias et dominicas declam-
atorum in amantissimo et devotissimo conventu fratrum minorum Parisiensium anno Domini 1517
(Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1519/Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1526 & 1530); Opus Aureum
Evangeliorum Quadragesimalium in Academia Parisiorum Declamatorum per venerabilem P.
Michaelem Menotum ordinis minorum (Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1519 & 1526). These
early sixteenth-century editions contain two cycles of (respectively 45 and 44) ser-
mons held during Lent 1517 and Lent 1518 at the Grand Couvent des Cordeliers
(before teachers and students of the university, fellow friars and the interested urban
laity). Additional editions followed.
301
Rev. Patr. Michaelis Menoti Perpulcher Tractatus, in quo tractatur perbelle de foedere et
pace ineunda media ambassadrice poenitentia (Paris: Claude Chevallon, 1519). This Lenten
sermon cycle also includes a lengthy passion sermon.
302
Such as the Sermons de fr. Michel Menot sur la Madeleine, avec une notice et des notes,
ed. J. Labouderie (Paris, 1832), which is a selection of Menot’s Magdalen sermons
derived from several sources, and the Sermons choisis de Michel Menot (1508–1518),
ed. J. Nève (Paris, 1924). This is an important edition with many sermons taken
from the cycles held at Tours and Paris. Cf. RHF 1 (1924), 521–527; EF 37 (1925),
103–104. See also Le sermon sur l’Enfant prodigue de Michel Menot (1520), ed. Dorothée
116 chapter one
Michel preached in French and thereafter reworked his sermons

into a downscaled macaronic Latin, so that they could function as
exemplary sermons and reading texts for other homiletic practition-
ers.303 The printed collections deliberately maintain these character-
istics, and show that Michel Menot made abundant use of legends,
histories, moral stories, and popular literary works to drive his mes-
sage home. First and foremost concerned with moral reform and the
social and religious functions of charity (not unlike the Observant
preachers of the same period), Menot nevertheless put much empha-
sis on basic penitential and doctrinal matters (taking his cues from
Scripture, from a wide range of patristic literature, and from the
major theological authorities of the Via Antiqua, such as Bernard de
Clairvaux, Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, Tommaso d’Aquino and
John Duns Scotus), with due attention to virtues and vices, the impor-
tance of conversion and contrition, the meaning and emotional impact
of Christ’s suffering, the last judgement, and the devotion due to
saints (notably to Joseph and the Holy Family in general).304
In short, nearly all sermons of Menot strongly condemn the real
and alleged sins of his time, as well as the many iniquities and atroc-
ities happening in the wars between the French and the English.
Werner (Tübingen, 1989). Cf. on this edition the review by Christian Schmitt, in:
Romanische Forschungen 103 (1991), 295–298.
303
Dedieu, ‘Menot (Michel)’, DSpir X, 1027 states: ‘Le texte latin de Menot est
farci de mots, de locutions, de phrases en français; le philologue est intéressé par
le vocabulaire, les exempla, les proverbes populaires et même certains paragraphes
entièrement en français.’
304
Martin, ‘Les prédicateurs franciscains dans les provinces septentrionales’,
254–255 informs us that: ‘Aux jeux de Michel Menot, la prédication est indis-
pensable pour tracer aux fidèles la voie du salut et pour leur donner la force de
résister à la tentation: ‘Si etiam predicatio tollatur, quid faciet populus simplex qui
nesciet tunc quid faciendum pro salute anime sue, quid fugiendum? Non habebit
notitiam neque de paradisio neque de inferno [. . .]. Parva puella stans in camera
tentatur a diabolo de peccato carnis. Sed nunc quo gladio, quo baculo poterit inim-
ico resistere, nisi verbo Dei?’ [with reference to the Sermons choisis de Michel Menot,
266]. Ce besoin se fait surtout sentir dans les villes, où se commettent les péchés
les plus énormes, ces villes où Dieu a naguères envoyé ses prophètes, Jonas à Ninive,
Paul à Rome. Le prédicateur, selon le gardien du couvent de Chartres, ne doit pas
chercher à flatter ni à distraire son public, mais il doit le fustiger sans relâche.
Animositas in exhortando, Authoritas in corrigendo, Asperitas in reprehendendo sont les trois
maximes auxquelles tout orateur doit se plier.’ The same conclusion was already
drawn by Engelhardt, Michel Menot, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Homiletik, 12, 15, who
showed with examples taken from Menot’s quadragesimal sermons, that his ser-
mons were ‘1. feurig im Ermahnen, 2. ernst und würdig im Strafen, 3. Hart im
Tadeln.’
Menot elaborated on the sinfulness of the soul, the horrors of death,

the terrible punishments awaiting man in Hell, and the need for
immediate repentance and penitence to overcome this harsh fate.
Repentance and penitence should not end with confession, but had
to include an ongoing willingness to walk hand in hand with God,
by following the word and teachings of Christ and by inscribing His
passion on the soul.
F. The emerging Capuchin contribution
After the reform of the order in 1517, the Observants seemingly had
won the day. Soon however, new dissent grew within the ranks of
the victors. Italian Observant friars like Matteo da Bascio of Urbino
(d. 1552) desired to return to a more primitive simplicity. Combining
periods of contemplative retreat with bouts of vigorous penitential
preaching, they initiated the new branch of the Capuchins.305 This
new branch had a bumpy start, not simply because of the consid-
erable opposition from the other Franciscans, but also because
305
Matteo’s surviving polemic poem Severa riprensione probably reflects his mode
of adhortatory preaching with recourse to declamated or sung verses and cadences.
These sermons threatened their audience (of lay adults and children) volubly with
the punishments of hell (‘A l’inferno, peccatori,/Scelerati, al grande inferno;/Ch’el
been fare avete a scherno,/Ostinati ne gli errori (. . .) A l’inferno chi non serva/
Quel ch’Iddio comanda e vuole,/Chi con mente empia e proterva/Non lo crede,
adora e cole (. . .) A l’inferno tu, ribaldo,/Scelerato, iniquo e rio,/Che bestemmi
ognor sí caldo/Il Signor tuo dolce Iddio (. . .) etc.’) For editions of this work, see:
La severa riprensione di fra Matheo, il quale per tutto il mundo andava esclamanda et rispon-
dendo ogni sorta di persone, gridando a l’inferno, a l’inferno. Opera nuova et non men catolicha
et devota che piacevole et elegante, ed. Melchior da Pobladura, Archivio italiano per la sto-
ria della pietà 3 (1961), 304–309. Other editions can be found in Roberto Rusconi,
Predicazione e vita religiosa nella società italiana da Carlo Magno alla Controriforma (Turin,
1981), 239–246; I Frati Cappuccini. Documenti e testimoninze del primo secolo, III/1: Santità
e apostolato, ed. C. Cargnoni (Rome, 1991), 2107–2115. Cargnoni also informs us
with reference to the chronicle of Paolo da Foligno (MHOC VII, 99) that in his
preaching, Matteo ‘. . . si serviva di sentenze o di frasi a cadenza ritmica, piú facil-
mente assimilabili dai semplici e dagli ignoranti e assai gradite ai bambini che,
insieme ai poveri, erano i suoi prediletti. Si avvaleva anche della musica, facendo
cantare ‘alcune canzonette divote le quali infiammavano gli animi nella brama del
cielo.’ Il cronista Paolo da Foligno, parlando del suo apostolato catechistico fra i
fanciulli, c’informa che si serviva d’alcune ‘esclamazioni in verso, perché facevano
piú impressione . . . e altri versi poi aveva in pronto molto spaventosi, con li quali,
secondo i tempi e le occasioni intonandoli con quella voce cruda, atterriva i pec-
catori.’ Ibidem, 2105.
118 chapter one
Bernardino Ochino, the third minister general of the Capuchins and

one of its most celebrated early preachers (whose works soon became
available in print) turned towards Protestantism in 1541.306 This inci-
dent nearly led to the Capuchins’ suppression. However, the enthu-
siasm with which Capuchin friars engaged in preaching and missionary
works gave them such popular support and made them such a use-
ful tool during the Counter-Reformation that they were able to sur-
vive and to flourish. Their preaching, which came up to speed in
the second half of the sixteenth century,307 reached back to the ‘orig-
306
On the tragic career of Bernardino Ochino (1487–1564) and his large liter-
ary legacy (from his Catholic and Protestant periods), see K. Benrath, Bernardino
Ochino von Siena. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Reformation, 2nd Edition (Brunswick,
1892); P. Hildebrand, ‘L’Ordre de S. François dans les oeuvres d’Ochino’, Neerlandica
Franciscana 2 (1919), 209–224; B. Nicolini, Il pensiero di Bernardino Ochino (Naples,
1939), 95–110; Idem, ‘Bernardino Ochino, frate dell’Osservanza di S. Francesco’,
Atti dell’Accademia Pontaniana 2 (1949), 87–100; Idem, ‘Bernardino Ochino. Saggio
biografico’, Biblion. Rivista di filologia, storia e bibliografia 1 (1959), 5–25; G. Fragnito,
‘Gli “spirituali” e la fuga di Bernardino Ochino’, Rivista della Storia Italiana 84 (1972),
777–811; Ph. Mc.Nair & J. Tedeschi, ‘New Light on Ochino’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme
et Renaissance 35 (1973), 289–301; U. Rozzo, ‘Nuovi contributi su Bernardino Ochino’,
Bullettino della Società di studi Valdesi 146 (1979), 51–83; Costanzo Cargnoni, ‘Ochino
(Bernardin; Tommasini da Siena)’, DSpir XI, 575–591; Emidio Campi, ‘Bernardino
Ochino’s Christology and ‘Mariology’ in his writings of the Italian Period (1538–1542)’,
in: Protestant History and identity in sixteenth-century Europe, Volume I: The Medieval
Inheritance, St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Aldershot-Brookfield Vt:
Avebury, 1996), 108–122. From his Catholic period stem the Prediche Nove Predicate
dal R. padre Bernardino da Siena dell’ordine de’Frati Capuccini, Et agiontovi altre Prediche
(Venice: Niccolò Aristotile de Ferrara, 1539/Venice: Niccolò Aristotile de Ferrara,
1541/Venice: Bindoni & Pasini, 1541/Venice: Bernardino de Viano de Lexona
Vercellense, 1541). Most of these old editions contain eight lengthy and interesting
quadragesimal sermons given at Venice (1539), and one sermon presented at Perugia
(1539). The 1541 edition by Bernardino de Viano also contains 5 Sermons deliv-
ered at Lucca (1538). All of these sermons found in these old editions have been
reprinted in I Frati Cappuccini. Documenti e testimoninze del primo secolo, III/1: Santità e
apostolato, ed. C. Cargnoni (Rome, 1991), 2115–2306. A quick analysis reveals the
privileged subjects of Ochino’s preaching: the sacrament of confession, the reasons
for and results of the incarnation, proper ways to commemorate and approach
Christ crucified, rules for living a proper Christian life in the world, instructions
for partaking in the Eucharist, methods to abstain from sin, the boundless love of
Mary Magdalen for Christ, and the love of God.
307
On early Capuchin preaching in general, see: Optatus de Veghel (Optatus
van Asseldonk), ‘La réforme des Frères Mineurs Capucins dans l’Ordre franciscain
et dans l’Église’, CF 35 (1965), 5–108; Stanislao da Campagnola, La predicazione cap-
puccina come programmazione religiosa e culturale nel cinquecento italiano, I Frati Cappuccini—
Sussidi per la lettura dei documenti e testimonianze del I secolo, 8 (Rome, 1988);
Idem, L’esercizio della predicazione presso i cappuccini nel loro primo secolo di esperienza, I
Frati Cappuccini—Sussidi per la lettura dei documenti e testimonianze del I sec-
olo, 9 (Rome, 1989); Arsenio D’Ascoli, La predicazione dei cappuccini del Cinquecento in
inal’ format of Franciscan preaching as presented in chapter nine of

the Regula Bullata, and thus announced a deliberate (if not full) return
to the evangelical teachings associated with the beginnings of the
Franciscan order.308
Italia (Loreto, Ancona, 1956); C. Cargnoni, La predicazione dei frati cappuccini nell’epoca
di riforma promossa dal Concilio di Trento (Rome, 1984); Isidoro de Villapadierna, ‘I
cappuccini tra eremitismo e predicazione’, in: I frati minori tra ’400 e ’500, Atti del
XII Convegno Internazionale Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986), 51–80.
308
On the role of the ninth chapter of the Regula Bullata in the self-definition of
Capuchin preaching, see O’Malley, ‘Form, Content, and Influence of Works about
Preaching before Trent’, 26–50 (45–46). Cf. also Mouchel, Rome franciscaine. Essai
sur l’histoire de l’éloquence dans l’Ordre des Frères Mineurs au XVI e siècle, 186ff. For the
way in which the text of the ninth chapter figured in Capuchin Constutions, see
Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum Saeculorum Decursu promulgate (Rome,
1980) I, 65 (1536), 124 (1552), 191 (1575). O’Malley (p. 46) also points out that
the Franciscan definition of preaching as found in the Regula Bullata formed the
basis for the decree on preaching issued at the Council of Trent on June 17, 1546:
Cf. Conc. Trid., Sess. V, de ref. c. 2, edited in: Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima
Collectio, ed. J.D. Mansi, Reprint (Graz, 1960–1961) XXXIII, 30f.: ‘Archipresbyteri
quoque et plebani et quicumque parochiales vel alias curam animarum habentes,
ecclesias quocumque modo obtinent (. . .) pascant salutaribus verbis: docendo ea
quae scire omnibus necessarium est ad salutem annunciandoque eis cum brevitate
et facilitate sermonis vitia quae eos declinare et virtutes quas sectari oporteat, ut
poenam aeternam evadere et coelestem gloriam consequi valeant.’ Cf. also Belluco,
De Sacra Praedicatione in Ordine Fratrum Minorum, 82.
CHAPTER TWO
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN RULES,

RULE COMMENTARIES AND CONSTITUTIONS
The regulated religious life in the various branches of the Franciscan

order had its foundation in the experiences and practices of the prim-
itive early thirteenth-century fraternity, and found its authoritative
codification and source of inspiration in the Franciscan rule.
The history of the Franciscan rule itself has been an ongoing bone
of contention among Franciscan scholars, not least because the early
history of the rule and its implementation sheds light on the pris-
tine aims and intentions of Francesco d’Assisi and his early com-
panions, and helps to understand the way in which these aims and
intentions were negotiated and brought into alignment with the needs
and objectives of the Church at large. This is not the place to dwell
on these historical developments and their interpretation by several
generations of modern scholars. It is, however, insightful to pay some
attention to the various rule prototypes that led up to the Regula
Bullata of 1223.
The change from a Franciscan movement into a proper Franciscan
‘religio’ goes at least as far back as 1209, when Francesco and his
small brotherhood obtained papal permission for their way of life
and for the short guideline or Formula Vitae in which they had described
its basic tenets. At the curia, Francesco and his companions received
the tonsure. From then onwards, they had papal approval to live a
proper evangelical life as minores, in accordance with the precepts of
the Gospels. No direct remnants are left of the 1209 Formula Vitae
in which this evangelical life would have seen its first written expres-
sion. The situation is not much different for the hypothetical ‘rule’
of 1216, which again would have been approved orally by the pope.
Nevertheless, it would seem that many elements of the 1209 (and
the assumed 1216) guidelines were incorporated almost verbatim in
the surviving rule of 1221.1
1
On the history of these proto-rules and their possible presence in the rule of
1221, see D. Mandic, De legislatione antiqua Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, Vol. I: Legislatio
religious instruction in rules 121
As it stands, the rule of 1221, also known as the Regula non Bullata,
is the first completely surviving legislative text governing the life of
the Friars Minor.2 Insofar as it incorporates many elements present
in the older proto-rules, notably in its introduction and in its chap-
ters seven and fourteen, the Regula non Bullata is an important testi-
mony to the religious aims put forward during the earliest years of
the Franciscan movement. At the same time it mirrors slightly later
developments in the internal organisation of the order (such as the
creation of provinces and the institution of provincial ministers in
1217, the instructions regarding preaching by qualified preachers,
and the introduction of the noviciate by the papal bull Cum Secundum
of 1220).3
Franciscana ab anno 1210–1221 (Mostar, 1924); Armando Quaglia, Origine e sviluppo

della Regola Francescana (Naples, 1948); Idem, ‘Documenti sulla genesi della Regola
francescana, bistrattati e distorti’, SF 96 (1999), 177–187; Bernard Vollot, ‘Hugues
de Digne et la Règle de 1216’, CF 66 (1996), 381–429; Idem, ‘La règle des frères
mineurs de 1216’, MF 99 (1999), 265–319 & Franciscana 2 (2000), 137–151.
2
The Regula non Bullata can be found in many of Francesco d’Assisi’s Opera Omnia
collections. Still widely used are the Opuscula S. Francisci, ed. Leonard Lemmens
(Quaracchi, 1904/reprints in 1941, 1943 and 1949), and the Analekten zur Geschichte
des Franziscus von Assisi, ed. Heinrich Boehmer (Tübingen, 1904), re-issued with revi-
sions as Analekten zur Geschichte des Franciscus von Assisi, ed. Heinrich Boehmer &
Friedrich Wiegand, Zweite Auflage (Tübingen, 1930/reprint 1961). The normative
edition was made by Kajetan Esser. His edition first appeared as Die Opuscula des
hl. Franziskus von Assisi, neue textkritische Edition (Grottaferrata, 1976), and was re-issued
with an enlarged critical apparatus as the Opuscula sancti patris Francisci Assisiensis,
denuo edidit iuxta codices mss, ed. K. Esser, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii
Aevi, XII (Grottaferrata, 1978/anast. reprint 1998), where the Regula non Bullata can
be found on pp. 239–294. This edition of Francesco’s works also appeared as Die
Opuscula des hl. Franziskus von Assisi, ed. K. Esser, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 13
(Grottaferrata, 19892). For the rule of 1221 and the other writings of Francesco
d’Assisi see also: Fontes Francescani, ed. E. Menestò, S. Brufani et al., Testi, 2 (Assisi,
1995); Francis of Assisi: Early documents. I: The writings of Francis of Assisi; The life of
Saint Francis by Thomas of Celano; The liturgical texts; The life of Saint Francis by Julian of
Speyer; The versified life of Saint Francis by Henri d’Avranches; The Sacred Exchange between
Saint Francis and Lady Poverty; Related documents, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne
Hellmann & William J. Short (New York-London-Manila: New City Publications,
1999). For the present study, unless stated otherwise, I use François d’Assise, Écrits,
Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), which gives Kajetan Esser’s 1978 edition
of the Latin text, combined with a French introduction, translation, and annota-
tion by Théophile Desbonnets, Jean-François Godet, Thadée Matura and Damien
Vorreux.
3
Cf. Cap. II: De receptione et vestimentis fratrum; Cap. IV: De ministris et aliis fratribus
qualiter ordinentur; Cap. VI: De recursu fratrum ad ministros et quod aliquis frater non voce-
tur prior; parts of Cap. XVII: De praedicatoribus; Cap. XVIII: Qualiter ministri conveni-
ant ad invicem.
122 chapter two
In all, the Regula non Bullata consists of 24 chapters. The last three
of these amount to a sort of spiritual testament in the form of a
stern admonition that highlights the acceptance of tribulations and
persecution, proclaims the total abnegation of self-will and the impor-
tance of the struggle against the sins of the flesh (chapter 22),4 sub-
mits a lengthy laudatory prayer to God, Who is asked to safeguard
the Franciscan way of life (chapter 23),5 to end with a concluding
presentatory statement (chapter 24).6 What stands out in the pro-
logue and the other 21 chapters of this rule, which can best be
viewed as a collective effort by Francesco and a group of his most
intimate colleagues, is the utter conviction that the text describes, or
rather embodies the life of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,7 and that this
comprises an uncompromising embrace of absolute poverty, humil-
ity, and penitence.8
4
Cap. XXII: De admonitione fratrum, François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes,
285 (Paris, 1981), 162–169: ‘Attendamus omnes fratres quod dicit Dominus: Diligite
inimicos vestros et benefacite his qui oderunt vos, quia Dominus noster Jesus Christus, cuius
sequi vestigia debemus, traditorem suum vocavit amicum et crucifixoribus suis sponte
se obtulit. Amici igitur nostri sunt omnes illi qui nobis iniuste inferunt tribulationes
et angustias, verecundias et iniurias, dolores et tormenta, martyrium et mortem;
quos multum diligere debemus, quia ex hoc quod nobis inferunt, habemus vitam
aeternam. Et odio habeamus corpus nostrum cum vitiis et peccatis suis; quia car-
naliter vivendo vult diabolus a nobis auferre amorem Jesu Christi et vitam aeter-
nam et se ipsum cum omnibus perdere in infernum (. . .) Nunc autem, postquam
dimisimus mundum, nihil aliud habemus facere, nisi sequi voluntatem Domini et
placere sibi ipse. (. . .)’
5
Cap. XXIII: Oratio et gratiarum actio, François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes,
285 (Paris, 1981), 170–178.
6
Cap. XXIV: Conclusio, François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris,
1981), 178–179: ‘In nomine Domini! Rogo omnes fratres, ut addiscant tenorem et
sensum eorum quae in ista vita ad salvationem animae nostrae scripta sunt et ista
frequenter ad memoriam reducant. Et exoro Deum, ut ipse, qui est omnipotens,
trinus et unus, benedicat omnes docentes, discentes, habentes, recordantes et oper-
antes ista quoties repetunt et faciunt quae ibi ad salutem animae nostrae scripta
sunt, et deprecor omnes cum osculo pedum, ut multum diligant, custodiant et repo-
nant. Et ex parte Dei omnipotentis et domini papae et per obedientiam ego frater
Franciscus firmiter praecipio et iniungo, ut ex his, quae in ista vita scripta sunt,
nullus minuat vel in ipsa scriptum aliquod desuper addat nec aliam regulam fratres
habeant. (. . .)’
7
Hence the Prologus begins as follows: ‘In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti!
Haec est vita evangelii Jesu Christi, quam frater Franciscus petiit a domino papa
concedi et confirmari sibi.’ François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris,
1981), 122.
8
On top of the works mentioned in the first note, see also David Flood, Die
Regula non bullata der Minderbrüder (Werl, 1967); Kajetan Esser, Textkritische Untersuchungen
zur Regula non Bullata der Minderbrüder (Grottaferrata, 1974); Bernard Vollot, ‘L’Évangile
dans la Règle de 1221. Exégèse détaillée’, FrSt 75 (1993), 339–371.
In many ways, the rule of 1221 was looking backwards. It tried

to maintain the pristine quality of evangelical perfection in a quickly
growing order that had to accommodate itself to new tasks. Moreover,
the rule of 1221 was not a legal text in the strict sense of the word.
From a canon law perspective it seemed inadequate to function as
an official unequivocal regula religionis. Internal and especially external
pressure from the side of the papal curia forced Francesco to try
once again—this time in collaboration with the cardinal protector
Ugolino (the later pope Gregory IX)—to formulate the obligations
and characteristics of his chosen religio. This resulted in 1223 in a
revised document, which received papal approval in November of
that year, and thus became the definitive rule for the male branch
of Franciscan order, also known as the Regula Bullata. From its approval
onwards, it was assumed that each and every Franciscan convent
would acquire a copy of this rule, and it became customary to read
the text aloud every Friday in the refectory.9 For everyone interested
in the morphology of the Franciscan religious of life after 1223, this
text is the natural point of departure.
The Regula Bullata describes the lifestyle and the obligations of the
Friars Minor in twelve chapters. It is much more concise than its
predecessor (limiting the lengthy citations from the Scriptures pre-
sent in the Regula non Bullata and combining some of its chapters),
and has a more legalist character.10 The Regula Bullata’s first chap-
ter amounts to a short characterisation of the vita Minorum Fratrum
(which no longer presents the life of the Friars Minor as an embod-
iment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as explicitly as the rule of 1221).11
This introductory part is followed by separate chapters on the accep-
tance of novices, the liturgical obligations of the friars and their
behaviour outside the convent, the prohibition to receive money, the
9
Frequently together with the Testament of Francesco, in conformity with the
latter’s own wishes: ‘Et semper hoc scriptum habeant secum iuxta regulam. Et in
omnibus capitulis quae faciunt, quando legunt regulam, legant et ista verba.’ François
d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes 285 (Paris, 1981), 210 (Testamentum no. 35).
Although the Testament lost its binding character after 1230, many communities
seemingly continued to read it together with the Regula Bullata. This might explain
why many surviving manuscripts of the Regula Bullata also contain the Testament.
10
Regula Bullata, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 225–238; François
d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 180–199. This rule obtained
papal approval with the bull Solet Annuere.
11
‘In Nomine Domini! Incipit vita Minorum Fratrum: Regula et vita Minorum
haec est, scilicet Domini nostri Jesu Christi sanctum evangelium observare vivendo
in obedientia, sine proprio et in castitate. (. . .)’
124 chapter two
proper activities to earn a living and to avoid otiositas, the life of

poverty and mendicancy, the performance of penitence, the election
of ministers and the celebration of chapter meetings, the activity of
preaching, the correction and admonition of friars, the relationship
with female religious, and the missionary work beyond the Christian
realm.12
Alongside of the Regula Bullata, Francesco d’Assisi also produced
a short rule for hermits. This rule reflects the importance of eremitic
retreat in the early Franciscan brotherhood; an aspect of the Franciscan
life that frequently gets overlooked.13 The Regula pro Eremitoriis Data
was meant for those friars who (for certain periods of time) wanted
to live a more perfect spiritual life than on average was possible in
the larger convents. The rule makes out that Franciscan eremitic
communities could not house more than four friars. For a determinate
period of time two of these friars were supposed to take on the posi-
tion of the servant/mother (the role of Martha), furnishing the mate-
rial needs of the other two friars, who during that period lead the
contemplative life of Maria (the role of Magdalen) and spent many
hours of the day in their cell prostrate in prayer.14
The Franciscan rule for hermits, which can be compared with
other classics guiding the eremitic life of medieval religious (such as
12
Cap. II: De his qui volunt vitam istam accipere, et qualiter recipi debeant; Cap. III: De
divino officio et ieiunio, et quomodo fratres debeant ire per mundum; Cap IV: Quod fratres non
recipiant pecuniam; Cap. V: De modo laborandi; Cap. VI: Quod nihil approprient sibi fratres
et de eleemosyna petenda et de fratribus infirmis; Cap. VII: De poenitentia fratribus peccantibus
imponenda; Cap. VIII. De electione generalis ministri huius fraternitatis et de capitulo Pentecostes;
Cap. IX: De praedicatoribus; Cap. X: De admonitione et correctione fratrum; Cap. XI: Quod
fratres non ingrediantur monasteria monacharum; Cap. XII: De euntibus inter saracenos et alios
infideles. There are many studies on the similarities and differences between the Regula
non Bullata and the Regula Bullata. See especially: Kajetan Esser, ‘Die endgültige
Regel der Minderbrüder’, in: Franziskanisches Leben (Werl, 1968), 33–96; M. Conti,
Lettura biblica della Regola francescana (Rome, 1977).
13
For an introduction to this aspect of the Franciscan life, see L. Pellegrini,
‘L’esperienza eremitica di Francesco d’Assisi e dei primi francescani’, in: Francesco
d’Assisi e francescanesimo dal 1216 al 1226 (Assisi, 1977), 281–313; Grado G. Merlo,
‘Eremitismo nel francescanesimo medievale’, in: Eremitismo nel francescanesimo medievale,
Atti del XVII convegno internazionale Assisi 12–13–14 ottobre 1989 (Spoleto, 1990),
29–50; Bruno Marcucci, Il romitorio nella ‘forma vitae’ francescana (Florence, 1994).
14
Regula pro Eremitoriis Data, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978),
295–298; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 200–203:
‘Illi, qui volunt religiose stare in eremis sint tres fratres vel quattuor ad plus; duo
ex ipsis sint matres et habeant duos filios vel unum ad minus. Isti duo qui sunt
matres, teneant vitam Marthae et duo filii teneant vitam Mariae et habeant unum
claustrum, in quo unusquisque habeat cellulam suam, in qua oret et dormiat. (. . .)’
Augustine’s sermons to the brothers in the desert, Petrus Damianus’

rule for hermits and Petrus Venerabilis’ letter to Gilbert the recluse),15
became the basic text for the organisation of the contemplative life
in small Franciscan romitorii throughout the medieval period, and was
a source of inspiration for Spiritual and early Observant communi-
ties in Italy, Southern France and the Spanish peninsula, many of
which found fault with the developments that had lead the order
away from its original evangelical simplicity and seemed to violate
the Franciscan equilibrium between the interior life and the active
urban apostolate.
A. Interpreting the REGULA BULLATA
The acceptance of the Regula Bullata throughout the male branch of

the Franciscan order did not stop the discussions about the imple-
mentation of the Franciscan form of evangelical perfection. Francesco
himself tried to limit casuistry and to control the interpretation of
his rule by fellow friars and external benefactors alike.16 His own
Epistola Toti Ordini Missa una cum oratione: omnipotens, aeterne is to be
interpreted in this light,17 and so are his Admonitiones. The latter were
15
Saint François, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 28–29. For a
more detailed analysis, see also Kajetan Esser, ‘Die Regula pro eremitoriis data des
hl. Franziskus von Assisi’, FrSt 44 (1962), 383–417, reprinted in Idem, Studien zu
den Opuscula des hl. Franziskus von Assisi (Rome, 1973), 137–179; J. Paul, ‘L’érémitisme
et la survivance de la spiritualité du désert chez les Franciscains’, in: Les mystiques
du désert dans l’Islam, le Judaïsme et le Christianisme (Paris, 1975), 133–145.
16
Cf. for instance O. Schmucki, ‘Linee fondamentali della ‘forma vitae’ nell’es-
perienza di san Francesco’, in: Lettura biblico-teologica delle Fonti francescane (Rome,
1979), 183–231.
17
Epistola Toti Ordini Missa, una cum oratione: omnipotens, aeterne, in: Opuscula, ed.
K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 135–150; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes,
285 (Paris, 1981), 244–255. If we can believe Ubertino da Casale, Arbor Vitae Crucifixae
Jesu V, 7, Francesco wrote this Epistola at the end of his life, probably shortly before
the Testamentum, with which it has some elements in common. This letter is filled
with admonitions on the Franciscan way of life. It makes clear beyond any doubt
that it is the task of the minister general ‘ut faciat regulam ab omnibus inviola-
biliter observari; et quod clerici dicant officium cum devotione coram Deo non
attendentes melodiam vocis, sed consonantiam mentis, ut vox concordet menti, mens
vero concordet cum Deo . . .’ And: ‘Quicumque autem fratrum haec observare
noluerint, non teneo eos catholicos nec fratres meos; nolo etiam ipsos videre nec
loqui, donec poenitentiam egerint. Hoc etiam dico de omnibus aliis, qui vagando
vadunt, postposita regulae disciplina . . .’ Cf. O. Schmucki, ‘La Lettera a tutto
l’Ordine di san Francesco’, IF 55 (1980), 245–285.
126 chapter two
composed between 1220 and 1223—the period in which first the

Regula non Bullata and thereafter the Regula Bullata were issued—and
contain additional statements on the life of evangelical perfection.18
It seems beyond doubt that Francesco wrote his Admonitiones to instil
in his friars the right mental and bodily disposition to fulfil the
requirements put forward in the two rules. He tried at the same
time to provide an authoritative interpretation of these requirements
and to stipulate their implications for the life of the friars. It prob-
ably is no coincidence that the Admonitiones as a whole resemble
closely in content and atmosphere the message of Chapter 24 (De
admonitione fratrum) in the Regula non Bullata, and probably are a gen-
uine reflection of Francesco d’Assisi’s stern but constructive anthro-
pological vision, with its struggle between self-denunciation and the
love of others.19
Francesco’s famous Testamentum or Mandatum was his ultimate
attempt at controlling the future interpretation of the Franciscan
rule.20 This text contains Francesco’s own recollection of the begin-
18
Admonitiones, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 58–82; François
d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 90–117. Cf. also Cf. Kajetan
Esser, Le Ammonizioni di san Francesco (Rome, 1974). In all, the Admonitiones contain
28 pieces of religious intruction for friars: I: De corpore Domini; II: De malo propriae
voluntatis; III: De perfecta obedientia; IV: Ut nemo appropriet sibi praelationem; V: Ut nemo
superbiat, sed glorietur in Cruce Domini; VI: De imitatione Domini; VII: Ut bona operatio
sequatur scientiam; VIII: De peccato invidiae vitando; IX: De dilectione; X: De castigatione cor-
poris; XI: Ut nemo corrumpatur malo alterius; XII: De cognoscendo spiritu Domini; XIII: De
patientia; XIV: De paupertate spiritus; XV: De pace; XVI: De munditia cordis; XVII: De
humili servo Dei; XVIII: De compassione proximi; XIX: De humili servo Dei; XX: De bono
et vano religioso; XXI: De inani et loquaci religioso; XXII: De correctione; XXIII: De humil-
itate; XXIV: De vera dilectione; XXV: Item de eodem; XXVI: Ut servi Dei honorent cleri-
cos; XXVII: De virtute effugante vitio; XXVIII: De abscondendo bono ne perdatur.
19
‘Self-hate and love of others are the two poles of St Francis’s teaching. They
prevent it from degenerating into mere masochism, a quasi-manicheism, or mere
sentimentality. The first can only be achieved through tribulation at the hands of
others; the second is in response to one’s own self-abasement. Together they make
the servant of God a disciple of Christ in leading him from himself to other men;
so that he can only achieve true virtue as the victim of the world’s injustices. It is
that combination which, in its intensity and single-mindedness at least, is unique to
St Francis. It transcended both the eremitical and monastic ideal of seeking virtue
through disengagement from the world, and the apostolic ideal of following Christ
in the world. Disengagement meant detachment from self; emulation of Christ,
humiliation at the hands of others. From their fusion came all the Christian virtues
enumerated in his Admonitions . . .’ Gordon Leff, ‘The Franciscan Concept of Man’,
in: Prophecy and Millenarianism. Essays in Honour of Marjorie Reeves, ed. Ann Williams
(Longman, 1980), 219–237, 223–224.
20
Testamentum, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 305–318; François
nings of his movement and, from there, develops into a forceful

admonition on the adherence to the basic tenets of the Franciscan
life of evangelical perfection, with its stress on poverty, humility and
obedience. Francesco points out that God Himself had revealed to
him to live according to the Gospels, and that the Franciscan rule
is but the expression of this divine revelation.21 Hence, no friar should
try to interpret the rule according to his own intentions. Instead, all
friars should understand in a straightforward fashion the message that
God had made Francesco to put down in writing simpliciter et pure.22
Francesco’s attempt at preventing further interpretations that could
compromise his vision of the life of evangelical perfection was doomed
to fail, not solely because a new generation of friars with different
motivations and increasing pastoral and pedagogical obligations could
not live up to the harsh and insecure conditions of the primitive
Franciscan lifestyle, but especially because the rule did not provide
an answer to all questions faced by the growing fraternity. It became
necessary to produce supplementary regulations, and to define the
internal hierarchy of the Regula Bullata’s prescriptions and admonitions.
To make this possible, it was first of all necessary to neutralise
Francesco’s Testamentum, which had forbidden any attempt at inter-
pretation, but instead had admonished the friars to follow the letter
of the rule. This step was made in September 1230, when pope
d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 204–211. See also Kajetan
Esser, Das Testament des hl. Franziskus von Assisi. Eine Untersuchung über seine Echtheit und
seine Bedeutung (Munster, 1949). It can be argued that Francesco has written several
testaments. Chapter 22 of the Regula non Bullata is a testament of some sort, and
probably goes back to a text written before Francesco embarked on his mission to
the Middle East in 1219. There also is his Testamentum Senis Factum (Opuscula, ed.
K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 323–324), his last wishes for Chiara d’Assisi and her
sisters (Ultima Voluntas Scripta S. Chiarae, Die Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata,
1978), 318–319), and some, now lost, ‘texts’ cited in the Legenda Perusina as being
part and parcel of Francesco’s final testament. Cf. Raoul Manselli, ‘Dal Testamento
ai testamenti di S. Francesco’, CF 46 (1976), 121–129.
21
‘Et postquam Dominus dedit mihi de fratribus, nemo ostendebat mihi, quid
deberem facere, sed ipse Altissimus revelavit mihi, quod deberem vivere secundum
formam sancti Evangelii. Et ego paucis verbis et simpliciter feci scribi et dominus
Papa confirmavit mihi. (. . .)’ François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285
(Paris, 1981), 206.
22
‘Et omnibus fratribus meis clericis et laicis praecipio firmiter per obedientiam,
ut non mittant glossas in regula neque in istis verbis dicendo: ‘Ita volunt intelligi.’
Sed sicut dedit mihi Dominus simpliciter et pure dicere et scribere regulam et ista
verba, ita simpliciter et sine glossa intelligatis et cum sancta operatione observetis usque
in finem.’ François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 210.
128 chapter two
Gregory IX, the former cardinal protector of the Franciscan order

and a driving force behind the codification of the Regula Bullata,
issued the bull Quo Elongati. This declared that the Testamentum was not
binding for the order and that the friars were not bound to adhere
to all evangelical councils of the Franciscan rule in the same way.23
This paved the way for new interpretations of the Regula Bullata
and for additional legislative labour, not only in a series of impor-
tant papal pronouncements that will not concern us here,24 but also
in a number of rule commentaries.25 Some of these commentaries
were products of Franciscan ‘dissidents’ concerned about the changes
in the religious life of the Franciscan order (notably the commen-
taries of Hugues de Digne and Angelo Clareno, and the defence of
the spiritual interpretation of the rule by Ubertino da Casale).26
23
Quo elongati (28 September 1230). Bullarium Franciscanum, ed. Sbaralea (Rome,
1768) I, 68b; H. Grundmann, ‘Die Bulle Quo elongati Papst Gregors IX’, AFH 54
(1961), 1–25.
24
A discussion of these papal pronouncements falls outside the scope of this book
on Franciscan religious instruction literature. They predominantly deal with the legal
and technical definition of Franciscan poverty, the preaching and confession privi-
leges of the mendicants vis-à-vis the secular clergy, and related issues. The most
important official papal interferences after Quo Elongati (1230) are Prohibente Regula
Vestra (1240), Gaudentibus Vobis (1241), Ordinem Vestrum (1245), Quanto Studiosus (1247),
Virtute Conspicuos (1262), Exiit qui Seminat (1279), Ad Fructus Uberes (1281), Exultantes in
Domino (1283), Super Cathedram (1300), Exivi de Paradiso (1312), Quorundam Exigit (1317),
Sancta Romana (1317), Gloriosam Ecclesiam (1318), Quia Nonnumquam (1322), Ad Conditorem
Canonum (1322), Amabiles (1428), and Ite Vos (1517). For an initial overview, see Elmar
Wagner, Historia Constitutionum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum (Rome, 1954), 17ff.
Cf. also B. Mathis, Die Privilegien des Franziskanerordens bis zum Konzil von Vienne, 1311,
im Zusammenhang mit dem Privilegienrecht der früheren Orden dargestellt (Paderborn, 1927),
passim; H. Lippens, ‘Le droit nouveau des mendiants en conflit avec le droit cou-
tumier du clergé séculier du concile de Vienne à celui de Trente’, AFH 47 (1954),
241–292; F. Elizondo, ‘Pontificiae interpretationes regulae franciscanae usque ad
annum 1517’, Laurentianum 1 (1960), 324–368; Idem, ‘De vivae vocis oraculis circa
regulam franciscanam’, Laurentianum 1 (1960), 435–472.
25
A general overview can be found in F. Elizondo, ‘Doctrinales Regulae
Franciscanae Expositiones usque ad Annum 1517’. Laurentianum 2 (1961), 449–492.
26
Hugues’ commentary is the first ‘private’ full-length interpretation of the rule
(probably compiled between the summers of 1242 and 1243), and makes a case for
a strict interpretation of the rule’s commands in the face of slackening standards.
See Hugues de Digne, Expositio super Regulam Fratrum Minorum, in: Speculum Minorum
seu Firmamentum Trium Ordinum (Venice, 1513) III, ff. 32va–52va; Hugh of Digne’s Rule
Commentary, ed. David Flood, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, 14 (Grottaferrata, 1979).
To recapture Francesco d’Assisi’s original intentions, Hugues would have cited at
length passages from the (now lost) rule of 1216. Cf. Vollot, ‘Hugues de Digne et
la Règle de 1216’, 381–429; Idem, ‘La règle des frères mineurs de 1216’, MF 99
(1999), 265–319. For more information on Hugues’ rule and his related treatise De
Finibus Paupertatis, see also the analysis of David Flood in the introduction to his
Others were the product of champions of the Franciscan order against

attacks from outside, or came from the pen of officially appointed
commentators (by the general chapter or at the request of the papacy),
who aimed to re-establish consensus and wanted to find solutions
for new problems (such as the commentaries written by the ‘four
masters’ and by John Pecham).27 Again other commentaries were
edition, as well as Jérôme Poulenc, ‘Hugues de Digne (bienheureux)’, DSpir VII/1,

877–879; Damien Ruiz, L’‘Expositio super Regulam Fratrum Minorum’ d’Hugues de Digne
dans l’évolution historique et spirituelle de l’Ordre des Frères Mineurs (milieu XIII e siècle) (Aix-
Marseille, 1998). Angelo Clareno’s commentary, edited as the Expositio Regulae Fratrum
Minorum Auctore Fr. Angelo Clareno, ed. L. Oliger (Ad Claras Aquas: Quaracchi, 1912)
and again as the Expositio super Regulam Fratrum Minorum di Frate Angelo Clareno, ed.
G. Boccali, Pubblicazioni della Biblioteca Francescana Chiesa Nuova-Assisi, 7 (Assisi,
1995), reaches back to the Testamentum of Francesco d’Assisi to determine the mean-
ing of the Regula Bullata (a procedure that would be taken up again by the Capuchins,
who held Angelo Clareno in great esteem), but also cites abundantly from the Regula
non Bullata of 1221. As a matter of fact, Angelo Clareno’s extensive citations from
the Regula non Bullata were of great importance for establishing the first critical text
of this Franciscan rule by H. Boehmer in 1912. Cf. F. Accrocca, ‘Angelo Clareno,
testimone di S. Francesco. Testi sulla vita del santo e dei primi fonti contenuti
nell’Expositio regulae Fratrum Minorum e sconosciuti alle primitive fonti francescane’,
AFH 81 (1988), 225–253; Idem, ‘Angelo Clareno e la Regula non bollata’, AFH 82
(1989), 21–41. Pietro di Giovanni Olivi’s rule commentary dealt with below was
not written as a dissident work. However, his persecution and posthumous denun-
ciation ensured that the text of his rule commentary became an icon for later gen-
erations of friars with spiritual leanings, such as Ubertino da Casale. The early
fourteenth-century discussions of the latter on the Franciscan rule and notably the
issue of usus pauper in Ubertino’s Rotulus (and additional writings), as well as the
reactions of his opponents, do not concern me here. See on that discussion and on
the interpretation of the Franciscan rule therein: Elizondo, ‘Doctrinales Regulae
Franciscanae Expositiones’, 475–480; David Burr, Olivi and Franciscan Poverty: The
Origins of the Usus Pauper Controversy (Philadelphia, 1989). ‘Dissident’ statements on
the rule can also be found in texts like the thirteenth-century Legenda Perusina, the
Rotuli/Intentio Regulae e Verba S. Francisci ascribed to the circle of friar Leo, and the
mid-fourteenth-century Expositio Anonyma. See Fonti Francescane (Assisi-Padua, 1977 &
1990), 1155–1285; K. Esser, ‘Eine ‘Expositio regulae ordinis fratrum minorum’ aus
dem 14. Jahrhundert’, FrSt 37 (1955), 20–52.
27
The Expositio Quatuor Magistrorum was made by Alexander of Hales, Jean de La
Rochelle, Roberto da Bascia and Eudes Rigaud, at the request of the 1241 general
chapter and minister general Haymo of Faversham. This commentary did not com-
ment on the whole text of the Regula Bullata, but focused on specific problems that
had risen in the expanding order. It distinguished between the rule’s precepts, its
counsels and its advisory statements. This distinction proved to be of lasting value
in subsequent discussions on the rule and its meaning. See Expositio Quatuor Magistrorum
super Regulam Fratrum Minorum (1241–1242). Accedit ejusdem Regulae textus cum fontibus et
locis parallelis, ed. L. Oliger (Rome, 1950). Oliger lists older editions, as does Elizondo,
‘Doctrinales Regulae Franciscanae Expositiones’, 462. John Pecham wrote two rule
commentaries. One is embedded in his Tractatus de Paupertate (chapter 10), and is
part of Pecham’s defense of the order’s evangelical lifestyle against attacks by spokes-
men of the secular clergy. See Fr. Johannis de Peckham Tractatus tres de paupertate, ed.
130 chapter two
conceived by friars engaged in the training of novices, in the hope

of providing these beginning friars with a guide to a proper under-
standing of the rule.28 Whatever the motivation of their compilers,
several of these commentaries provide a wealth of information about
normative religious practices in the medieval Franciscan order.
On top of the many sermons that deal with aspects of the Franciscan
rule and the implementation of the Franciscan religious life, the most
informative early rule commentaries from the perspective of religious
instruction are the texts written by John of Wales, David von Augsburg,
and Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu). The commentary
compiled by John of Wales, a respected master of theology and a
productive moral theologian, is contemporary with the rule com-
mentaries written by Pecham (in the 1270s). Yet contrary to Pecham’s
commentaries, John’s rule explanation is clearly intended for inter-
nal use. He tried to explain the meaning of the rule to those who
had opted for the Franciscan life, namely novices and newly pro-
fessed friars who were about to embark on their studies in the order’s
school network. In this respect, John of Wales’s commentary has
affinities with the various novice training treatises that we will encounter
elsewhere. His commentary tried to motivate young friars to embrace
A.G. Little (Aberdeen, 1910), 27–55. The other, more theoretical rule commentary,
written in an academic setting, for a long time was seen to be a work of Bonaventura
da Bagnoreggio, and found a place in Bonaventura, Opera Omnia, ed. Quaracchi
(Ad Claras Aquas: Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 391–437. Cf. C. Harkins, ‘The Authorship
of a Commentary on the Franciscan Rule Published among the Works of St.
Bonaventure’, FS 29 (1969), 157–248. To Bonaventura are ascribed the Determinationes
Quaestionum circa Regulam Fratrum Minorum (Opera Omnia, VIII, 337–374), a Sermo super
Regulam Fratrum Minorum (Opera Omnia, VIII, 438–448), and the Epistola de Tribus
Quaestionibus ad magistrum Innominatum seu Declaratio quorundam Articulorum Regulae Fratrum
Minorum (Opera Omnia, VIII, 331–336). The last-mentioned letter has also been edited
by F. Delorme, in Archivo Italiano di Storia della Pietà 1 (1951), 212–218. John Pecham
probably wrote his ‘second’ rule commentary in Italy, when he was magister sacri
palatii (or after 1273, during his charge as provincial in England), and emphasised
in a Bonaventurian fashion the spiritual value of the Regula Bullata. Also of interest
is Pecham’s Canticum Pauperis pro Dilecto, ed. F. Delorme, Bibliotheca Franciscana
Ascetica Medii Aevi, 4 (Quaracchi, 19492). The Canticum amounts to an explana-
tion, a defense and a recommendation of the Franciscan way of life, aiming to
guide the soul in its search for true happiness. In the work, an old teacher guides
a pupil, helping him to overcome obstacles and to withstand the criticism of exter-
nal enemies (such as secular clerics who denounce the mendicant way of life). The
work probably originates from Pecham’s stay at Oxford (before 1274–1275). The
last part of the Pecham’s Canticum is sometimes found separately, with titles like
Forma Vitae Fratrum Minorum. See a.o. MS Rome, Biblioteca St.-Isidoro Cod. 1/73.
28
See the works of John of Wales and David von Augsburg dealt with below.
the Franciscan religious life both literally and spiritually, in the hope
that they would internalise the evangelical qualities with alacrity, and
would obtain the peace of mind and the discipline conducive to their
religious and scholarly progress.29
David von Augsburg was more down to earth in his approach
than John of Wales, who after all spent many years at the order’s
most prominent order studia and dealt with relatively well-educated
novices and friar-students. David, on the other hand, had to explain
the rule to less-educated novices and friars. His Glosa super Regulam
Fratrum Minorum was the outcome of his long career as a novice
master at Regensburg and complemented his novice training trea-
tises (which are dealt with in Chapter III of this book). David intended
in his Glosa to provide simple brethren and novices with a concise,
paraphrasing elucidation of the Regula Bullata, in the hope that through
a thorough training in the virtues of poverty, humility, chastity, obe-
dience, patience, charity, internal devotion and prayer, these neo-
phytes would grow into living examples of evangelical perfection.30
The commentaries of John of Wales and David von Augsburg
were tailored towards the needs of novices and young student-friars.
They have this in common with yet another rule commentary, namely
the rudimentary grammatical rule explanation included in many
29
John of Wales, Declaratio super Regulam/Declaratio Regulae, edited in: Speculum
Minorum seu Firmamentum Trium Ordinum (Venice, 1513) III, ff. 98va–106ra, and by
David Flood, in FS 60 (2002), 93–138. See Elizondo, ‘Doctrinales Regulae Franciscanae
Expositiones usque ad Annum 1517’, 470–472 & Ignatius Brady, ‘Jean de Galles’
DSpir VIII, 534: ‘Puisque l’on utilise une règle pour la construction des maisons,
comment les frères ne se serviraient-ils pas de leur Règle comme d’un guide con-
stant pour bâtir leur édifice spirituel? Pour que la Règle soit ‘le livre de vie’, comme
l’apelle saint François, Jean met en singulier relief la valeur spirituelle de ses pré-
ceptes et surtout de ses exhortations. Il voit dans le nom de ‘frères mineurs’ les
vertus qui doivent caractériser leur vie, leur oeuvre, leur apostolat: pauvreté, humil-
ité, détachement dans l’esprit d’un ‘pèlerin’, fraternité et service, dans un climat de
prière et de dévotion, sont la marque, selon la Règle, de l’authentique frère mineur.’
30
The work has been given a critical edition in: David Flood, ‘Die Regelerklärung
des Davids von Augsburg’, FrSt 75 (1993), 201–242. For an older, incomplete edi-
tion, see E. Lempp, ‘David von Augsburg’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 19 (1899),
345–349. The relationship with David’s activities as a novice master is hinted at in
the conclusion (ed. Flood, p. 239): ‘Quia fratribus nostris illiteratis et novitiis regu-
lam legere et exponere saepius a superioribus meis iussus sum, ut magis haberem
in promptu quae dicerem ne oblivio tolleret simpliciter propter me notavi ista non
propter alios qui nec indigent mea eruditione nec curant, cum unicuique per se
intelligentia sua liceat utiliora et meditari et notare sine praeiudicio alicuius, quia
magis intelligentes multo meliores regulae intellectus inveniunt quos etiam ego liben-
ter amplectar ubi potero reperire.’
132 chapter two
manuscript versions of the famous but as yet not fully edited and
relatively unstudied Mammotrectus (ca. 1285), which is ascribed to the
Franciscan lector Giovanni (?) Marchesini di Reggio Emilia. It would
be interesting to compare the commentaries of John of Wales and
David von Augsburg with this basic grammatical explanation, which
probably is one of the most widely disseminated prep-school texts at
the custodial level, where young boys were given their initial train-
ing before and after their noviciate.31
Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu)’s rule commentary
(written in 1288) did not directly address itself to novices and neo-
phytes. In fact, Olivi’s commentary was a counterpart to his more
academic Quaestiones de Perfectione Evangelica. Whereas these Quaestiones
were meant to clarify key aspects of the evangelical life in an intel-
lectual fashion, the rule commentary aimed at clarifying the content
and the proper sense of the rule for the less-gifted friars,32 so that
31
Giovanni (?) Marchesini da Reggio Emilia was lector at Imola (1275), Faventia
(1280), and designated lector for Bologna. It would seem that the Mammotrectus
ascribed to him consists of three main parts. Part one contains explanations for
difficult biblical words and passages. Part two contains a series of digressions on
orthography, the accents of Latin words, the seven feasts of the Old Law, the cloth-
ing of priests, basic principles of exegesis and translation, divination, the names of
God according to the Hebrews, the qualities and properties of Scripture, and short
remarks on the four main ecumenical Councils. Part three deals in more details
with liturgical books and related materials (de responsoriis et antiphonis, de hym-
nis, de legendis sanctorum, de sermonibus et homiliis de communi sanctorum et
domenicalibus), and closes with a grammatical exposition of the Franciscan rule.
Copies of the work for instance can be found MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale
488; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 148 (thirteenth cent., with tabulae on ff. 96a–110v);
Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek Theol. Cent. I.28 (an. 1431); Florence, Biblioteca Med.
Laurenzenziana Calci 27 ff. 1ra–254vb; Vienna, Österreichische Landesbibliothek
3946 (an. 1425); Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale 22 (1458); Hamburg, S. Petrus
Kirche MS Jacobi 16 ff. 206r–313r (15th cent.) & MS Jacobi 17 ff. 1r–106v (14th
cent.); Prague, National Museum XII C 7 (Prologus in Mametractum); Prague, National
Museum XIII C 14; Prague, National Museum XIII D 11 ff. 304–411; Prague,
National Museum, XVI D 7 [3683] ff. 2–111 (Mamotraktbiblikÿ); Prague, National
Museum XIII D 11; ff. 304–411; Prague, National Museum, XIII C 16 ff. 169–225
(Like MS XIII C 14 but placed alongside of the Lucianus by Heinrich von Regensburg).
Some old editions of the Mammotrectus are described in Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum,
nos. 10551–10574. However, these old editions contain only parts and more often
than not do not correspond closely with the materials found in the earliest manu-
scripts. A new critical edition is very necessary. For more information see A. Teetaert,
‘Reggio (Marchesius de)’, DThC XIII–2, 2102–2104. A study of the prologue and
the structure of the text by Frans A. van Liere is about to appear.
32
‘Quamvis ex his quae in quaestionibus seu tractatibus de perfectione evangel-
ica pro modulo intelligentiae mihi datae sunt tradita satis abunde clarescere queat
sublimis perfectio sapientialisque profunditas regulae minorum fratrum per seraph-
all of them could live in accordance with its commands, which for
Olivi were identical with the commands of the Gospel.33 Olivi insisted
not to follow the rule formally, by taking it as a mere list of oblig-
atory precepts that could be checked off. Instead, adherence to the
rule meant a total verbal and habitual engagement of body and soul,
or in other words a total transformation of the self towards the evan-
gelical life.34 The sole purpose of Olivi’s commentary was to facili-
tate this transformation, by elucidating all important aspects of the
rule with its apostolic division into twelve chapters, and interspersing
these elucidations with apt similes.35 Due to the polemics surrounding
icum et christiferum patrem nostrum Franciscum divinitus editae; nihilominus ad

huius brevem et facilem manuductionem simplicioribus simpliciter dandam, litteralem
praefatae regulae continentiam et processum et eius rectum ac purum et simplicem
sensum in verae ac discretae simplicitatis spiritu breviter pertractemus.’ Peter Olivi’s
Rule Commentary. Edition and Presentation, ed. David Flood, Veröffentlichungen des
Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz. Abteilung Abendländische Religions-
geschichte, Band 67 (Wiesbaden, 1982), 114–115. Olivi’s rule commentary can also
be found in Speculum Minorum seu Firmamentum Trium Ordinum (Venice, 1513) III,
106ra–124va. It remains to be seen to what extent the at times rather complicated
Latin version was able to function as a text for ‘simple friars’. No doubt the Provençal
reworkings of several of Olivi’s spiritual works were more equipped to fulfil this
role among the friars and among allied groups of beguines and tertiaries.
33
‘. . . habetur quod haec regula sit idipsum quod observantia evangelii, id est,
evangelicae vitae Christi.’ Ibidem, 118. In the conclusion to his commentary, Olivi
comes with even bolder statements, comparing the twelve chapters of the rule with
the twelve stars in the crown of the woman clothed with the sun (Apoc. 12, 1), the
twelve breads offered to us at the table of God (Lev. 24, 5ss.), and the twelve foun-
dations of the New Jerusalem (Apoc. 21, 14 & Apoc. 21, 2). Moreover, the first
six chapters of the rule mystically conform to the first six days of creation, with
the six ages of the world and the six ecclesiastical period, whereas the last six chap-
ters mystically signify the rule of the Church of God. In this way, Olivi inserts the
Franciscan rule into the eschatological programme that he would work out in more
detail in his Apocalypse commentary. For more information see David Flood, ‘Pierre-
Jean Olivi et la règle franciscaine’, in: Franciscains d’Oc. Les Spirituels, ca. 1280–1324,
Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 10 (Toulouse, 1975), 139–154; David Burr, Olivi’s Peaceable
Kingdom, A Reading of the Apocalypse Commentary (Philadelphia, 1993), 110, 123, 151,
186, 236.
34
‘. . . quod haec regula non est mathematica nec in sola obligatione et profes-
sione votorum: immo essentialiter consistit in verbali et vitali opere et in actuali
applicatione habitualium et evangelicarum seu superogativarum virtutum ad suos
actus et in actuali observantia seu impletione evangelicorum votorum.’ Peter Olivi’s
Rule Commentary. Edition and Presentation, ed. David Flood, Veröffentlichungen des
Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz. Abteilung Abendländische Religions-
geschichte, Band 67 (Wiesbaden, 1982), 118.
35
A good example is Olivi’s treatment of labour in chapter five, in which he
deals at length with the dangers of otiositas, explaining that ‘. . . sicut occulta et qui-
eta evaporatio et exhalatio carbonum ignitorum insensibiliter et quasi repente absumit
virtutem igneam et totum resolvit in cineres steriles et insulsos; sic et otium fervorem
134 chapter two
Olivi’s concept of usus pauper, which culminated in the decades after

his death, these elementary edificatory purposes of his rule com-
mentary were soon forgotten. Like his other works, Olivi’s rule com-
mentary became suspect. Nevertheless, it did inspire the religious
spirituality of the Beguines in Southern France during the fourteenth
century. Moreover, it found renewed appraisal within the budding
Observant movement from the closing decades of the fourteenth cen-
tury onwards.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the output of rule commen-
taries did not abate. For purposes of religious instruction, the most
significant of these is the explanatory narrative included in Bartolomeo
da Rinoncio (Bartolomeo da Pisa)’s De Conformitate Vitae Beati Francisci
ad Vitam Domini Iesu (ca. 1390). Bartolomeo’s rule exposition in ‘fruit’
number nine of his De Conformitate (Iesus legem dat populis-Franciscus regu-
lator) exploits many different sources, including those of spiritual
provenance. Bartolomeo, himself lector at Pisa and Florence, wanted
to provide young friars and teachers alike with a formative and strong
master narrative of the Franciscan way of life.36 Due to the success
of the De Conformitate in the order throughout the later fourteenth,
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Bartolomeo’s ideological represen-
tation of the Franciscan life in this embedded rule commentary prob-
ably had a large impact on the self-understanding of several generations
of friars, and as such deserves far more attention than it has received
thus far.
A significant early fifteenth-century rule commentary is the Declaratio
Regulae by Johannes Kerberch, a lector at the Franciscan convent of
Braunschweig (between 1419 and 1430). Johannes wrote this text at
the request of friars from the Brandenburg region and addressed it
to lector Nikolaus, Johannes’ colleague at the Stendal convent. The
Declaratio is a stern warning against the decline of the Franciscan
ideal of poverty. It might be an indication for lively proto-Observant
tendencies in the Saxony province, prefiguring a number of rule
commentaries with a comparable angle.37
spiritus et totum vigorem virtutum insensibiliter et quasi repente exstinguit . . .’

Ibidem, 145.
36
De Conformitate Vitae Beati Francisci ad Vitam Domini Iesu, in: AF IV (Quaracchi,
1906–1912), 369–425. For older editions, see the overview of Elizondo, ‘Doctrinales
Regulae Franciscanae Expositiones usque ad Annum 1517’, 482–483. On pp. 484–
485 Elizondo also mentions a few other anonymous fourteenth-century commentaries.
37
Declaratio Regulae, ed. F. Doelle, FrSt 5 (1918), 20–24. For more information,
In 1440, the Italian friar Niccolò da Osimo (d. 1454), an avid

supporter of the regular Observance, produced a Declaratio super Regula
Fratrum Minorum,38 just as he was to compile somewhat later an Expli-
catio Regulae S. Clarae.39 Niccolò’s commentary on the Regula Bullata,
which was published with the backing of Bernardino da Siena (and at
times has been ascribed to Bernardino as well),40 hoped to give his
fellow Observant friars a consistent interpretory guideline to help
them distinguish themselves from their Conventual colleagues.41 This
theme was taken up again in the writings of Giovanni da Capistrano,42
and in the rule commentaries written by Observant friars of later
generations, such as Alessandro Ariostio di Bologna (d.ca. 1484),43
see F. Doelle, ‘P. Johann Kerberch von Braunschweig über die Armut in den säch-
sischen Provinz zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhunderts’, FrSt 5 (1918), 13–25; L. Meier,
Die Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt (Münster, 1958), 97f.; Volker Honemann, ‘Kerberch,
Johannes, von Braunschweig’, VL2 IV, 1126–1127.
38
See A. Wilmart, ‘Le commentaire de Nicolas d’Osimo sur la règle de saint
François’, Analecta Reginensia, Studi e testi, 59 (Vatican City, 1933), 301–310. Niccolò’s
commentary is included in the Speculum Minorum seu Firmamentum Trium Ordinum
(Venice, 1513) III, ff. 70rb–vb and in several other old collections. See Elizondo,
‘Doctrinales Regulae Franciscanae Expositiones usque ad Annum 1517’, 485–487.
39
Probably written as a clarification of Giovanni da Capistrano’s prior com-
mentary on the 1253 rule of Chiara d’Assisi. See L.-M. Nuñez, ‘Explicatio regu-
lae S. Clarae auctore Nicolao de Auximo’, AFH 5 (1912), 299–314 & Z. Lazzeri,
‘Novae animadversiones circa Declarationes Regulae S. Clarae a S. Ioanne a
Capistrano et a Fr. Nicolao Auximano conscriptas’, AFH 9 (1916), 445–447. More
information on Niccolò’s commentary on the rule of Chiara d’Assisi will be given
in another paragraph.
40
Bernardino apparently did send out a letter to the friars of the regular
Observance: Declaratio S. Bernardini de Senis circa aliqua dubia super Regulam Fratrum
Minorum (. . .) Fratribus de Observantia totius Italiae (31–07, 1440), in: S. Bernardini Senensis
Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad Claras
Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965) VIII, 317. In older Opera Omnia collections of
Bernardino’s works furthermore can be found a Tractatus de Preceptis Regulae Fratrum.
See: Opera Omnia (Paris, 1635) III, 591–595; Opera Omnia (Lyon, 1650) III, 478–481;
Opera Omnia (Venice, 17452) III, 440–443.
41
Connected with his Declaratio super Regula Fratrum Minorum is his Esposizione della
nuova dichirazione sopra lo Regola, which argues that the Observant constitutions of
Giovanni da Capistrano and Pope Martin V are fully coherent with the Regula
Bullata.
42
Cf. for instance the text Super Primum Capitulum Regulae Fratrum Minorum, found
in MS Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Novi 589 (15th cent.) ff. 122v–123v,
his Esposizione della Regula dei Frati Minori, ed. A. Ghinato, in: Vita Minorum 31 (1960),
145–164, 262–275 and his Quaestio supra Testamentum S. Francisci, edited in: Arch. Ital.
Storia Pietà 9 (1996), 169–176.
43
Allessandro’s Tractatus in Regulam Fratrum Minorum seu Serena Conscientia (ca. 1456
and 1458), which is also known as the Tractatus de Vero et Perfecto Statu Minorum has
come down to us in manuscript format (a.o. MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 589
ff. 218r–234r) and in print, such as in the Monumenta Ordinis Minorum (Salamanca,
136 chapter two
Ludwich von Preußen (fl. late fifteenth cent.),44 Cristoforo Picinelli

da Varese (d. 1491),45 Jaime de Alcalá (fl. early sixteenth cent.),46
Gabriel Maria Nicolas (ca. 1461–1532),47 Augustinus von Alveldt
1506) Tractatus III ff. 115v–145r, in the Speculum Minorum (1509) Tractatus III, ff.
101v–125r, in the Monumenta Ordinis Minorum (Salamanca, 1511) Tractatus II, ff.
116r–147v, in the Firmamenta Trium Ordinum (Venice, 1513) III, ff. 133va–151rb, and
in Girolamo Menghi da Viadana’s Giardino delitioso de i Frati Minori (Bologna, 1592),
121–275 (interpolated Italian version). See Elizondo, ‘Doctrinales Regulae Franciscanae
Expositiones’, 488–490.
44
On Ludwig’s Trilogium Animae, which contains a rule commentary alongside of
many other basic materials, not unlike those found in the Mammotreptus and in the
works of John of Wales, see the chapter on novice training.
45
Cristoforo Picinelli da Varese, a close collaborator of Giovanni da Capistrano
(and his first biographer), is known for his own preaching rallies in Austria, Bohemia,
and Poland. Between 1453 and 1468, he was general vicar of Bohemia. In addi-
tion to a biography of Giovanni da Capistrano and provincial constitutions for the
Polish province (which as yet I have not been able to trace), Cristoforo composed
a Declaratio Regulae/Declaratio super Regulam (ca. 1456), two treatises on Franciscan
order privileges, and a Rosarium de Vita et Morte Christi (in verse). His Declaratio Regulae
can for instance be found in MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.E.75 ff. 1a–38d;
Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.G.41; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.G.42
ff. 3r–27v.
46
On the rule commentary of Jaime de Alcalá, author of the Caballería cristiana
that we will encounter in another chapter, see Elizondo, ‘Doctrinales Regulae
Franciscanae Expositiones’, 490.
47
This Observant friar and guardian at Amboise was a staunch defender of the
regular Observance. This shines through in his Quaedam Brevis Declaratio super Securitate
Status Observantinorum (1503), written during his vicariate of the Aquitaine province
(in which he defended the autonomy of the regular Observance against attempts
of unification by the Coletan provincial minister Bonifacio da Ceva), in his Novus
Tractatus de Decem Plagis Paupertatis, and in his Quaestio Cuiusdam Doctoris Theologiae
Super Regula S. Francisci ad Litteram (Nuremberg, 1513; Basel, 1517). A revised edi-
tion (Leipzig, 1516) of this latter text came out under the title Tractatus Novus in
Quo vere et clare Ostenditur Qui Sunt Veri Observatores Regulae Divi Francisci ad Litteram, ad
Litteram, ad Litteram (Leipzig, 1516). The text was also edited in Acta Ordinis Fratrum
Minorum 4 (1885), 154–157, 173–192. Gabriel was well-acquainted with the French
royal and noble courts, and supported the plans of Princess Jeanne, Duchess of
Berry, to establish a new order devoted to the Virgin Mary (l’Ordre de l’Annonciade).
Gabriel wrote a new rule for this new order (the Statutz generaulx des seurs de la Vierge
Marie, which were published for the first time in 1526), as well as a spiritual com-
mentary, and after some serious opposition secured the support of the Pope and
the papal curia (1502). In addition to his writings for the Franciscan order and for
the Annonciades, Gabriel also supported the Poor Clares and female tertiary con-
gregations. Hence, he wrote a set of statutes for the tertiaries of Château-Gontier
at Mayence (Règle du Tiers Ordre St. François de Soeurs de Chasteaugontier vivantes en obé-
dience, chasteté, pauvreté et closture), which, after papal approval in 1517, were adopted
by many other female monastic and tertiary communities in France. Many of
Gabriel’s writings on the Observance and for the Annonciades (including its ter-
tiaries) have been edited by F.M. Delorme, in LFF 9–11 (1926–1928). For more
information, see Chronique de l’Annonciade. Vies de la bse Jeanne de France et du bx Gabriel-
(d. ca. 1535),48 and Antonio de Córdoba (1485–1578).49 Nearly all

these commentaries are nowadays mainly read for their polemic
value, but they all have much to tell about the embodiment of reli-
gious life within the late medieval Observance.
A substantial number of rule commentaries appeared within var-
ious reform movements in the Iberian peninsula and Italy that kept
their distance from the regular Observance. More often than not,
these commentaries are bound up with additional constitutions and
meditative texts on the Franciscan life (to which I return in another
paragraph). A case in point is the Exposición de la Regla franciscana,
originating from the circles of the Villacrecian reform associated with
Pedro de Villacreces, Pedro Regaledo and Lope de Salazar y Salinas.50
From the early sixteenth-century Villacrecian and Recollect successor
movements stems yet another set of rule commentaries, notably the
Decisiones con sus probaciones acerca del estado y manera de vivir de los frailes
Menores and the Tratado muy provechoso de muchos avisos que tocan a nuestra
Regla y estado, both products of Bernardino de Arévalo (d. 1553), and
the Manual per declarar la Regle en solos los preceptos obligatorios by García
del Castillo.51 In this spiritual climate can also be placed the anonymous
Maria, ed. J.-F. Bonnefoy (Paris, 1937/Second edition Villeneuve-S.-Lot, 1950);

J.-F. Bonnefoy, CF 13 (1943), 237–252; Delorme, LFF 9–11 (1926–1928). This
chronicle was published separately under the title Documents pour l’histoire du bx Gabriel-
Maria (Paris, 1928). See also L. Oliger, ‘De editione principe quaestionis super
regulam auctore Gilberto Nicolai (Gabriele Maria)’, Antonianum 12 (1937), 37–50;
C. Petrus, ‘Een preek van Pater Gabriel-Maria’, OGE 24 (1950), 210–215; C. Gumliger,
‘Blessed Gabriel Mary’, Franciscan Herald 34 (1955), 71–75; Bibliotheca Sanctorum V,
1342; Mère Gabriel-Maria, ‘Gabriel-Maria’, DSpir VI, 17–25; P. Péano, ‘Gabriel-
Maria Nicolas’, DHGE XIX, 571–576; Dizionario degli Istituti di perfezione IV, 1007–1009;
Alfonso Pompei, ‘Gabriele Maria Nicolas’, in: Il grande libro dei Santi, ed. G. Elio &
T. Dorino (Cinisello Balsamo MI, 1998) II, 741–743.
48
See his Commentarius super Regulam Sancti Francisci: MS Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-
August Bibliothek Cod. Guelf. 1905 Helmst. Augustinus also wrote a commentary
on Urban IV’s rule for the Poor Clares. On this see the appropriate paragraph
elsewhere in this chapter.
49
Antonio de Córdoba’s Exposito Regulae was published in Louvain (1550 and
1554), Venice (1610), Madrid (1616) and Paris (1621). Cf. Isaías Rodríguez, ‘Autores
espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, Repertorio de Historia de las Ciencias eclesiasticas en
España 3 (siglos xiii–xvi) (Salamanca, 1971), 463–464.
50
See on such texts and their mutual interdependence Fidel de Lejarza & Angel
Uribe, ‘Escritos villacrecianos’ AIA 17 (1957), 663–945, as well as my paragraph
on constitutions and statutes.
51
Provincial minister of the Recollect Concepción de nuestra Señora province
between 1548–1551, and editor of several of Bernardino de Arévalo’s works. The
Manual by García del Castillo can be found in MS Burdeos, Biblioteca prov. 797
138 chapter two
early sixteenth-century L’amore evangelico sopra la Regola di S. Francesco,52

which completely steers free from the established commentary tra-
dition (it does not incorporate elements from the official commen-
taries, nor from the ‘spiritual’ commentaries of Olivi and Angelo
Clareno). It is a meditative hermeneutic approach towards the text
of the Regula Bullata, trying to recapture its original meaning: a mean-
ing to which all friars should adhere with the utmost conviction,
guided by continual prayer.
More belligerent is Giovanni Pili da Fano’s first Dialogo de la salute
tra il frate Stimulato e il frate Rationabile circa la Regola delli frati minori
(Ancona, 1527).53 This rule commentary in dialogue format (with
exhaustive citations from papal bulls and earlier rule commentaries)
defends the Observant way of life against the budding Capuchin ten-
dencies by which Pili was confronted in his function as a provincial
minister of the Marshes. Soon, however, Giovanni himself was to
succumb to the attractions of the new Capuchin branch, which once
again tried to return to the ‘original’ Franciscan way of life. This
attempt shows in internal Capuchin preaching, which repeatedly
called for a more genuine adherence to the precepts of the rule. It
also shows in early Capuchin legislation, which tried as much as
possible to adhere to the letter and the spirit of the 1223 Regula
Bullata and Francesco d’Assisi’s Testamentum.
Alongside of their early constitutions (which will be dealt with
below), the Capuchins in the course of time produced a set of rule
ff. 111r–433r. Some fragments have been edited in Isaac Vázquez Janeiro, ‘Conciencia
eclesial e interpretación de la Regla Franciscana. Textos originales del siglo XVI.
Introducción y edición’, Antonianum 57 (1982), 347–605: 593–604. The Decisiones by
Bernardino de Arévalo, which amounts to a series of clarifications with regard to
the Franciscan rule issued at the general chapter of Burgos (1523) on behalf of the
Recollects of the Immaculada Concepción province, can be found in the same man-
uscript on ff. 436r–517r. Some fragments likewise have been edited in Vázquez
Janeiro, ‘Conciencia eclesial’, 573–578. Bernardino de Arévalo’s Tratado muy prove-
choso de muchos avisos que tocan a nuestra Regla y estad can be found in MS Sevilla,
Archivo del convento de San Buenaventura, sign. 122 2a pieza (Preámbulo ff. 1–3r;
De la obediencia ff. 3r–6r; De la pobreza ff. 6r–24r; De la conversación externa
ff. 24r–26r; De las monjas ff. 26r–28v; De andar a pie ff. 28v–31r; De spirituali
observantia ff. 31r–33v; De la pobreza ff. 33v–36v). Some fragments have been
edited in Vázquez Janeiro, ‘Conciencia eclesial’, 585–592.
52
Edited as a ‘proto-Capuchin’ work in I fratri cappuccini. Documenti e testimonianze
del primo secolo, ed. Costanzo Cargnoni (Perugia, 1988) I, 535–582.
53
This work was re-edited by Bernardino da Lapedona in IF 7 & 8 (1932–1933)
and separately as a booklet (Isola del Liri, 1935). It also found its way in I frati
cappuccini. Documenti e testimonianze del primo secolo, ed. C. Cargnoni (Perugia, 1988),
II, 41–69.
commentaries of their own. These tried to trace the proper spiritual

and literal meaning of the Regula Bullata in between the crust of cen-
turies of interpretation. Among the early Capuchin rule commen-
taries three texts in particular are significant for obtaining an
understanding of the early Capuchin religious lifestyle, namely Giovanni
Pili da Fano’s second Dialogo de la salute tra il frate Stimolato e il frate
Razionabile circa la Regola delli frati minori e sue dechiarazioni, which is a
thorough reworking of his anti-Capuchin commentary of 1527,54 the
same author’s Breve discorso circa l’osservanza del voto della minorica povertà
(1536), which became an important text in the context of the reli-
gious formation of Capuchin novices,55 and Bernardino d’Asti’s short
Declarazione circa il vestire, written shortly before 1550.56
For purposes of protecting the Capuchin reform against the rebuke
of Conventuals and Observants alike, Giovanni Pili da Fano’s second
Dialogo probably was the most important of these three, as it cham-
pioned the fundamental principles of the Capuchin reform with
54
Dialogo de la salute tra il frate Stimulato e il frate Rationabile circa la Regola delli Frati
Minori et sue dechiarationi con molte necessarie additioni di novo ricomposto e ristampato/Dialogo
della salute emendato (Antwerp, 1624/Antwerp, 1661/Antwerp, 1692); Dialogo de la
salute tra il frate Stimulato e il frate Rationabile circa la Regola delli Frati Minori et sue dechia-
rationi con molte necessarie additioni di novo ricomposto e ristampato, ed. Bernardino da
Lapedona, IF 10–13 (1935–1938) and separately as a booklet (Isola Del Liri, 1935).
The work has also been edited in: I fratri cappuccini. Documenti e testimonianze del primo
secolo, ed. Costanzo Cargnoni (Perugia, 1988) I, 500–505, 583–719. This new ver-
sion of the Dialogo naturally omits the anti-Capuchin invectives and is even more
radical than the first version in its defense of poverty and the other tenets of the
Franciscan life of evangelical perfection. See also C. Urbanelli, ‘L’Osservanza e la
riforma cappuccina nei due ‘Dialoghi’ di Giovanni Pili da Fano’, PS 12 (1975),
160–177; C. Cargnoni, ‘La tradizione dei Compagni di san Francesco modello dei
primi cappuccini’, CF 52 (1982), 49–58, 82–84, 99–106.
55
First published as the Breve discorso circa l’osservanza del voto della minorica povertà.
Composto per il R.P. Fra Giovanni da Fano (Brescia: Damiano & Jacomo Philippo Fratelli,
1536). Newly edited as the Brevis discursus de observantia paupertatis franciscane compositus
a P. Joanne a Fano OFMCap, ed. M. de Pobladura, in: Matthias a Saló, Historia
Capuccina, pars prima, ed. M. de Pobladura (Rome, 1946), Appendix II, 443–463
and included in: I fratri cappuccini. Documenti e testimonianze del primo secolo, ed. Costanzo
Cargnoni (Perugia, 1988) I, 722–744. For early German, Castilian, French, Latin
and Dutch translations, see: F. Elizondo, ‘El ‘Breve discorso’ de Juan de Fano sobre
la pobreza franciscana’, CF 48 (1978), 31–65. Cf. also Isaac Vázquez Janeiro,
‘Conciencia eclesial e interpretación de la Regla Franciscana. Textos originales del
siglo XVI. Introducción y edición’, Antonianum 57 (1982), 347–605: 377–378 &
578–584 (edition of a fragment on the spiritual observance of the rule).
56
Edited in: I fratri cappuccini. Documenti e testimonianze del primo secolo, ed. Costanzo
Cargnoni (Perugia, 1988) I, 745–751. For more Capuchin commentaries after 1550
(by Gregorio di Napoli, Girolamo da Polizzi and Santi Tesauro da Rome), see I
fratri cappuccini I, 753–1171.
140 chapter two
recourse to the Franciscan commentary tradition and the cumula-

tive legacy of papal statements on the Franciscan way of life. Giovanni’s
second Dialogo at the same time facilitated the religious self-under-
standing of ‘simple and ignorant’ Capuchin friars (‘li semplici e idioti’),
by developing in its spiritual dialogue on the twelve chapters of the
Regula Bullata many themes that remained central in the Capuchin
religious outlook for the centuries to come, such as the renewed
emphasis on knowledge through love and the pre-eminent impor-
tance attached to spiritual action.57
Several other early Capuchin rule commentaries from the 1540s
apparently have not survived.58 A further increase in the number of
Capuchin rule commentaries had to wait for the period after the
Council of Trent, when the Capuchin order saw a quick expansion
in Europe and beyond. Good examples of these later works are the
‘Expositio’ attributed to Angelo Tancredi (an alleged companion of
Francesco d’Assisi),59 and the as yet unedited commentaries made by
Giovanni Maria da Tusa (Expositione de la Regula di Frati Minori per
modo di Sermone),60 and Silvestro Bini d’Assisi (the Dechiarazione della
regola de’ frati minori cavata da’ sommi pontefici e diversi dottori dell’Ordine
from 1587).61
B. General constitutions
The Franciscan rule and the commentaries it received in the course

of time are not the only normative texts produced within the order
57
‘In questo Dialogo, secondo l’ordine delli capitoli della Regola, sono in breve
compendio ridotte tutte le dichiarazioni della Regola fatte da’sommi pontefici e dalli
dottori dell’Ordine. È fatto etiam in lingua materna e volgare, acciò li semplici e
idioti il possino meglio intendere. È breve, acciocché piú spesso sia letto e a memo-
ria con piú facilità ritenuto.’ I fratri cappuccini I, 593 (Prologus).
58
Cf. I fratri cappuccini I, 497, which mentions the now-lost? Trattato sulla povertà
serafica by Angelo d’Asti (d. 1560), and comparable works by Eusebio d’Ancona,
Girolamo Caluschi da Milano (d. 1584) and Francesco da Cannobio (d. 1569).
59
This probably amounts to a Capuchin reworking of Angelo Careno’s rule com-
mentary, inserting many biographical episodes on Francesco d’Assisi and his early
companions drawn from Angelo Clareno’s Historia Septem tribulationum and from the
main texts of the Franciscan hagiographical tradition. I fratri cappuccini I, 504–506,
755–798.
60
I fratri cappuccini I, 506–513, 799–884.
61
I fratri cappuccini I, 513–516, 885–937. This collection contains ample infor-
mation about additional commentaries from the later sixteenth and early seventeen
centuries.
with important information on Franciscan religious instruction and

religious praxis. Almost as important for our understanding of the
character of the Franciscan religious life are the constitutions established
at the general, provincial and conventual levels. These tried to trans-
late the general precepts found in the Regula Bullata into unambigu-
ous regulations and sanctions for the day to day life of the Minorite
communities, and addressed specific issues about which the precepts
of the rule did not provide sufficient information (matters of study
organisation, order management, new liturgical obligations etc.).
Most important, certainly during the first two centuries, were the
general constitutions for the order as a whole, established at periodically
held general chapter meetings. The practice of holding general chap-
ter meetings goes back to 1216 or even earlier, and several of these
early general chapters might have been formative in the evolution
of the texts that found their way in the Regula non Bullata of 1221.
The legislative activities of general chapter meetings in the years
immediately thereafter can not be charted with ease. The publication
of the Regula Bullata and Francesco’s Testamentum would have pro-
voked a considerable reluctance to compose anything that could be
seen as a gloss on the rule. Nevertheless, several (predominantly his-
toriographical) sources mention in passing the compilation or the
existence of a set of rudimentary supplementary statutes in the 1220s
and 1230s.62
Whatever might have been the status and state of codification of
such supplementary texts, it seems feasible to assume that a first
major attempt at organising a more complete and better codified
body of general constitutions goes back to 1239. Around Pentecost
62
Traces of such constitutions can be found in the Chronica Fratri Jordani, ed.
H. Boehmer, Collection d’Études et de Documents, VI (Paris, 1908), 11 (informa-
tion about statutory regulations drafted at a chapter meeting held in or around
1220), in the Tractatus de Adventu Minorum Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed. A.G. Little
(Manchester, 1951), 25, 41–42 (about statutes made before or in 1224 and regu-
lations with regard to the division of provinces in the 1230s), in the Chronica XIV
vel XV Generalium, AF III, 694f and in Hugh of Digne’s Rule Commentary, ed. David
Flood, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, XIV (Grottaferrata, 1979), 96 & 133 (remarks
with regard to statutes from the general chapter of 1227), in a papal letter by
Gregory IX found in the BF I, 198a–b, n. 203 and in the Bullarii Franciscani Epitome
et Supplementum, ed. C. Eubel (Quaracchi, 1908), 20b, n. 197 (a letter from 1236
containing rules about the admission of novices under the leadership of Elias). Many
of these references are discussed in Cesare Cenci, ‘De Fratrum Minorum Consti-
tutionibus Praenarbonensibus’, AFH 83 (1990), 50–52. It would seem that most
statutory materials dating from before 1239 dealt with liturgical issues.
142 chapter two
of that year, shortly after the deposition of friar Elias, the general
chapter (held at Rome) produced a ‘great multitude of general con-
stitutions’ (‘maxima multitudo constitutionum generalium’) under the
auspices of the new general minister Alberto da Pisa.63
If we can believe the testimony of Salimbene da Parma, these
1239 constitutions already contained many elements later found in
the famous Narbonne constitutions, made in 1260 under the direc-
tion of minister general Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio.64 As Bonaventura
ordered to destroy all older constitutions, once the 1260 Narbonne
constitutions were edited and ready for distribution throughout the
order (a measure meant to safeguard legislative unity), neither the
1239 constitutions nor subsequent regulations made under Haymo
of Faversham (1240–1244) and Giovanni da Parma (1247–1257) have
survived in full. However, Cenci’s 1990 edition of surviving fragments
from the 1239 regulations, which shows the parallels with the Narbonne
constitutions, appears to confirm Salimbene’s statements.65
It seems warranted, therefore, to interpret the 1260 Narbonne
constitutions predominantly as a codification and harmonisation of
existing normative rules and practices. Moreover, as Michael Bihl’s
synoptic edition of the Narbonne constitutions indicate, these 1260
constitutions themselves constituted the basic framework for a whole
series of subsequent general constitutions, not only for those accepted
at the general chapters of Assisi (1279), Strasbourg (1282) and Paris
(1292), but to a large extent also for the constitutions resulting from
the general chapters of Assisi (1316), and Lyon (1325).66
63
Chronica Fratris Salimbene de Adam Ordinis Minorum, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger,
MGH Scriptores XXXII (Hanover-Leipzig, 1905–1913), 102, 104, 158f.
64
Ibidem.
65
Cenci, ‘De Fratrum Minorum Constitutionibus Praenarbonensibus’, 50–95. The
edition can be found on pp. 67–95.
66
For the constitutions accepted at the general chapters of Assisi (1279) and Paris
(1292), see Michael Bihl’s edition of the Narbonne constitutions. See also G. Abate,
‘Le Constitutiones Generales Antique dei Frati Minori nella redazione assisiana del
1279’, MF 35 (1935), 58–100. For materials from the general chapters of 1266,
1282 and 1285, see G. Abate, ‘Le Diffinitiones del Capitolo Generale di Parigi del
1266’, MF 32 (1932), 3–5; Idem, ‘Gli Statuti del Capitolo Generale di Strasburgo
(1282)’, MF 30 (1930), 79–81; G. Fussenegger, ‘Definitiones Capituli Generalis
Argentinae celebrati anno 1282’, AFH 26 (1933), 127–140; A.G. Little, ‘Definitiones
Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum 1260 ad 1282’, AFH 7 (1914),
676–682; A. Callebaut, ‘Acta Capituli Generalis Mediolani Celebrati an. 1285’,
AFH 22 (1929), 273–291. The constitutions of Assisi 1316 have been edited by
A. Carlini, in AFH 4 (1911), 269–302, 508–526. Those of 1325 have been edited
Thus, the Narbonne constitutions are an important source along-

side of the Regula Bullata and the rule commentaries for our insight
in the rules governing the daily religious life and the religious instruc-
tion of the Friars Minor over a long period of time.67 The text of
these and subsequent constitutions was supposed to be present (together
with a copy of the Regula Bullata) in each and every convent. Moreover,
the regulations of these constitutions (or at least their first seven chap-
ters, which touched on the daily life in each and every community
of friars), were supposed to be read publicly once a month.68 On
top of a range of issues pertaining to higher studies, the election of
order officials (guardians, provincial ministers, general ministers, discreti
and visitators), and administrative activities, the Narbonne constitu-
tions (following the chapter order of the Regula Bullata) set forth ele-
mentary regulations governing the acceptance and training of novices,69
by A. Carlini, in AFH 4 (1911), 526–536. Cf. also Memoriali, statuti e atti di Capitoli
Generali dei Frati Minori dei secoli XIII e XIV, ed. G. Abate, MF 33 (1933), 15–45,
320–336 & 34 (1934), 248–253. For older editions of these and adjacent texts, see
also Chronologia Historico-Legalis Seraphici Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, ed. Michaele Angelo
a Neapoli (Naples, 1650), Vol. I (1209–1633); Firmamenta Trium Ordinum beatissimi
Patris nostri Francisci (Paris, 1512). These collections contain the various rules, the
most important rule commentaries, and many medieval constitutions.
67
‘Ita nec Regula sufficit sine Constitutionibus nec Constitutiones sine Regula.
Eandem supplendo CC. proinde determinant totam vitam et disciplinam Ordinis,
minutiora et fusiora ferunt praescripta, definiunt regimen, campum laboris, munera,
obligationes et iura Ordini propria.’, Elmar Wagner, Historia Constitutionum Generalium
Ordinis Fratrum Minorum (Rome, 1954), 45.
68
Diffinitiones Capituli Generalis O.F.M. Narbonensis (1260), ed. F. Delorme, AFH 3
(1910), 502, n. 1.
69
The normative edition of this text is Constitutiones generales Ordinis Fratrum Minorum
editae et confirmatae in Capitulo generali apud Narbonam a.D. 1260, decima iunii, tempore rev.
P. Bonaventurae, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 13–94, 284–358. Another edition of
these constitutions (without providing the parallels and changes in the constitutions
of 1279 and 1292) can be found in Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, Opera Omnia VIII
(Ad Claras Aquas: Quaracchi, 1898), 449–467. Bonaventura also provided an
explanatory guide to these constitutions: Explanationes Constitutionum Generalium Narbo-
nensium, ed. F. Delorme, AFH 18 (1925), 511–524. The information on novices is
found in Rubrica I (De Religionis ingressu), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 38–40. Among
other things, it informs us that ‘Ad quos informandos assignetur frater religiosus et
circumspectus, qui eos [the novices, that is] doceat pure et frequenter confiteri,
ardenter orare, honeste conversari, humiliter obedire, servare cordis et corporis puri-
tatem, zelare sacratissimam paupertatem et ad omnis perfectionis apicem anhelare.
Et, ut vacent melius ad praedicta et ad divinum Officium addiscendum, toto pro-
bationis tempore studio non intendant, nec promoveantur ad ordines sacros, nec
confessiones audiant, si fuerint sacerdotes, nec libros studii habeant specialiter assig-
natos. (. . .) Completo probationis tempore, si ad professionem digni fuerint iudicati,
professionem faciant in hunc modum: ‘Ego frater N. voveo et promitto Deo et
144 chapter two
the shape and materials of the Franciscan habit,70 the observance

of the vow of poverty (presented time and again as the cornerstone
of the Franciscan religious life),71 the obligations pertaining to fasting
and the rule of silence,72 the times and methods of prayer and other
spiritual exercises,73 the performance of the liturgy and the practice
of penance and confession,74 the punishment of transgressions,75 the
rules governing the visitation of male and female religious commu-
nities,76 and the commemoration of the dead.77
As said before, the first late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-
century revisions of the Narbonne constitutions did not fundamen-
tally change their form and content, although they did constitute an
ongoing actualisation, reflecting the external challenges and internal
commotion by which the order was faced. A major break occurred
with the interesting statutes of Perpignan, issued in 1331 under min-
ister general Guiral Ot (Gerard Odonis), which do not consist of a
mere revision of the existing texts, but contain many innovations.78
However, these constitutions did not have much time to prove them-
selves, and received much opposition.79 The novelties inherent in
these constitutions were already nullified at the general chapter of
Assisi (1334). Two years later, in November 1336, the order received
B. Mariae Virgini et B. Francisco et omnibus sanctis et tibi, pater, toto tempore

vitae meae servare Regulam Fratrum Minorum per dominum Honorium Papam
confirmatam, vivendo in obedientia, sine proprio et in castitate’ (. . .).’
70
Rubrica II (De qualitate habitus), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 42–44.
71
Rubrica III (De observantia paupertatis), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 45–54
72
Rubrica IV (De forma interius conversandi), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 55f.
73
Rubrica IV (De forma interius conversandi), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 55–57, which,
in between other elements, states: ‘. . . cum dicatur in Regula quod ‘fratres desider-
are debent habere spiritum Domini et sanctam eius operationem, orare semper ad
Deum puro corde’, ne devotionis fervor per inquietudinem multiloquii extinguatur,
ordinamus quod silentium a dicto completorio usque post ‘Pretiosa’ servetur, excep-
tis hospitibus de novo venientibus et infirmis et eisdem ministrantibus vel assisten-
tibus usque ad horam congruam, de guardiani sui licentia speciali.’
74
Rubrica IV (De modo interius conversandi), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 58f.
75
Rubrica VII (De correctionibus delinquentium), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 82ff.
76
Rubrica VIII (De visitationibus provinciarum), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 284ff.
77
Rubrica XII (De suffragiis defunctorum), ed. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 315ff.
78
These long and innovative constitutions, organised in 20 chapters and a new
prologue, have been edited by S. Mencherini, in AFH 2 (1909), 269–292, 412–430,
575–599.
79
Wagner, Historia Constitutionum Generalium, 55: ‘Patet quod haec compilatio Ordinis
exspectationi et necessitatibus minime correspondebat. Iam anno 1334 Assisii novi-
tates exspurgabantur et tota collectio ita mutilabatur ut talis legum codex Fratribus
omnibus odio esse debuisset.’
yet another set of constitutions, namely the Benedictine ordinations

issued by authority of Pope Benedict XII (in the bull Redemptor Noster).80
These 1336 Benedictine ordinations were part of a larger attempt
at re-fashioning and strengthening discipline and observance in all
the Church’s major religious orders. Next to reform statutes for the
Cistercians, the Benedictines, the Augustinian Regular Canons, and
the Servites, pope Benedict XII devised a set of ordinations for the
Franciscan order,81 which for several decades had been riddled with
internal strife over the practice of Franciscan poverty (the usus pauper
controversy) and was weakened by a protracted conflict with the
Avignon pope John XXII over its evangelical foundations (the con-
troversy on the absolute poverty of Christ).82
Benedict XII’s ordinations took heed to incorporate many elements
from older constitutions, but dealt with them in a more systematical
fashion: providing in 30 rubrics clear regulations on the performance
of the divine office, the rule of silence, the noviciate and the instruc-
tion of novices, fasting and provisions, the habit, the organisation of
higher study and other central aspects pertaining to the Franciscan
life inside and outside the convent. In this way, so the pope hoped,
the order once again might become a mirror of correct Christian
life and an inviting example of sanctity for other members of the
Church (in recte vivendi speculum et imitandae sanctitatis exemplum).83
80
Ordinationes a Benedicto XII pro Fratribus Minoribus Promulgatae per Bullam 28 Novembris
1336, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 30 (1937), 309–390.
81
Statutes and ordinations for other major orders were issued in the papal bulls
Fulgens Sicut Stella ( July 1335, for the Cistercians), Summi Magistri ( June 1336, for
the Benedictines), and Ad Decorem Ecclesiae (May 1339, for the Regular Canons).
Benedict’s regulations concerning the Servites were published by Clement VI in the
bull Regimini (March 1346). For the Franciscan constitutions, Benedict made use of
a committee of 25 experts, 15 of which were prominent members of the Franciscan
order (such as Guiral Ot, the major force behind the constitutions of 1331).
82
There is a wealth of literature on these two issues. The most important stud-
ies probably are M.D. Lambert, Franciscan Poverty. The Doctrine of the Absolute Poverty
of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order 1210 –1323 (London, 1961); David
Burr, Olivi and Franciscan Poverty. The Origins of the Usus Pauper Controversy (Philadelphia,
1989); A. Tabarroni, Paupertas Christi et Apostolorum. L’ideale francescano in discussione
(1322–1324) (Rome, 1990); Ulrich Horst, Evangelische Armut und Päpstliches Lehramt.
Minoritentheologen im Konflikt mit Papst Johannes XXII (1316–1334), Münchener Kirchen-
historische Studien, 8 (Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln: W. Kohlhammer, 1996); Roberto
Lambertini, La povertà pensata. Evoluzione storica della definizione dell’identità minoritica da
Bonaventura ad Ockham, Collana di storia medievale 1 (Modena, 2000); Virpi Mäkinen,
Property Rights in the Late Medieval Discussion on Franciscan Poverty, Recherches de Théologie
et Philosophie Médiévale, Biblioteca 3 (Leuven, 2001).
83
Ordinationes a Benedicto XII pro Fratribus Minoribus Promulgatae per Bullam 28 Novembris
146 chapter two
These Benedictine ordinations intended to clear up many con-

tentious issues, and were designed to become the new authoritative
legislative text for the Franciscan order alongside of the Regula Bullata.
However, the tone of these 1336 ordinations was alien to the order’s
traditions, and seemed to defuse the order’s specific claim of repre-
senting the pinnacle of evangelical perfection. Although it was impos-
sible to ignore them, subsequent general chapters attempted to rephrase
the obligatory innovations of the Benedictine ordinations and to har-
monise them with older regulatory traditions that followed the chap-
ter divisions of the Franciscan rule. This process resulted for instance
in the Constitutiones Caturcenses of 1337 (which in fourteen chapters
and with recourse to the constitutions of 1316 constitute a comple-
mentary text to the Benedictine ordinations), and in the revisions of
Assisi (1340), Venice (1346) and Lyon (1351). None of these had a
lasting influence, but they did much to complicate matters.84
A much bigger impact was reserved for the so-called Farinerian
constitutions of 1354, named after minister general Guilelmo Farinari
(Guilelmus Farinerius). Thanks to a careful compilatory process and
frequent allusions to the authority of the papacy, the Regula Bullata
and the Narbonne constitutions of 1260, these 1354 constitutions
were more successful in appeasing existing vulnerabilities. The order
by and large accepted the Farinerian integration of the Benedictine
ordinations with the cumulative legislative traditions of the order.
This acceptance ensured that these Farinerian constitutions more or
less remained in force (at least for the Conventuals) well into the
1336, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 30 (1937). They contain much information on the train-
ing and maintenance of religious discipline, especially under the rubrics I (De divino
officio), II (De silentio), III (De novitiorum et iuvenum informatione), IV (De abstinentia), V
(De qualitate habitus et vestium), XXVII (De dormitoriis ac cameris et clausuris), and XXIX
(De monialibus seu Minorissis). See for information especially Cl. Schmitt, Un pape réfor-
mateur: Bénoît XII et l’ordre des Frères mineurs (Quaracchi, 1959).
84
Constitutiones Caturcenses, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 30 (1937), 128–157; Acta et Constitutiones
Capituli Generalis Assisienses 1340, ed. F. Delorme, AFH 6 (1913), 251–266; Constitutiones
Venetae 1346, ed. F. Delorme, AFH 5 (1912), 698–709; Constitutiones Lugdunenses 1351,
ed. M. Bihl, AFH 30 (1937), 158–169. The 1340 constitutions tried to start afresh
by presenting a new reworking of the Narbonne constitutions that totally discarded
the innovations of the Benedictine ordinations and the additions of Cahors (1337).
As these 1340 constitutions were too inconsistent, they were already suppressed at
the general chapter of Marseille (1443). The subsequent attempts at re-organising
the constitutions at the general chapters of Venice (1346) and Lyon (1351) reached
back to the text of Cahors (1337).
sixteenth century, notwithstanding several attempts at revising them

to accommodate observantist groups.85 Hence, the Farinerian regu-
lations governing the religious life in Franciscan religious communi-
ties, the acceptance of novices, the shape and quality of the habit,
the observance of poverty, fasting and prayer, the maintenance of
silence and the performance of the liturgy might be indicative for
actual Franciscan religious praxis in many non-Observant commu-
nities during the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.86
In the closing decades of the fourteenth century, friars concerned
about the laxity in the order and inspired by the memory of the
struggle of the almost wiped-out spiritual factions, once again called
for reform, or rather for a re-invigorated observance of the rule. This
lead to a range of observantist initiatives, notably in Italy,87 France,88
85
Statuta Generalia Ordinis edita in Capitulo Generali an. 1354 Assisii celebrato commu-
niter Farineriana Appellata, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 35 (1942), 35–112, 177–223.
86
The Farinerian constitutions take over the Prologue and chapter headings of
the Narbonne constitutions, thus emphasising once again the direct link between
the constitutory regulations and the text of the Regula Bullata. In the body of the
text, the Farinerian constitutions likewise refer back (both implicitly and explicitly)
to the Narbonne constitutions. In their details, however, the Farinarian constitutions
contain many clarifications and additions, which were partly based on amplifications
and revisions put forward in the constitutions made between 1260 and 1354, but
now were given a clear and authoritative format.
87
In Italy, the Observant movement goes back to spiritual followers of Angelo
Clareno, who after many persecutions received in 1334 permission from the min-
ister general to establish themselves at the Brogliano hermitage, in order to live out
the Franciscan life according to the rule in the most stringent fashion. After this
initiative was suppressed in 1355, Paoluccio di Vagnozzo Trinci/Paoluccio dei Trinci
once again obtained permission from the Franciscan minister general to establish
an Observant community at the Brogliano hermitage in 1368. This proved to be
the beginnings of a successful Observant movement, which already by 1403 counted
around 30 hermitages and had its own vicar. During the early decades of the
fifteenth century, when this Observant movement took to the apostolate under the
leadership of Bernardino da Siena and Giovanni da Capistrano, its expansion quick-
ened pace, at the same time as it was able to gain a de facto indepence from the
Conventuals. D. Nimmo, Reform and Division in the Medieval Franciscan Order. From Saint
Francis to the Foundation of the Capuchins, Bibliotheca Seraphico-capuccina, 33 (Rome,
1987), 364ff.
88
Around 1390, several friars from the Touraine province obtained permission
from their provincial to retreat into the Mirebeau convent in order to live a more
strict religious life. From there, this Observant movement spread to other convents
in the order provinces of Touraine, France, and Burgundy. In 1407, this move-
ment gained autonomy under its own vicar. Notwithstanding serious opposition from
order superiors (who temporarily were able to quench the autonomy of such groups
after 1407), these French Observants obtained confirmation for their autonomy by
148 chapter two
and Spain,89 where some rigorist groups obtained a measure of inde-

pendence under their own vicars.
As soon as these observantist initiatives gained momentum, the
times seemed ripe to revise the constitutions of the order, in order
to maintain the order’s unity and to appease the at times rather
aggravated animosity between individual Observant communities and
their provincial and general ministers, several of whom were keen
to thwart the growing autonomy of overly strict convents and vic-
ariates. After serious conflicts and appeals to subsequent general
councils and the papacy, pope Martin V and Giovanni da Capistrano
pushed forward a compromise that would have ended the autonomy
of the Observants (bringing them back under the jurisdiction of the
provincial ministers), in return for a more rigorous adhesion to the
practice of poverty (including a refusal of the use of money and lega-
cies) throughout the order. The result of this compromise was codified
in the so-called Constitutiones Martinianae of 1430.90
However, within weeks after these constitutions were agreed upon
by all parties involved, the Franciscan minister general Guglielmo
da Casale, convinced that it would be impossible to re-unite all
different factions of the order in this way, asked the pope to rein-
state the order privileges and uses that the Constitutiones Martinianae
planned to end.91 This volte-face reinforced the motivation of pre-
the Council of Constance in 1415 and by pope Martin V in 1420. Cf. Nimmo,
Reform and Division in the Medieval Franciscan Order, 433–520.
89
As early as 1388 there are various early Observant initiatives in the Spanish
provinces. Initially these initiatives lead to the establishment or the reform of small
hermitages, where friars could live a life of strict poverty and prayer in accordance
with the Regula Bullata and the Franciscan rule for hermits. In Castile, the provin-
cial chapter of Cuenca (1413) stimulated the expansion of such Observant initia-
tives by auctorising the establishment of a special Observant house in each of its
custudies for all those friars who wanted to live a more rigorous life. Due to the
activities of Pedro de Villacreces (d. 1422), and his disciples Pedro Regalado (d. 1456),
Pedro de Santoyo (d. 1431) and Lope de Salazar y Salinas (d. 1463), the Spanish
Observant movement gained momentum and by 1434 was able to reach a status
of relative autonomy under its provincial superiors. Cf. especially Introducción a los
orígenes de la Observancia en España. Las reformas en los siglos XIV y XV, AIA 17 (1957),
17–945.
90
These Constititutiones Martinianae can for instance be found in Lucas Wadding,
Annales Minorum (Quaracchi, 1932) X, 178–187, and Bullarium Franciscanum ns. I,
3–12.
91
Cf. Hofer, Johannes Kapistran. Ein Leben im kampf um die Reform der Kirche I,
165–167, 212, 258. Guglielmo da Casale was not opposed to Observant reforms
(witness his role in the approbation of the early Colettine movement), but did not
want to enforce the Observant model on the order as a whole.
dominantly Italian, French and Spanish Observants to maintain their

autonomy under their own provincial vicars (nominally independent
from the provincial and general ministers, who remained in charge
of the Conventual communities and of those observantist groups that
opted for reform sub ministris). The quick expansion of this so-called
regular Observance sub vicariis in many Franciscan provinces, its
organisation into supra-provincial Cismontan and Ultramontan fam-
ilies in and after the 1430s, and its growing independence from the
rest of the Franciscan order, vehement Conventual opposition notwith-
standing, also prepared the way for drafting separate Observant gen-
eral constitutions.92
A first initiative in this direction had already been undertaken by
the French Observants sub vicariis during a 1416 chapter meeting (at
Bressuire). These first not so rigorous Observant statutes tried to stim-
ulate a more sober life of religious study and pastoral care.93 After
the failure to reach a compromise with the Conventuals in the Consti-
tutiones Martinianae of 1430, the Cismontan family of regular Observants
sub vicariis for a while adhered to a modified version of this Martinian
text.94 During his vicariate of the Cismontan Observants, Giovanni
da Capistrano promulgated in 1443 a new set of constitutions, replete
with a series of explanatory Declarationes. It took some time until these
constitutions could be approved by an Observant general chapter,
and they did not receive official authorisation until 1449.95 From
92
This process of increasing autonomy, which saw its earliest landmark in 1415
at the Council of Constance, found its provisional culmination in the papal bull Ut
Sacra Ordinis ( July 1446) of Eugenius IV: Bullarium Franciscanum n.s. I, no. 1007. This
did not end the struggle between the Conventuals and the Observants. A ‘final’
solution was only reached in 1517, when the Franciscan order was officially divided,
and when the regular Observance became the heir of the original Francisan her-
itage. For a short outline of these developments, see Cl. Schmitt, ‘I. Les Franciscains.—
A. Vie intérieure de l’ordre: évolution, réformes et expansion’, DHGE XVIII (Paris,
1977), 850–860.
93
These statutes, which do not differ much from the Farinerian statutes, can be
found in Orbis Seraphicus (Rome, 1684) III, 79–81.
94
A first attempt at modifying the Constitutiones Martinianae is found in the papal
bull Vinea Domini (March 1431), issued by pope Eugenius IV, a good friend of
Giovanni da Capistrano and a supporter of Observant reforms. This bull, which
also incorporates Giovanni da Capistrano’s rule commentary, did not have a last-
ing impact as, due to Conventual pressure, the pope found himself obliged to retract
this bull the year thereafter. Cf. Bullarium Franciscanum n.s. I (Quaracchi, 1929), no.
4 & no. 55. At the 1446 general chapter of the Cismontan Observants another
modified version was accepted.
95
Constitutiones Capistranenses (1443–1449), edited in Speculum Minorum seu Firmamentum
150 chapter two
then onwards, these Constitutiones Capistranenses became an important

legislative text for the regular Observants sub vicariis in Italy, Middle
Europe and the German lands. However, these constitutions never
succeeded in fully replacing (modified versions of ) the Martinian con-
stitutions in the various Cismontan provinces where the regular
Observance sub vicariis held sway. This confusing situation stimulated
the production of additional statements,96 and the proliferation of a
series of miscellaneous abbreviations and compendia during the later
fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries.97
The legislative process in the Ultramontan provinces of the regu-
lar Observance sub vicariis was more straightforward. After an initial
period in which they had to abide by the general constitutions
enforced by the community, and after a period in which they fol-
lowed the Constitutiones Martinianae (1430), the Ultramontan Observants
sub vicariis were able, during their own general chapter of Barcelona
(1451), to produce a coherent and concise set of reform constitu-
tions (predominantly based on the Narbonne and Farinerian consti-
tutions, with an eclectic recourse to other order statutes and papal
decrees) that addressed typical Observant issues, such as a greater
emphasis on poverty, prayer and devotional exercises. With several
minor revisions these Barcelona constitutions remained in force among
the Ultramontan Observants until the later nineteenth century.98
trium Ordinum (Venice, 1513) III, ff. 223r–228r; Orbis Seraphicus, ed. D. Gubernatis
a Sospitello (Rome-Lyon, 1682–1685) III, 95–105. See also the additional public
letters by Giovanni da Capistrano on the Observant way of life and the place of
study therein, edited in AFH 11 (1918), 127–131.
96
Hence, the 1457 general chapter of the Cismontans re-emphasised the impor-
tance of private prayer and recollectio in the daily life of Observant friars. Cf.
Glassberger, Chronica, AF II, 375: ‘Cum principalis et quasi totalis causa multarum
exorbitationum sit defectus sanctae orationis privatae et recollectionis internae, hor-
tamur et obsecramus in Domino, ut fratres omnes in singulis Provinciis per eorum
Superiores ab exterioribus et inutilibus occupationibus cum summo studio retra-
hantur et ad interiora, quantum erit possibile, ut de Deo et spiritualibus ac de sui
status sublissima perfectione in bonitate sentiant, verbis et exemplis diligentissime
reducantur, ut divino officio devote et cum multa maturitate et diligentia persoluto
tempus etiam aliquod captent, in quo spiritum Domini et mentem beati Patris nos-
tri Francisci sibi imbibere valeant. Cf. Demetrius Doelle, ‘Zur Geschichte der
Betrachtung im Franziskanerorden’, FrSt 16 (1929), 229–235, 230–231.
97
Cf. for instance the Statuta Observantium Cismontanorum in compendium redacta in
Congregatione generali Auximi an. 1461, ed. A. van den Wyngaert, AFH 16 (1923),
493–506. Wagner, Historia Constitutionum Generalium, 66–67.
98
Cf. Statuta Generalia Observantium Ultramontanorum anno 1451 Barcinonae condita, ed.
M. Bihl, AFH 38 (1945), 3–39, 106–197. In his edition of the provincial statutes of
As said before, the Observant movements sub vicariis, which by the

1440s evolved into a semi-independent order divided into Cismontan
and Ultramontan branches, each with its own statutes and its own
organisation of general and provincial vicars, did not include all
observantist initiatives. During the fifteenth and early sixteenth cen-
turies, most Franciscan order provinces also harboured congregations
of reform-minded friars who declined to follow the road of the reg-
ular Observance towards (semi-) independence under a separate hier-
archy of provincial and general vicars. Instead, these congregations
tried to flesh out a more stringent way of life within the boundaries
of the existing hierarchy, although they repeatedly sought papal or
royal support when either the order authorities of the Community
or the vicars of the regular Observance tried to thwart them.99
Most of these groups tried to reinstate a more pristine Franciscan
life with eremitic overtones, with recourse to the Regula Bullata and
Francesco’s Regula pro Eremitoriis Data. As they frequently remained
(if only nominally) under the jurisdiction of the community, most
such groups did not produce separate series of general constitutions.
On top of letters of approval from the papacy or from provincial
and general ministers, which sometimes provide information about
the practical implementation of their ideals, the leadership of these
congregations gave guidance on their chosen form of Franciscan
the Observant Saxony province, Bonaventura Kruitwagen remarks: ‘Celeberrima

sunt ista Statuta Generalia Barchinonensia, quae anno 1451 in capitulo generali
Observantium Ultramontanorum, Barchinonae (Barcelona) celebrato, sunt condita.
Sunt quasi nova redactio Constitutionum Narbonensium, quas edidit S. Bonaventura,
in capitulo generali Narbonensi anno 1260. Statuta Barchinonensia per quatuor
saecula et amplius, nomine licet nonnumquam suppresso, et variis licet in redac-
tionibus et formis, fundamentum fuerunt Statutorum Generalium, quae apud varias
Observantium familias olim in usu erant.’ AFH 3 (1910), 103, no. 4. These con-
stitutions proscribe two and a half hours of prayer and contemplation a day: one
hour after Matins, a half hour after Prime, and another hour after Compline. Cf.
Doelle, ‘Zur Geschichte der Betrachtung im Franziskanerorden’, 235.
99
The best overview of these ‘Observant’ congregations ‘sub ministris’ is given
by Schmitt, ‘I. Les Franciscains.—A. Vie intérieure de l’ordre: évolution, réformes
et expansion’, 860ff. For the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Schmitt men-
tions the Martiniani in the German provinces, the Coletans in France and Burgundy,
The Clareni in central Italy, the Lombard followers of Amadeo da Silva, several
‘neutral’ Observant groups of uncertain provenance in Umbria, the Capriolanti of
Brescia, the Capuchita congregation in Aragon, the strict Observance of Juan da
la Puebla (the Descalciati), the reformist regular Observance pushed by Francesco
Licheto, the eremitical Domus Recollectionis in Portugal, the Italian Riformati, the
French Recollects, and the Alcantarines. See also the final chapters of Nimmo,
Reform and Division in the Medieval Franciscan Order.
152 chapter two
evangelical perfection in rule commentaries (as we have seen in the

previous paragraph) and in more meditative texts of religious instruc-
tion. Such texts flourished among the Spanish Villacrecians and
among successor movements like the Descalceati and the sixteenth-
century Alcantarines, which all emphasised an eremitic lifestyle with
an uncompromising adherence to the Regula Bullata and its com-
mands of poverty, declining most subsequent mitigations and papal
privileges.100
Under the spiritual leadership of Pedro Villacreces, and his pupils
Pedro Regaledo (1390–1456) and Lope de Salazar y Salinas (1393–
1463), the Villacrecians established a range of hermitages (which for
a time were organised in a semi-independent custody in Castile), as
well as convents for female tertiaries. In these settlements the
Villacrecians combined a very austere life of poverty with extensive
meditation and (mental) prayer. Pedro Villacreces and his pupils pro-
duced a range of writings for the practical and spiritual guidance of
these Villacrecian communities. Pedro Villacreces himself is pre-
dominantly known for his Memoriale religionis,101 a guidebook to the
Villacrecian Franciscan life. Pedro Regaledo produced several addi-
tional texts for the Villacrecian reform, notably the Constituciones, ritos
y leyes municipales para las casas del Abrojo y de La Aguilera, the Exposición
de la Regla franciscana, the Ejercicios contemplativos y ocupaciones activas, the
Compendio de la vida del Pedro Villacreces, and the Opúsculo sobre el Arbol
de la vida.102 Some of these works probably were a combined effort
of Pedro Regaledo and Lope de Salazar y Salinas.
100
Not dealt with here are the Clareni (who were inspired by the spiritual legacy
of the early fourteenth-century spiritual Franciscan Angelo Clareno) and the Italian
followers of Amadeo Menez de Silva. Both of these groups harboured eremitical
ideals, and for a time were able to establish semi-independent congregations about
which not much is known. For a concise overview of their history, see Brigitte
Degler-Spengler, ‘Observanten außerhalb der Observanz. Die franziskanischen
Reformen “sub ministris”’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 89 (1978), 365ff. See also
L. Oliger, ‘De Clarenis Treiensibus (1437–1439) et Narniensibus (1446)’, documenta
quaedam’, AFH 6 (1913), 730–736; Idem, ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Spiritualen,
Fratizellen und Clarener in Mittelitalien’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 45 (1927),
233–242; Idem, ‘Documenta tria de Clarenis saec. XV’, AFH 31 (1938), 59–72;
Paolo Maria Sevesi, ‘S. Carlo Borromeo e le congregazioni degli Amadeiti e dei
Clareni (1567–1570)’, AFH 37 (1944), 104–164.
101
See AIA 17 (1957), 663–713. Pedro Regaledo wrote a short, fifteen-line pro-
logue to this work.
102
L. Carrión, Historia documentada del convento Domus Dei de La Aguilera (Madrid,
1930), passim; Diosdado Merino, ‘Proceso y canonización de san Pedro Regalado’
Among the other works ascribed to Lope de Salazar y Salinas we

can point to the Memorial de los oficios activos y contemplativos de la religión
de los frailes menores,103 the Memorial de la vida y ritos de la Custodia de
Santa Maria de los Menores,104 the Constituciones de la Custodia de Santa
María de los Menores,105 and the Testamento from 1458.106 This Testamento
in particular gives a good insight into the spirituality and the organ-
isation of religious life in the Villacrecian reform movement. It pre-
scribes two hours of private meditation and three hours of devotional
exercises each day, alongside of seven hours devoted to the cele-
bration of the divine office. The latter was not to be sung and not
to be accompanied by music. The Testamento by Lope de Salazar y
Salinas furthermore calls for a strict observance of the Franciscan
rule, with special emphasis on the Franciscan virtues of poverty (the
text distinguishes no less than six degrees of poverty, with regard to
objects, housing, clothing, the body (poverty of the body in relation
to chastity, resting and the spirit), mortification, obedience, and pen-
itence. The Villacrecian ideal should be exercised in full enclosure,
in small hermitages of at most 12 friars. There, alongside of the
strenuous liturgical and devotional obligations, total silence must rule.
The friars were to abstain from eating meat, had to confess their
sins every Saturday, and were supposed to take communion every
two weeks.107
AIA 16 (1956), 445–463; A. Recio, ‘El Santo de la Reforma, Pedro Regaledo’, AIA
17 (1957), 471–506; D. Merino, ‘Notas para una bibliografía sobre san Pedro
Regaledo’, AIA 17 (1967), 507–579; Mariano Acebal Luján, ‘Pierre Regaledo’, DSpir
XII, 1657–1658; Manuel de Castro, ‘San Pedro Regalado, OFM’, Diccionario de his-
toria eclesiástica de España (Madrid, 1972–1975) III, 2065–2066.
103
Edited in: Introducción a los orígenes de la Observancia en España. Las reformas en los
siglos XIV y XV, pubblicaciones de Archivio Ibero-Americano XVII (Madrid, 1958),
687–713.
104
Ibidem, 714–746.
105
Ibidem, 747–774.
106
Ibidem, 897–925. A Latin version of the text is found in Lucas Wadding,
Annales Minorum XIII (Quaracchi, 1932), 99–132. Other significant texts by Lope
and his collaborators are the Memorial contra las laxaciones y abusiones de prelados y súb-
ditos, edited in: Introducción a los orígenes de la Observancia en España, 926–931; the
Declaración de un pasaje de la regla que dice: ‘Donde quiera que los frailes sepan e conozcan
que no pueden guardar la Regle espiritualmente, puedan et deban recurrir a sus ministros’, Ibidem,
932ff.; and the Instrucción sobre la misa/Instrucción sobre el modo de oir devotamente la misa,
Ibidem, 936–945.
107
For more information, see Fidel de Lejarza & Angel Uribe, ‘Escritos vil-
lacrecianos’, AIA 17 (1957), 663–945; Introducción a los orígenes de la Observancia en
España, passim; M. Andrés Martin, Historia de la teologia en España, 1470–1570 (Rome,
154 chapter two
Comparable materials can be found for the Descalceati under the

leadership of Juan de la Puebla and Juan de Guadelupe, who from
1487 onwards re-kindled the Villacrecian ideals—they had been sup-
pressed by the Castilian Observants sub vicariis—and by 1501 for a
while were able to establish a new reform custody of hermitages
within the Conventual fold, for which Juan de Guadelupe produced
a set of constitutions in the same year.108 When the Descalceati
enjoyed a new upswing under Pedro de Alcantará ( Juan de Sanabria,
1499, Alcantára—1562, Arenas), these 1501 constitutions drafted by
Juan de Guadelupe became a major source of inspiration for Pedro’s
own strict reform of the provincial constitutions for the St. Gabriel
province around 1540, as well as for his 1561 constitutions for the
Spanish Alcantarine reform congregation in the San José custody.109
The Spanish and Portuguese congregations of the eremitic
Recolección likewise produced a series of reform constitutions, such
as the constitutions published in Madrid in 1502,110 and the regula-
tions for the Recollects of the Immaculate Conception province pub-
lished in 1523.111 Around the same time, the Observant friar and
minister general Francisco de Quiñones (Francisco de los Angeles,
d. 1540), came out with additional constitutions for all the Spanish
houses of the Recollección in Spain (Valladolid, 1523), Portugal (1524),
and Italy (1526). The 1523 constitutions of Valladolid detail in four
chapters the admission and proper preparation of novices, the
Franciscan life of prayer (presented as the friars’ principal occupa-
tion), the proper relation between the exterior and interior life, and
1962), 91–97, 101–106, 110–111, 124–129; Manuel de Castro, ‘Fr. Lope de Salazar
y Salinas’, DSpir IX, 993–996; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles en la edad
media’, 297.
108
Introducción a los orígenes de la Observancia en España, passim; Giovanni Odoardi,
‘Guadalupensi’, Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione IV (1977), 1451–1456.
109
The Constituciones of the S. Gabriel province (1540, following the 1501 con-
stitutions composed by Juan de Guadelupe) can be found in MS Madrid, Archivo
Histórico Nacional, Clero, Monteceli del Hoyo Leg. 1434. The Constituciones of the
San José Alcantarine custody (1561–1562) have been edited in Lucas Wadding,
Annales Minorum XIX (Rome, 1745), 572–577, nos. 259–261. Both constitutions
emphasise prayer and contain detailed instructions regarding meditative and peni-
tential exercises. On Pedro de Alcantará, see in general A. Barrado Manzano, S.
Pedro de Alcantara. Estudio critico y documentado de su vida (Madrid, 1965).
110
And which saw a modern edition as Constituciones que hizo la Observancia para
los recoletos de España en Madrid (1502), ed. Meseguer Fernández, AIA 21 (1961),
29–31.
111
Estatutos por que se regián las casas de recolección de la Provincia (franciscana descalza)
de la Immaculada Concepción (1523), ed Carrión, AIA 9 (1918), 264–272.
the practice of poverty. The Valladolid constitutions indicate that,

on top of the daily divine office, friars were expected to immerse
themselves two times a day in spiritual reading. To this purpose,
these constitutions especially recommend Giacomo da Milano’s Stimulus
Amoris.112
A large group that did not opt for the eremitic lifestyle were the
so-called Martinians (‘Martinianer’) in the Saxony province. These
reform-minded friars accepted the 1430 Martinian constitutions with-
out reservations, and from early on received active support from
their own provincial ministers, who probably saw them as a good
alternative to the more threatening Observants sub vicariis, and as an
instrument to reform the order without jeopardising its coherence.113
These Martinians were given a limited amount of autonomy at the
custodial level—they obtained the right to a visitator regiminis who co-
ordinated and controlled the observance of the rule and the consti-
tutions in the individual convents—and succeeded in reforming many
convents in the Saxony province between the 1430s and 1509. In
that year the provincial minister Ludwig Henning decided to shape
the complete Saxony province along the lines of the Martinian reform
ideals. When this reform was nullified in 1510, the Martinians joined
the regular Observance en bloc.114
A special case were the Coletans in Burgundy, Savoy and Flanders.
The Coletans started out as a series of adiutory religious communi-
ties responsible for providing confessors and spiritual counsellors to
112
The special emphasis on prayer in the houses of the Recolección turned many
of them into important centres of the ‘via del recogimiento’. A Latin translation of
the Valladolid constitutions can be found in Lucas Wadding, Annales Minorum
(Quaracchi, 1931–1933) XVI, 193–197. On the almost similar constitutions of 1524
and 1526, see AIA 21 (1961), 5–51 & AIA 25 (1965), 361–369.
113
An important role was played by Matthias Döring, provincial minister of the
Saxony province between 1427 and 1461. He was a staunch opponent of the reg-
ular Observance, and therefore has had a bad press, not only among the Observant
historiographers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but also among more mod-
ern Franciscan scholars. However, Matthias was not at all opposed to order reform
sub ministris. Cf. Livarius Oliger, ‘Matthias Dörings Gutachten über die Franziskaner-
regel (1451) und observantische Gegenschrift’, FrSt 9 (1922), 203–236.
114
See in general Ferdinand Doelle, ‘Die Reformbewegung unter dem Visitator
regiminis der sächsischen Ordensprovinz’, FrSt 3 (1916), 246–289; Idem, Die Martinianische
Reformbewegung in der Sächsischen Franziskanerprovinz (Münster, 1921). A concise overview
with some corrections is given in Degler-Spengler, ‘Observanten außerhalb der
Observanz’, 358ff. Martinian-like Observant groups were also active in other regions,
such as the Upper Germany province, where they were able to reform several con-
vents (Freiburg, Burgdorf, Cologne) before the Observance sub vicariis took over.
156 chapter two
the new Colettine movement, named after the female reformer Colette
de Corbie (see below). When Colette gained papal permission to
establish reformed communities of Poor Clares that followed Chiara
d’Assisi’s rule of 1253 with additional strict constitutions, she needed
a relatively large number of Franciscan confessors. To this purpose,
Colette and her confessor friar Henry de Baume enlisted the help
of exemplary fratres servientes (priests and supporting lay friars) from
selected Franciscan monasteries with observantist tendencies. Henry
de Baume became the first vicar responsible for the preparation of
these subservient ‘Coletans’ and wrote for them a set of interesting
statutes.115
As we will see below, Colette de Corbie built her Colettine reform
movement around the 1253 rule of Chiara d’Assisi, which empha-
sises the involvement of the Franciscan friars with the spiritual care
of the nuns. Not surprisingly, Henry de Baume took this involve-
ment as a point of departure for his own Coletan statutes.116 A large
part of Henry’s statutes thereafter is devoted to the ways in which
the confessor and his socii have to give body to this spiritual sup-
port of the Colettine sisters (through administering the sacraments,
notably the Eucharist and confession, through preaching and other
forms of spiritual guidance). On top of that, the statutes explain how
these friars should behave and keep up their own spiritual life (in
which passion devotion was to have a dominant place).117
115
Statuta Fr. Henrici de Balma, primi Vicarii Colettinorum Monasteriis s. Colettae inservi-
entium, ed. H. Lippens, Sacris Erudiri, 1 (1948), 261–276.
116
‘In primis notandum quod secundum formam Regule a beato francisco vir-
gini clare tradite, in quolibet conventu dictarum sororum debent residere regular-
iter quatuor fratres; videlicet confessor sororum qui vita, moribus, etate matura,
religiositate et honestate debet esse preclarus, et in observantia regulari bene pro-
batus. Ipse solus audiat confessiones sororum inclusarum, necnon illarum devotarum
que vacant in servitio dictarum religiosarum ab extra. Socius vero eius sit frater
sacerdos, predicator et confessor; et confiteantur se mutuo cum expediens fuerit, et
sit maturus, honestus, devotus et pacificus; et sit coadiutor fidelis in sibi possibilibus
dicto confessari. Et sint pariter cum ipsis duo fratres layci in subsidium sancte pau-
pertatis. Qui quidem debent esse humiles, maturi et devoti, intus et extra exem-
plares, et cum magna caritate et confidentia debent ire pro elemosina querenda
quando requiruntur a sororibus in earum necessitatibus; quia sic fuit voluntas et
intentio beati francisci . . .’ Ibidem, 161–162.
117
Insisting that they ‘. . . retehirant se ad eorum cellam assinatam post finem
completorii sororum, vacando orationi, meditationi, solitudini ac silentio evangelico.
Et si eis complacuerit poterunt soluto matutino mutuo se reconciliari. Et eadem
hora fratres layci persolvent eorum officium de pater noster, et post vacent dili-
genter meditationi et sentimentis passionis christi, et notitie sui status ac sue dig-
The Franciscan communities that delivered these fratres servientes

gradually expanded into an impressive network of reformed Coletan
houses all over Burgundy and neighbouring provinces in France and
the Southern Low Countries. Whereas the fratres servientes recruited
from these Coletan communities to provide spiritual support to
Colettine sisters would shape their religious lives in accordance with
the statutes drafted by Henry de Baume, the majority of the friars
living in this growing number of Coletan houses in all probability
continued to adhere to the 1430 Martinian constitutions. In fact, the
Coletan reform is one of the most successful examples of Observant
reform sub ministris. With a certain amount of autonomy, the Coletans
were able to expand until 1517, when they too were forced to join
the Observants. This forced merger notwithstanding, it would seem
that the Coletan spirit remained very much alive in Burgundy in
the centuries thereafter.118
nissime vocationis, orantes ferventius pro salute vivorum atque mortuorum. In ipso-
rum refectionibus teneatur communiter salutiferum silentium, et sument beneficia
dei cum debita honestate et gratiarum actione. In principio vero mense et in fine
regulariter habeatur devota lectio. Et rogo fratres meos quantum possum, quod feria
sexta legant Regulam sanctissimam, bene distincte et devote et per integrum; et
quod interdum legant sanctum testamentum sanctissimi patris nostri cum magna
devotione. Et hoc plurimum in domino exopto, quod hec sanctissima Regula sciatur
ab omnibus, et ex singulari devotione fratres deferent, quia pro observatione ipsius
certi sumus de vita eterna. Et amore dei vitentur verba noxia et inutilia in mensa
et alibi. Et bonum est quod fratres dicant communiter ante benedictionem De pro-
fundis et Fidelium pro defunctis. Et post refectionem gratiis domino universorum
devotius redditis, fratres occupent se utiliori modo quo poterunt, in studio, oratione
aut laboritio, et hoc semper ad honorem dei et utilitatem boni communis. . . .’
Ibidem, 264–265. As the editor of these statutes aptly comments (Ibidem, 259–260):
‘Les statuts du P. Henry sont loin de se borner à réglementer les actes extérieurs
des Colétains. Ils constituent, au contraire, un traité assez complet de vie intérieure
et visent à conduire les âmes religieuses à un haut degré de perfection en matière
de renoncement, d’oraison et de dévouement pour le prochain. L’ascétisme du
P. Henry, tout comme celui de Ste Colette, est d’inspiration nettement franciscaine.
L’importance accordée à la pratique de la pauvreté, à la tendre charité envers le
prochain, à la dévotion affective, au souvenir de la douloureuse passion de Notre-
Seigneur, le prouvent abondamment. D’ailleurs l’ensemble de la doctrine énoncée
est emprunté aux écrits de S. François (. . .) les présents règlements ne sont en vérité
qu’un supplément aux statuts, qui ordonnaient tout l’ensemble de la vie religieuse
du groupe Colétain. Le paragraphe 34 fait d’ailleurs allusion à ces statuts que l’on
pourrait appeler généraux.’
118
See Degler-Spengler, ‘Observanten außerhalb der Observanz’, 360–361; Élis-
abeth Lopez, ‘Frère Henry de Baume (ca. 1367–1440): La vie et les écrits d’un
franciscain réformateur’, Revue Mabillon, n.s. 5 (=66) (1994), 117–141; H. Lippens,
‘Deux épisodes du litige séculaire entre les Clarisses-Colettines et les Pères Observants
au sujet de leur privilèges respectifs’, AFH 41 (1948), 282–295.
158 chapter two
The Conventuals did not greet with enthusiasm the de facto inde-
pendence of the regular Observance after 1446.119 Nor did they
wholeheartedly welcome the emergence of other observantist groups
in individual provinces (such as the Martinian and Coletan move-
ments). Several minister generals tried to reunite the order, some-
times with and sometimes without a serious attempt at pacifying the
various reformist factions. Moreover, several intellectual spokesmen
for the Conventuals urged for reform initiatives to revitalise the order
as a whole and to heal the breach between the various factions.120
In this context several new general constitutions were produced, such
as the Sixtina of 1469 and the Alexandrinae of 1500. None of these,
however, constituted a major departure from the Farinerian consti-
tutions of 1354. Neither did they succeed in breaching the gap
between the Conventuals and Observants. A last major attempt in
this direction was made by means of the so-called Statuta Juliana of
1508/1510, compiled by a committee dominated by the Coletan
friar Bonifacio da Ceva.121 These Statuta Juliana were designed to
become the normative unifying constitutions for Conventual and
Observant friars, nuns and tertiaries alike. Eventually, they were
unacceptable to all and only lead to additional polemics.122
An official division of the order seemed unavoidable. This con-
clusion was reached by 1517 and was implemented by pope Leo X
in the bull Ite Vos (29 May 1517). From this moment onwards, the
male branch of the order was split in two: the Ordo Fratrum Minorum,
comprising the regular Observants and most of the larger Observant
119
Cf. the papal bull Ut Sacra of 1446, Bullarium Franciscanum n.s. I, 497–500.
120
A remarkable text in this context is the Advisamenta pro Reformatione Facienda
Ordinis, produced by the Franciscan lector and humanist Francesco Michele del
Padovano (d. c. 1472). The work, written before 1435, can be found in MS Florence,
Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana Plut. XXVI cod. 19. It has been edited, together
with several of Francesco’s letters and additional information by Pratesi, ‘Francesco
Micheli del Padovano di Firenze, teologo ed umanista francescana’, passim & Idem,
‘Discorsi e nuove lettere di Francesco Micheli del Padovano’, passim.
121
These 1508 constitutions have been edited in the Firmamenta Trium Ordinum
Beatissimi Patris Nostri Francisci (Paris, 1512) III, ff. 1–47. They were officially re-
issued by the pope in November 1510 (the bull Etsi Nostrae), but to no avail. Cf.
M. Bihl, ‘Die sogenannten ‘Statuta Julii’ und deren Lübecker Ausgabe vom Jahre
1509’, FrSt 8 (1921), 225–259; Wagner, Historia Constitutionum Generalium, 58–61.
122
Witness the polemics surrounding Bonifacio da Ceva’s Defensorium Elucidativum
Observantiae Regularis Fratrum Minorum (Paris, 1516), which drew vehement reactions
from the Observants Kaspar Schatzgeyer and Bonaventure Nepveu. Cf. M. Bihl,
‘Fra Bonifacio da Ceva (d. 1517) e i suoi giudizi su Bernardino da Siena’, SF 17
(1945), 132–157.
groups sub ministris, and the Ordo Fratrum Minorum Conventualium, which
gathered the remaining Conventual communities and a few of the
reformist congregations mentioned before that opted for a life under
Conventual control.123
In this process of division, there was a new urgency to collect and
streamline the by now large and impenetrable body of existing statutes
into new authoritative legislative texts for the separated branches of
the order.124 The Conventual block, which after 1517 had to live
with its much reduced stature as a sub-branch of the Franciscan
order, with a subordinate master general at the top of its hierarchy,
did not directly engage in important new legislative activities. For
the regular Observance, however, which now (for a while) was deemed
the true heir of Francesco d’Assisi, and not only saw its provincial
vicars promoted to provincial ministers but also had obtained the
right to appoint the minister general totius Ordinis minorum, the time
seemed ripe to produce a set of authoritative constitutions. New con-
stitutions seemed necessary to accommodate the Cismontan and
Ultramontan groups, and to appease the other observantist elements
that after 1517 were forced by the papacy to join the regular
Observance (such as the Coletans, the Clareni and the Amadeites).
123
The most recent introduction to the 1517 division of the order is given in:
Pacifico Sella, Leone X e la definitiva divisione dell’Ordine dei Minori (Omin.): la bolla Ite
vos (29 maggio 1517), AF XIV, N.S. Documenta et Studia, 2 (Grottaferrata, 2001).
124
Before and after 1517 we also see a variety of attempts at gathering all pos-
sible order statutes, rule commentaries and papal privileges into authoritative source
collections. Until the papal bull Ite Vos, these collections were definitely partisan.
After 1517, when the decision to divide the order was made, more specialist works
made their appearance. The oldest printed source collection was produced by the
Observant friar Jacopo da Grumello: Miscellanea Iuris Franciscanis (Brescia, 1502). In
1506 and again in 1511 appeared the Observant Monumenta Ordinis Minorum, 3 Vols.
(Salamanca, 1506/Salamanca, 1511). A re-issue of the 1506 Momumenta by Martin
Morin appeared in 1509 as the Speculum Minorum, 3 Vols. (Rouen, 1509). The
Coletans produced the Firmamenta Trium Ordinis Beatissimi Patris Nostri Francisci (Paris,
1512) and a year later appeared the Speculum Minorum seu Firmamentum Trium Ordinum
(Venice, 1513). Among the more specialised works of later date, we can point out
the Observant Supplementum seu Nova ac Tertia Compilatio Multorum Privilegiorum (Barcelona,
1523), which can be considered to be a supplement to the Monumenta of 1506 and
1511, the Observant Compendium Privilegiorum Fratrum Minorum necnon et Aliorum Fratrum
Mendicantium Ordine Alphabetico Congesto, ed. Alphonse de Casarubios (Valladolid, 1525,
with many re-issues), and the Enchiridion seu Manuale Fratrum Minorum (Sevilla, 1535).
These works became important sources of information for the source collections of
Wadding, Sbaraglia and Alva y Astorga. For a detailed analysis of the content of
these various collections, see: Jean-Xavier Lalo, ‘Les recueils des sources juridiques
franciscaines (1502–1535). Description et analyse’, AFH 73 (1980), 257–340, 527–640,
AFH 74 (1981), 146–230.
160 chapter two
At first, the celebrated Barcelona constitutions of the Ultramontan

Observants seemed most suitable to fulfil this purpose. However, it
soon became clear that the competition between Cismontan and
Ultramontan factions did not allow for such a solution. The revised
Barcelona statutes promulgated at the Observant general chapters of
Lyon (1518) and Burgos (1523) were eventually not accepted in the
Cismontan provinces,125 which did not want to forego the legislative
legacy of Giovanni da Capistrano. Hence, in 1529 (at the general
chapter of Parma), and again in 1553 (at the general chapter of
Salamanca), the Cismontan Observants received yet another series
of constitutions, predominantly compiled from the 1430 Martiniana,
the old Benedictine ordinations of 1336, the Farineriana, and the
Capistran constitutions of 1443/1449.126 The Ultramontan Observant
provinces in their turn obtained permission to abide by a 1532 revi-
sion of their Barcelona constitutions, which by now had become very
authoritative in their own right.127
The split of the order in 1517, which was meant to create sta-
bility and end the ongoing conflicts between reformist and non-
reformist factions, did not bring the peace it had set out to deliver.
The Franciscan way of life championed in the vindicated Observance
125
Abbreviatio Statutorum tam Generalium quam Papalium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum facta
in Congregatione Generale Barchinone anno 1451, revisa in civitate Lugduni anno Domini 1518
(Lyon, 1518); Statuta Generalia Fratrum Minorum Regularis Observantiae (Ferrara, 1523)
(= Constitutiones Barcinonenses Burgis revisae).
126
The Constitutiones Parmenses, edited as Ordinationes Fratrum Minorum (Venice, 1529)
and the Statuta Generalia Cismontanarum partium Ordinis S. Francisci reg. Observ. per Iulium
III approbata (Venice, 1554). The Salamanca constitutions, which again have a text
divided in twelve chapters, corresponding with those of the Regula Bullata, can for
instance also be found in Chronologia Historico-Legalis Seraphici Ordinis Fratrum Minorum,
ed. Michaele Angelo a Neapoli (Naples, 1650) I, 282–318; in the Orbis Seraphicus,
ed. D. Gubernatis a Sospitello (Rome-Lyon, 1682–1685) III, 301–345; and in Lucas
Wadding, Annales Minorum XVIII (Quaracchi, 1933), 302–368. For more informa-
tion, see Wagner, Historia Constitutionum Generalium, 67–69 and Schmitt, ‘I. Les
Franciscains.—A. Vie intérieure de l’ordre: évolution, réformes et expansion’, 866.
On the way in which these constitutions dealt with mental prayer and devotions,
see Doelle, ‘Zur Geschichte der Betrachting im Franziskanerorden’, 233.
127
These Constitutiones Barcinonenses Tolosae Revisae can for instance be found in the
Statuta Generalia Familiae Cismontanae [!sic.] (. . .) Emendata in Capitulo Generali Tolosano
Anno 1532 (Munich, 1584) and in the Enchiridion seu Manuale Fratrum Minorum Regularia
Instituta Eorumdem Fratrum (. . .) Commodissime Continens (Hispali, 1535), ff. 80–89. In
1583, they underwent some changes to accommodate the decrees of the Council
of Trent. Cf. Statuta Generalia Observantium Ultramontanorum, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 38
(1945), 106–197 (186–187). At the general chapter of Segovia (1621) the text received
additional modifications. Cf. Chronologia historico-legalis (Naples, 1650) I, 601–673.
branch did not satisfy some of the more zealous friars in several
small Italian hermitages. Several reform movements forced under the
wing of the regular Observance soon reappeared under different
names (such as the new Alcantarines and the friars of the Recollección).
In this climate the Observant friars Matteo da Bascio and Ludovico
and Raffaele da Fossombrone fleshed out a Franciscan reform of
their own. Their so-called Capuchin movement came into being
around 1525, when the Observant friar Matteo da Bascio ‘con un
capuccio aguzzo in capo’128 as an itinerant hermit and preacher
received oral approval from pope Clement VII for his forma vitae. By
1528, this movement of friars living the Regula Bullata ad litteram
obtained its first official papal recognition.129
This new Capuchin movement, which in the course of a century
would become a dominant factor within the Franciscan family, was
quick to produce a series of statutes and constitutions to guide its
interpretation of, and adherence to the Regula Bullata and Francesco
d’Assisi’s Testamentum.130 The oldest Capuchin ‘Ordinazioni’ were pro-
duced in 1529, at S. Maria dell’Acquarella on mount Albacina, near
Fabriano, at a moment when the Capuchins counted no more than
ca. 30 friars, divided over four hermitages.131 These ordinations for
128
Bernardo da Colpetrazzo, Historia Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum (1525–
1593), MHOC II (Assisi, 1939), 26. Cf. Isidoro de Villapadierna, ‘I cappuccini tra
eremitismo e predicazione’, in: I frate minori tra ’400 e ’500, Atti del XII Convegno
Internazionale SISF, Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986), 51–80.
129
With the papal bull Religionis Zelus (3 July 1528), issued by Clement VII, and
addressed at Ludovico and Raffaele da Fossombrone, the true organisers of the
early Capuchin movement. Cf. Stanislao Santachiara, ‘La bolla “Religionis zelus”’,
in: Le origini della riforma cappuccina (Ancona, 1979), 261–280. For a good overview
of papal bulls and letters pertaining to the young Capuchin order, see: I fratri cap-
puccini I, 61–145.
130
From the outset, the Capuchins took effort to produce new editions of Francesco
d’Assisi’s Regula Bullata and his Testamentum, combining these authoritative texts with
additonal meditative materials. In this way they hoped to provide novices, novice
masters and Capuchin friars with formative ‘libretti della Regola.’ I mention some
aspects of this development in my chapter on novice training manuals. See also:
F. Elizondo, ‘Regola francescana preso i primi cappuccini’, IF 53 (1978), 625–665;
Idem, ‘Ediciones capuchinas de la regla franciscana publicadas en lengua castellana
o catalana’, EsFr 77 (1976), 65–103; Idem, ‘Ediciones capuchinas de la regla fran-
ciscana publicadas en lengua alemana’ EsFr 80 (1979), 301–342; Idem, ‘Ediciones
latinas de la regla franciscana por C. Plantin en 1589’, CF 49 (1979), 23–74; Idem,
‘Ediciones capuchinas de la regla franciscana en lengua italiana’, CF 50 (1980),
169–226. Many texts of these collections have been edited in I fratri cappuccini I,
1491–1591.
131
A Latin version of these statutes, also known as the Constitutiones Albacinenses,
162 chapter two
the ‘fratres minores vitae heremiticae’, as the early Capuchins called

themselves, put much emphasis on silence and on the construction
of the religious inner self, exhibited in the primacy of the vita con-
templativa (with a strong focus on the suffering Christ, Whose life and
death were the ultimate ‘specchio ed esempio d’umiltà e povertà’),
and accompanied by a life of exterior poverty and coarseness.132
At the general chapter of Rome (1535–1536), held at a moment
when the movement had grown considerably, a set of full-blown con-
stitutions was promulgated. These constitutions expanded the out-
lines of 1529 and firmly displayed the Capuchin identity as a radical
Franciscan reform movement, engaged in social work and peniten-
tial preaching, but also deeply devoted to eremitic retreat, christo-
centric prayer and evangelical poverty.133 The twelve chapters of
these 1535/1536 constitutions closely follow the Regula Bullata—which
is presented as the ‘picolo spechio, nel quale reluce la evangelica
perfeczione’—and take care to flesh out modes of conduct conducive
is present in Zacharias Boverius Salutiensis, Annalium seu sacrarum historiarum ordinis

minorum s. Francisci qui capucini nuncupantur tomus primus (Lyon, 1632), 117–125, whereas
an Italian version is included in Matthias de Salò, Historia Capuccina, ed. Melchior
de Pobladura, MHOC, V (Rome, 1946 (1597)), Pars Prima, 158–172. Both of these
versions have been published with a running commentary in: I fratri cappuccini I,
177–225. A critical edition of the Italian text is found in Le prime costituzioni dei frati
minori cappuccini di san Francesco, ed. Eduard d’Alençon (Rome, 1913), 15–31, whereas
a sixteenth-century Italian manuscript version from the archives of the Capuchin
order in Rome is printed in facsimile-fashion in the Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum
Minorum Capuccinorum Saeculorum Decursu Promulgatae, Vol. I: Constitutiones Antiquae
(1529–1643), Editio anastatica (Rome, 1980), 18–31. See on the relationship between
the Italian and the Latin text also F. Elizondo, ‘Las constituciones capuchinas de
1529. En el 450° aniversario de su redacción en Albacina’, Laurentianum 20 (1979),
389–440.
132
For a first characterisation, see O. Schmucki, ‘Lo spirito francescano nelle
‘Costituzioni delli frati minori detti della vita heremitica’ del 1529’, in: Le origini
della riforma cappuccina. Atti del convegno di studi storici. Camerino, 18–21 sett. 1978 (Ancona,
1979), 121–157.
133
A critical edition of the 1536 (Italian) constitutions can be found in Primigeniae
legislationis ordinis fratrum minorum capuccinorum textus originales seu constitutiones anno 1536
ordinatae et anno 1552 recognitae, ed. Eduard d’Alençon, in: Liber memorialis ordinis fratrum
minorum s. Francisci capuccinorum, Analecta Ordinis Minorum Capuccinorum, XLIV
Supplementum (Rome, 1928), 333–430. Another critical edition is published in: I
fratri cappuccini I, 249–464 (the edition used here). The first edition of these consti-
tutions appeared as the Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum, ed. Johann
Sultzbach (Naples, 1537). This edition is printed in facsimile-fashion in Constitutiones
Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum Saeculorum Decursu Promulgatae, Vol. I: Constitutiones
Antiquae (1529–1643), Editio anastatica (Rome, 1980), 35–74. See also F. Elizondo,
‘Las constituciones capuchinas de 1536. Texto, fuentes, lugares paratelos’, EsFr 83
(1982), 143–252.
to the spiritual observance of Francesco’s wishes.134 In their strict

interpretation of the Franciscan life, they condemn secular songs (and
every literary, musical, and theatrical utterance that can stimulate
the senses) and forbid Capuchin preachers to preach ‘frivolities’ (that
is ‘frasche, novelle, poesie, historie o altre vane, superflue, curiose,
inutili, imo perniciose scienze . . .’; ‘terse, fallerate e fucate parole’
and ‘le vane e inutili questioni e opinioni, li prurienti canti, le sub-
tilità da pochi intellegibili’). On the contrary, Capuchin preachers
should use simple and plain words imbued with the love of God
(‘parole nude, pure, semplice, umile e basse, niente di meno divine,
infocate e piene d’amore’).135
These 1536 constitutions are generally regarded as the most impor-
tant Capuchin legislative texts until 1909,136 and they defined the
central tenets of Capuchin spirituality for centuries to come. The
134
In their urge to observe the Regula Bullata ad litteram et secundum spiritum, in
agreement with Francesco d’Assisi’s commands in his Testamentum, the Capuchins
wanted to get rid of ‘tutte le glose ed esposizioni carnali, inutili, nocive e rilassative,
le quale extirano la Regula da la pia, iusta e sancta mente di Cristo Signor nos-
tro, el quale parlava in san Francesco.’ I fratri cappuccini I, 261–262. This did not
preclude innovations in the field of Franciscan spirituality. The Capuchins consid-
ered mental prayer to be a cornerstone of the true Franciscan evangelical lifetyle.
Contrary to the Observants, however, who in several constitutions allowed friars to
engage in private prayer and devotion exercises in their own cell or in another suit-
able part of the convent (such as the choir, chapels or the church), the Capuchins
made it clear that all friars should engage in two hours of mental prayer a day, to
be performed when all friars were gathered in the choir, ‘. . . fenestris et ianuis clau-
sis, ut arceatur lumen ob occasionem distractionis.’ Cf. Doelle, ‘Zur Geschichte der
Betrachtung im Franziskanerorden’, 232.
135
Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum I, 63–64, 66, 126, 192. All
the rethoric of return to the pristine origins of the Franciscan order notwithstand-
ing, this is a clear negation of the Franciscan joculator Dei tradition, and that in a
branch that venerated Jacopone da Todi and his Laude.
136
‘quippe quia ceterarum [constitutionum] non tantum doctrinale et spirituale
sed etiam litterale sunt fundamentum, et synthesim offerunt capuccinae spirituali-
tatis. Earumque redactores conantur invenire difficile vitae franciscanae aequilib-
rium inter contemplationem et actionem, inter viam practicam et theoreticam circa
paupertatem, fraternitatem, omnimodam auctoritati immediatae subiectionem et
completam pauperibus et infirmis deditionem.’ Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum Minorum
Capuccinorum Saeculorum Decursu Promulgatae, Vol. I: Constitutiones Antiquae (1529–1643),
Editio anastatica (Rome, 1980), Praefatio, 10. Cf. also the verdict of Elizondo, ‘Las
constituciones capuchinas de 1536’, 148. The 1536 constitutions were the product
of a small committee, the members of which (notably Bernardino d’Asti, Giovanni
da Fano, Francesco da Jesi and Bernardino Ochino) were able to push through
their own insights regarding the necessary characteristics of the Capuchin lifestyle,
such as the space devoted to mental prayer. Cf. I fratri cappuccini I, 227–228 &
Cargnoni, ‘Fonti, tendenze e sviluppi’, 311–398.
164 chapter two
next constitutions, promulgated at the Capuchin chapter of Rome

in 1552, when the order counted around 2500 friars and had recov-
ered from a major crisis, were not able to reach the same status of
authority. To many contemporaries they seemed to express a move-
ment away from the pristine Capuchin ideals (by downplaying the
eremitic heritage and the solidarity with the indigent, and by miti-
gating the requirements of the order’s standards of evangelical
poverty).137 As a result of this dissatisfaction, the subsequent consti-
tutions of 1575 to a large extent discarded them, to return as much
as possible to the wordings of the 1536 constitutions (taking into
account the necessary changes in matters of liturgy and study organ-
isation after the Council of Trent).138
C. Provincial constitutions and convent statutes
General chapter regulations had to be implemented at the provincial,

custodial and convent level. An important role in this implementation
process were the provincial chapters, which informed the represen-
tatives of the many custodies and convents about the decisions made
at the general chapter, and complemented general chapter ordinations
and statutes with supplementary provincial regulations. Looking at
the surviving evidence, the production of full-blown provincial con-
stitutions got under steam from the later thirteenth century onwards,139
137
The first edition of these constitutions appeared as Le constitutioni de poveri frati
menori detti cappucini, ordinate nel lor generale capitolo, per piu agevole osservanza della regola,
novamente corrette et riformate (Venice, 1552). The text of this edition is printed in fac-
simile-fashion in: Constitutiones Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum Saeculorum Decursu
Promulgatae, Vol. I: Constitutiones Antiquae (1529–1643), Editio anastatica (Rome, 1980),
77–139. A new edition appeared as Primigeniae legislationis ordinis fratrum minorum capuc-
cinorum textus originales seu constitutiones anno 1536 ordinatae et anno 1552 recognitae, ed.
Eduard d’Alençon, in: Liber memorialis ordinis fratrum minorum s. Francisci capuccinorum
(Rome, 1928), 333–430. The editorial variations of the 1552 constitutions compared
with those of 1536 are also listed in Cargnoni’s edition of the 1536 constitutions
as found in I fratri cappuccini I, 249–464. On page 465 to 478 of this work can be
found several short additional ordinations approved on the general chapters of 1549
and 1552.
138
See on these especially F. Elizondo, ‘Contenido de las constituciones capuchi-
nas del 1575 y su relación con la legislación precedente’, Laurentianum 16 (1975),
225–280.
139
Statuta Provinciali Franciae Saeculi XIII, ed. A.G. Little, AFH 7 (1914), 447–453;
Provinciae Franciae Chartularium aliaque Documenta saec. XIII, ed. H. Lippens, AFH 30
with ample activities in the course of the fourteenth century,140 and

an impressive boom in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,
reflecting the unrest resulting from various Observant reform efforts
and attempts at pacification and appeasement in the provinces at
different moments in time.141
(1937), 31–68, 282–308; Statuta Provincialia Marchiae Tarvisinae (sive Provinciae S. Antonii
seu Venetae) Saeculi XIII, ed. A.G. Little, AFH 7 (1914), 453–465; Statuta et Definitiones
Provinciae Aquitaniae Saeculi XIII, ed, M. Bihl, AFH 7 (1914), 466–481; Constitutiones
Provinciae Provinciae Saeculi XIII–XIV, ed. F.M. Delorme, AFH 14 (1921), 415–434;
Constitutiones Provinciae Provinciae per F. Marcum compilatae, ed. F. Delorme, LFF 8 (1925),
135–143.
140
In addition to the statutes from the Provence province mentioned in the pre-
vious notes, we can point to: Constitutiones Provinciae Romanae 1316, ed. A.G. Little,
AFH 18 (1925), 356–373; Documenta Saeculi XIV Provinciae S. Francisci Umbriae, ed.
F.M. Delorme, AFH 5 (1912), 520–542; Ordinazioni dei Capitoli Provinciali Umbri dal
1300 al 1305, ed. Cesare Cenci, CF 55 (1985), 5–31; Statuta Provincialia Provinciae
Franciae 1337, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 7 (1914), 481–501; Costituzioni Provinciali inedite
dell’Umbria del secolo XIV, ed. G. Abate, MF 31 (1931), 126–134, 194–195, 263–267;
Constitutiones Provinciae Thusciae 1360, ed. G. Abate, MF 33 (1933), 323–329; Constitutiones
Provinciae Thusciae 1362, ed. G. Abate, MF 33 (1933), 329–336; Constitutiones et
Ordinationes Provinciae S. Iacobi 1375, 1381, 1382, ed. A. Lopes & L.M. Nuñez, AIA
7 (1917), 257–274; Tabulae Capitulares Provinciae Thusciae O.F.M. Saeculi XIV–XVIII,
ed. B. Bughetti, AFH 10 (1917), 413–455. Cf. also M. Bihl, ‘De Capitulo Provinciali
Provinciae Coloniae Fuldae habito a. 1315’, AFH 1 (1908), 88–93.
141
Ordinationes Fr. Min. Conventualium Generales et Provinciales Marchiae Saeculi XV, ed.
S. Tosti, AFH 16 (1923), 127–148, 369–382; Ordinationes Provinciae Argentinensis a
Concilio Basilensi n. 1445 Approbatae, AF II, 312–315; Statuta Observantium Provinciae S.
Angeli in Apulia a. 1448 et Tabula Congregationis Observantium Cismontanarum a. 1467, ed.
L. Oliger, AFH 8 (1915), 92–105; Ordinationes pro Reformatione Conventualium Provinciae
Franciae a Fr. Angelo Perusino Ministro generale publicatae Brugis, 25 aprilis 1452, ed.
A. Heysse, AFH 27 (1934), 76–94; Tabulae Capitulares Vicariae (1454 –1516), dein
Provinciae (1517–1574) Observantium Argentinensium, ed. M. Bihl & A. Wagner, AF VIII,
687–747; Statuti Provinciali dei Frati Minori Osservanti di Toscana 1456–1506, ed. A. Van
den Wyngaert, SF 9 (1923), 115–157; Statuta Provincialia Fratrum Minorum Observantium
Thusciae 1457, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 8 (1915), 158–162; Statuta Provinciae Saxoniae 1467
immutata Luneburgi an. 1494, ed. B. Kruitwagen, AFH 3 (1910), 98–114, 280–293;
Statuta Provincialia Provinciae Coloniae O.F.M. Obs. 1474 & 1524, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 7
(1914), 710–738; Statuta Provincialia Fratrum Minorum Observantium Ianuae an. 1487–1521,
ed. A. van den Wyngaert, AFH 22 (1929), 114–138, 358–378, 529–547; Costituzioni
dei Minori Osservanti della Provincia di S. Bernardino (Abruzzo) del 1505, ed. G. Abate,
MF 30 (1930), 3–16; Statuti Provinciali dei Frati Minori Osservanti di Toscana, an. 1456–1506,
ed. A. van den Wyngaert, SF 9 (1923), 115–157; Memoriale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum
(. . .) Specialiter de Provincia Poloniae, ed. J. Komoroswski, Monumenta Poloniae Historica
5 (Lwow, 1888), 256–258, 266, 291–293 (provincial constitutions for the Polish
Observants, compiled by Ladislaus von Gielnow in August 1488); Constitutiones Fratrum
Minorum Observantium Provinciae Thusciae 1507 & 1523, ed. I. Calamandrei, AFH 8
(1915), 206–225; Statuta Provincialia Fratrum Minorum Observantium Thusciae 1518, ed.
M. Bihl, AFH 8 (1915), 162–179; Statuta Provinciae Flandriae 1525–1542, ed.
U. Lippens, Neerlandia Franciscana 7 (1924), 118–136, 195–214; Constituciones recoletas
para Portugal, 1524 e Italia, 1526, ed. J. Meseguer Fernández, AIA 21 (1961), 459–489.
166 chapter two
Nearly all of these provincial constitutions contain a lot of disci-

plinary measures to safeguard the Franciscan evangelical lifestyle in
the individual mendicant communities (with additional details on the
instruction of novices, fasting, eating and clothing habits, the treat-
ment of ill friars, contacts with external persons, the obligations
towards Poor Clares and tertiaries, and special local liturgical oblig-
ations and devotional practices).142 It is also no coincidence that such
provincial constitutions frequently were kept together with other rel-
evant legislative texts felt to be of particular significance for the reli-
gious instruction of the friars at the provincial and local level.143
During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, when it seemed
impossible at general chapter meetings to agree on strict rules of
religious discipline for all groups concerned, the importance of provin-
cial statutes increased. Now that consensus could not be reached at
the highest level, provincial ministers and vicars at provincial chap-
ters grasped the initiative to enforce stricter rules at the (sub)provin-
cial level. This shows most clearly in the surviving Observant provincial
statutes: both those of the regular Observance sub vicariis and those
of the Martinians and comparable reformists. Cases in point are the
This listing of edited provincial chapter regulations is by no means complete. The

Chronica of Nicolaus Glassberger contains additional information on Observant chap-
ter regulations in the German lands, such as those of 1480 for the Upper Germany
province and those of 1464 for the Cologne province. Cf. Glassberger, Chronica, AF
II, 412, 416, 470, 480 & Doelle, ‘Zur Geschichte der Betrachtung im Franzis-
kanerorden’, 231.
142
Cf. Wagner, Historia Constitutionum Generalium, 122–123: ‘Constitutiones Generales
nullomodo integram Fratrum Minorum vivendi rationem ad normam s. Regulae sta-
bilire potuerunt; iam ipsa s. Regula providebat speciales ordinationes secundum loca
et tempora et frigidas regiones. Ideo Constitutiones Generales multas res, non solum minoris
momenti Statutis provincialibus moderanda reliquebant. Aliae res, observantiae quotidianae, exte-
rioresve inter Fratres modi agendi, qui tamen et ipsi substantialia vitae minoriticae contingere poter-
ant, ordinabantur usibus et consuetudinibus singularum provinciarum, custodiarum, immo et
singulorum conventuum.’
143
This is for instance the case with the important 1474 Observant statutes for
the Cologne province. In one manuscript, MS Brussels, Royal Library 4439–4442
(3937), which was written around 1524 and forms the basis manuscript for M. Bihl’s
1914 edition, these statutes (on ff. 72r–86v) are found alongside of the 1279 Declaratio
D. Nicolai pape terciis super regulam fratrum Minorum (ff. 1r–16v, = Exiit qui Seminat), the
1313 Declaratio D. Clementis pape quinti super regulam fratrum minorum (ff. 17r–27r, =
Exivi ex Paradiso), Ordinationes ceremoniarum divini officii edite in capitulo generali (ff. 27v–36v),
a text explaining Quomodo se frater habeat in missa (ff. 36v–41v), an Officium investitio-
nis fratrum (ff. 42r–45r), and the Statuta generalia totius ordinis fratrum minorum regularis
observantie per ipsum capitulum generale in provintia et conventu Burgensi regni Castelle in festo
pentecostes anno domini MDXXIII celebratum ordinata (ff. 45–71v).
Observant provincial statutes for the Cologne province (1474), which

contain specific regulations about private prayers after compline and
matins,144 and the lengthy provincial statutes for the Saxony province,
composed in 1467 under direction of the provincial vicar Henning
Sehle (and revised under the vicariate of Heinrich Voss in 1494).
These latter provincial constitutions contain detailed guidelines about
novices and novice training,145 exhaustive instructions on the daily
liturgical obligations and the special liturgical activities on particular
feast days,146 as well as rules pertaining to private prayer (the recol-
lectio interna)147 and penitential passion devotion exercises.148
144
‘Item monemus et hortamur tam guardianos quam eorum vicarios, ut dili-
gencius studio private oracionis vacare assuescant, presertim post completorium et
matutinas; post completorium usque ad medium septime; post matutinas ad medium
tertie horarum, nisi quis ex racionabili causa veniret per guardianum excusandus.
Et sic excusati debebunt supplere in die, quod non possunt in predictis temporibus.
Et fratres suos quam verbo tam exemplo ad hoc ipsum inducere studeant et conen-
tur.’ ed. M. Bihl, AFH 7 (1914), 719, no. 13.
145
The chapter De noviciorum receptione tells us for instance that novices (who have
to be 16 years or older, unless they have received a special licence from the provin-
cial vicar) accepted for their year of probation ‘. . . cum summa diligentia instru-
antur, ac in humilitate et sancte orationis studio per magistros ydoneos sibi deputandos,
bene probentur et exerceantur . . .’ Statuta provinciae Saxoniae an. 1467 (1494), ed.
B. Kruitwagen, AFH 3 (1910), 104.
146
The second chapter De divino offitio is exceptionally large and detailed (filling
no less than 10 pages in the current edition) and provide a wealth of information
on the liturgical practices at the convent level. Statuta provinciae Saxoniae an. 1467
(1494), ed. B. Kruitwagen, AFH 3 (1910), 105–114. The detailed character of these
liturgical regulations was connected with the renewed emphasis on liturgical disci-
pline within Observant circles, but it also was connected with the introduction of
new feast days and the more elaborate celebration of already existing ones (cf. the
regulations pertaining to the Annunciation of Mary, the weekly celebrations ‘ad lau-
dem dei genetricis marie’, the feast days for Bernardino da Siena, Francesco d’Assisi
and other Franciscan saints, Corpus Christi, the feast day of Mary Magdalen, the
feasts of Sabina, Felicitas, Eustochium, Agnes, and the eleven thousand virgins).
147
‘Item cum principalis et quasi totalis causa multarum exorbitacionum et
relaxacionum sit defectus sancte orationis private et recollectionis interne, hortamur
et obsecramus in domino, ut fratres in singulis conventibus per eorum superiores
ab exterioribus evagationibus et inutilibus occupationibus cum summo studio retra-
hantur, et ad interiora quantum erit possibile, ut de deo et spiritualibus ac de sui
status sublimissima perfectione in bonitate sentiant, verbis et exemplis diligentissime
reducantur; Ut divino offitio devote et cum multa diligentia persoluto, tempus etiam
aliquod apte captent, in quo spiritum domini et mentem sanctissimi patris nostri
francisci sibi inbibere valeant, cristi unctione et gratia se eis dulcius infundente.’
Statuta provinciae Saxoniae an. 1467 (1494), ed. B. Kruitwagen, AFH 3 (1910), 114.
148
‘Item gwuardiani sint solliciti ad exortandum fratres tam clericos quam lay-
cos ad exercendum opera humilitatis. Item fratres ad memoriam passionis domini
et ad penitentiam studiose inducantur. Quapropter ad minus semel in ebdomada in
die veneris singuli unam disciplinam accipiant secundum dispositionem gwardianorum,
168 chapter two
The same drive at reform was behind the production of statutes

for smaller groups of houses within a province or custody (such as
the provincial and custodial statutes for the Alcantarine, Villacrecian
and Recolección movements, several of which I mentioned in the
paragraph on rule commentaries) and even for individual convents.
The practice of producing specific statutes for smaller groups of con-
vents and individual communities on top of all the regulations exist-
ing at general and provincial levels was not wholly unprecedented.
From the late thirteenth century onwards, it apparently became cus-
tomary to make statutes for the more important study houses within
the Franciscan school network, in order to regulate the behaviour
of the (at times large number of ) students in the studia generalia, and
to align the requirements of the school curriculum with the demands
of the liturgical life. It might well be that this tradition facilitated
the emergence of statutes for other houses.149 Whatever the prece-
dent, in the wake of the Observant reform movements various indi-
vidualised statutes made their appearance. An insightful specimen is
the series of Articuli written by Jean Glapion (at that moment in time
provincial minister of the French Parisian province), for the newly
reformed Observant Franciscan convent of Bruges (1519). These
Articuli contain fifteen specific points or sanctions for transgressions
with regard to the observance of silence, absence from religious ser-
vices, absence from regular confession, unlicensed leave from the
convent, the possession of too many habits and cutlery, the unli-
censed use of money, the lavish treatment of guests, and a range of
related issues.150
quando fieri poterit bono modo. Et fiat ter qualibet septima in quadragesima. Statuta
provinciae Saxoniae an. 1467 (1494), ed. B. Kruitwagen, AFH 3 (1910), 283.
149
Although the existence of such statutes for important studia generalia is hinted
at in fifteenth-century sources, such as the 1466 letter of complaint written by the
provincial minister of the French province Nicolas Guiotelli to minister general
Francesco della Rovere (see Celestino Piana, ‘Silloge di documenti dall’antico archivio
di S. Francesco di Bologna. IV.—Lo Studio di Parigi nella seconda metà del sec.
XV’, AFH 49 (1956), 391–433.), I have not yet been able to find them.
150
Articuli quos ego Frater Ioannes Provincie Francie Parrhisiensis Minister provincialis volo
a Fratribus conventus Brugensis observari, ed. H. Lippens, AFH 44 (1951), 35–37 (no.
16). See also MS Namur, Mus. Arch. 142 ff. 72–73, f. 76. Shortly thereafter, in
June 1521, Jean Glapion was able to have many of the same rules approved for
the new Francia-Parisia province. See: Quicumque ou articles ordonnez par venerable pere
frere Jehan Glapion, Ministre provincial de la Province de France-Parisienne lesquelz furent approu-
vez au Chapitre de Metz, ed. H. Lippens, AFH 44 (1951), 38–40 (no. 18).
D. Rules and regulations for the Poor Clares
Thus far I have only spoken about the rules, commentaries and
statutes for the ‘First’ order, that is the male branch of the Franciscan
order. A history in itself is the succession of the rules written for the
so-called ‘Second’ and ‘Third’ orders: the Poor Clares and the
Tertiaries.
It is now clear that the history of the Poor Clares cannot be seen
as a side-affair in the history of the Friars Minor. The development
of the Franciscan sisters had a dynamic of its own, and should also
be considered in the light of the many other female religious and
semi-religious movements springing up in the later twelfth and early
thirteenth centuries.151
Traditionally, the history of the Poor Clares started around Palm
Sunday 1212, when Chiara d’Assisi (1193–1253) joined Francesco
and his companions at the Portiuncola. There are still many gaps
in our historical knowledge about Chiara’s whereabouts and activi-
ties in the period directly thereafter. She dwelt for some time in the
Benedictine monastery of San Paolo delle Badesse, where she would
have worked as a servitialis (lay servant) for the community (as Francesco
had done during his short sojourn at the Valfabbrica or San Verecondo
monastery in 1207). Following this, Chiara was temporarily associ-
ated with the female penitents of Sant’Angelo di Panzo, before she
and some of her first followers formed their own community at San
Damiano. There, as well as in some other hospices in the Assisi
region where groups of poor Sisters were active alongside of male
Franciscan communities, Chiara and her followers initially were able
to develop their own interpretation of the Franciscan evangelical life,
apparently living from the works of their hands.152
151
For a first introduction, see A. Benvenuti Papi, ‘La fortuna del movimento
damianita in Italia (sec. XIII). Propositi per un censimento da fare’, in: Chiara di
Assisi, Atti. SISF. XX (1992) (Spoleto, 1993), 63–64; Roberto Rusconi, ‘L’espansione
del Francescanesimo femminile nel XIII secolo’, in: Movimento religioso femminile e
Francescanesimo nel secolo XIII, Atti SISF VII (1979) (Assisi, 1980), 265–313; C. Gennaro,
‘Chiara, Agnese e le prime consorelle: dalle pauperes dominae di San Damiano alle
Clarisse’, in: Movimento religioso femminile e Francescanesimo nel secolo XIII, Atti SISF VII
(1979) (Assisi, 1980), 168–191; André Vauchez, ‘Claire et les mouvements religieux
féminins de son temps’, in: Sainte Claire d’Assise et sa postérité, Actes du Colloque inter-
national organisé à l’occasion du VIIIe Centenaire de la naissance de sainte Claire,
U.N.E.S.C.O. (29 septembre-1er octobre 1994) (Nantes-Paris, 1995), 13–28.
152
Cf. the testimony of Jacques de Vitry, in Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 1 (a. 1216),
ed. R.B.C. Huygens (Leiden, 1960), 75–76.
170 chapter two
The lifestyle of Chiara d’Assisi and her group of followers received

its first formalisation when Francesco d’Assisi drafted for them a
Forma Vivendi (ca. 1215). The surviving fragments of this text (namely
the part that eventually was incorporated into Chiara’s rule of 1253)
exhibit a special emphasis on evangelical poverty and stress the spe-
cial relation with the male Franciscan movement.153
Until 1219 and possibly even beyond, the San Damiano com-
munity and neighbouring foundations initiated or influenced by Chiara
and her followers may have lived a minorite life, as described by
Jacques de Vitry. Although the sisters were constrained in matters
of mobility and mendicancy, they could consider themselves as belong-
ing to the same fraternitas as the Friars Minor, guided by the same
evangelical precepts and inspired by Francesco d’Assisi’s Forma Vivendi.154
With a growing number of female religious communities in the
Italian peninsula (both those communities resulting from the initiatives
of Chiara d’Assisi and other penitentiary communities that developed
independently), there was ecclesiastical concern to ensure their proper
enclosure. It seemed necessary to draft a rule for all such female
communities in general; a rule to express the fact that the sisters in
these communities were not living a mere penitential life in the world,
nor a purely apostolic life, but adhered to a regulated monastic life
with stabilitas loci, albeit inspired by the new evangelical ideals of
poverty and humility.
In line with decisions taken at the Fourth Lateran Council and
commensurate with established categories of canon law, the papal
legate Ugolino (the later pope Gregory IX), therefore wrote in 1218/
19 a new Forma Vitae for several such communities of evangelically
inspired poor sisters that eschewed traditional monasticism. This
guideline was supposed to function as a complementary document
to the monastic requirements listed in the rule of Benedict—the par-
153
Francesco d’Assisi, Forma Vivendi S. Chiarae Data, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser
(Grottaferrata, 1978), 162–163. Cf. M. Bartoli, Claire d’Assise (Paris, 1993), 85–103.
154
Maria Pia Alberzoni, ‘San Damiano nel 1228. Contributo alla ‘Questione
Clariana’, CF 67 (1997), 464: ‘Se fino al 1219 Chiara e le sue compagne a San
Damiano condussero una vita “minoritica”, indubbiamente caratterizzata da una
maggiore stabilità rispetto a quella dei frati, ma considerandosi parte della medis-
ima fraternitas, è fondatamente ipotizzabile che Chiara non avesse avuto alcuna neces-
sità di rivolgersi autonomamente alla curia romana per ottenere un privilegio, giacché
per lei vigeva il medisimo statuto dei frati Minori . . .’
adigmatic ‘master-rule’ for the regulated monastic life155—with addi-

tional articles that exempted these female religious from episcopal
jurisdiction, and that put special emphasis on enclosure, the main-
tenance of silence, fasting and bodily mortification. It is unclear as
to whether Ugolino from the outset wanted to apply his Forma Vitae
to the San Damiano community (which, after all, already had Francesco
d’Assisi’s Forma Vivendi). Yet the evidence recently provided by Simon
Tugwell does point in this direction.156
155
Hence, Ugolino’s choice to base his Forma Vitae on the rule of Benedict did
not turn these female religious into Benedictines. Already in the twelfth century,
penitential communities in convents (such as penitents at Fontevrault, Paris and
Rome) had adopted the monastic requirements listed in the rule of Benedict, ‘. . . sans
prétendre à l’état juridique des moniales bénédictines . . .’ Meersseman, Dossier de
l’ordre de la pénitence au XIII e siècle, 5. At Lateran IV it was made clear that new
orders had to adhere to one of the four approved religiones: the eremitical religion
(for which the Basilian rule provided the prototype), the monastic religion (for which
the rule of Benedict formed the prototype), the canonical religion (for which the rule
of Augustine formed the prototype), and the religio apostolica (exemplified in the rule
of Francesco d’Assisi as approved by Innocent III in 1209 and finalised in the Regula
Bullata of 1223). As the Poor Sisters following Chiara d’Assisi and comparable groups
were to live a cloistered life, the rule of Benedict was to be their master rule. Yet
this allowed for additional rules ( formae vitae) and constitutions to acknowledge and
give shape to the apostolic character of the spirituality within these evangelically
inspired groups and their adherence to the precepts of poverty and humility. There
are, in fact, striking parallels with the constitutional development of the Dominican
order. For a detailed discussion of these issues, see Andrea Boni, ‘La legislazione
Clariana nel contesto giuridico delle sue origini e della sua evoluzione’, Antonianum
70 (1995), 47–98, who also concludes (82): ‘La Regola Ugoliniana, nella sua struttura,
si presenta come una severa regola monastica. In questa Regola alle monache Clarisse
non viene imposta l’osservanza della Regola di S. Benedetto, ma viene imposta ad esse
la professione della istituzione di religione monastica, istituzionalizzata dalla Regola di
S. Benedetto.’ Also, on p. 97: ‘La Regola Benedettina è la Regola istituzionale della isti-
tuzione di religione monastica e non è di appartenza esclusivistica di nessuno (Ordine
di S. Benedetto). Questa Regola appartiene, come Regola strutturale, a tutto il mondo
monastico.’
156
Ugolino’s construct was approved by Honorius III in 1219, and saw at least
four succesive redactions: in 1218/19, 1228, 1238, and 1245. Until recently, it was
thought that the 1218/19 redaction had not survived. Yet new light on this is being
shed by Simon Tugwell, ‘The Original Text of the Regula Hugolini (1219)’, AFH 93
(2000), 511–514 (adressed at the San Damiano community and a number of other
convents). The text of later redactions can for instance be found in Bullarium
Franciscanum I (Rome, 1759), 394–399 (the version inserted in the bull Solet Annuere
of Innocent IV, 13 November 1245); Diplomata Pontificia saec. XII et XIII, ex archivis
potissimum Tyrolensibus, ed. H. Grisar (Innsbruck, 1880), 30–38 (the version of May
1238 sent to Agnes of Bohemia); I. Vázquez, ‘La “Forma vitae” Hugoliniana para
las Clarisas en una bula desconocida del 1245’, Antonianum 52 (1977), 95–125 (a
redaction of August 1245, sent to the Poor Clares convent of Salamanca); Escritos
de Santa Chiara y Documentos complementarios, ed. I. Omaechevarría (Madrid, 19822),
206–232 (pp. 217–232 in the third edition of 1993. Omaechevarría presents the
172 chapter two
Ugolino took the chance to visit the San Damiano community

during Francesco’s travels in the Middle East, and at that point in
time might have pressured Chiara to turn her own community at
San Damiano into a proper monastery, with herself as its abbess
responsible for the spiritual and bodily welfare of her sisters. However,
it would seem that Chiara was not so easily convinced to adopt the
Forma Vitae Ugolino wholesale, as she was keen to maintain the
Franciscan character of her chosen way of life.
In this context should probably be situated the famous papal
Privilegium Paupertatis addressed at the sisters of San Damiano. According
to a venerable scholarly tradition, this privilege dates back to 1216.
Yet it seems likely that the document as we have it had its origin
in 1228, and was issued under the pontificate of Gregory IX (the
former cardinal Ugolino), whether or not building on an already
existing oral papal aquiescence to Chiara’s way of life.157 In his new
redaction of 1228 sent to the sisters of Pamplona); Sainte Claire d’Assise, Documents,
écrits, procès et bulle de canonisation, textes de chroniques, textes legislatifs et tables, ed. & trans.
D. Vorreux (Paris, 1983), 289–300. The ‘Rule’ of Ugolino does not emphasise evan-
gelical poverty. Nor does it acknowledge the special family relationship with the
Friars Minor.
157
This would have made the Privilegium Paupertatis the oldest written pontifical
document in Franciscan history throughout. For a long time, no early manuscripts
were known of this privilege. It could be found in the Firmamenta Trium Ordinum
(Paris, 1512) Part V, f. 5r. This lead to doubts about its authenticity, although it
was repeatedly edited in opera omnia collections and collections of legal texts, such
as the Seraphicae Legislationis Textus Originales (Quaracchi, 1897), 97–98. For a time,
most doubts about the Privilegium were put aside by the studies of Lazzeri, Sabatier
and Grau: Z. Lazzeri, ‘Il “Privilegium paupertatis” concesso da Innocenzo III e
che cosa fosse in origine’, AFH 11 (1918), 270–276; Paul Sabatier, ‘Le Privilège de
la pauvreté’, RHF 1 (1924), 1–54; Engelbert Grau, ‘Das Privilegium paupertatis
Innocenz III’, FrSt 21 (1949), 337–349; Idem, ‘Das Privilegium paupertatis der hl.
Klara. Geschichte und Bedeutung’, W&W 38 (1975), 17–25). Renewed doubts about
the authenticity of the 1216 issue of the Privilegium Paupertatis were voiced by Werner
Malaczek, ‘Das “Privilegium Paupertatis” Innocenz III. und das Testament der
Klara von assisi. Überlegungen zur Frage ihrer Echtheit’, CF 65 (1995), 5–85. This
study also appeared separately as Das ‘Privilegium Paupertatis’ Innocenz III. und das
Testament der Klara von Assisi. Überlegungen zur Frage ihrer Echtheit, Bibliotheca seraph-
ico-capuccina 47 (Rome, 1995), and in an Italian translation: Chiara d’Assisi. La ques-
tione dell’authenticità del privilegium paupertatis e del Testamento, Aleph 4 (Milan, 1996).
Although his representation found a first rebuttal in Niklaus Kuster, ‘Das Armutsprivileg
Innozentz’ III. und Klaras Testament: Echt oder raffinierte Fälschungen?’, CF 66
(1996), 5–95, it would seem that present-day Italian scholarship tends to agree with
the main gist of Malaczek’s argument, which denies the authenticity of the 1216
document, and provides the 1228 document of Gregory IX with a convincing his-
torical context. See on this also Maria Pia Alberzoni, ‘San Damiano nel 1228.
Contributo alla “Questione Clariana”’, CF 67 (1997), 459–475.
position, and as the main authority figure on matters pertaining to

the regulated life of the Franciscan order and its associated female
communities now that Francesco d’Assisi had passed away, Gregory
IX found less opposition to push through his objective of unifying
and transforming the various female penitential groups in Italy into
properly cloistered religious communities. As Gregory wanted to
include charismatic communities such as that of San Damiano, he
had to reconcile Chiara with this uniformation, which in fact would
transform the various penitential groups of poor sisters (both those
that had come into being under the inspiration of Francesco and
Chiara d’Assisi and those that had developed independently), into a
distinct Ordo Sancti Damiani158 under direct jurisdiction of the curia,
officially separate from the order of Friars Minor, albeit under their
spiritual guidance.
The privilege accorded to Chiara ensured that she and her sisters
at San Damiano, who now would follow the monastic life with the
vows of obedience, poverty and chastity in accordance with Ugolino’
Forma Vitae and the accompanying master rule of Benedict, could
continue their ‘Minorite’ practice of evangelical poverty without pos-
sessions, relegating the ownership of the convent and all the move-
able and immovable goods to the Church (the Patrimonium S. Petri )
and the jurisdiction over the convent church to the apostolic see.
The Forma Vitae of Ugolino did allow for additional costumes and
practices. This soon lead to differences in lifestyle among the female
communities. This was exacerbated by the fact that many new monas-
teries of the order of San Damiano were not allowed to adopt
Chiara’s own austere form of evangelical poverty backed up by the
papal Privilegium Paupertatis of 1228.159 As a papal privilege granted
to San Damiano, the Privilegium Paupertatis was in principle only valid
158
‘Conformemente alla tradizione monastica, l’Ordine che si ispira all’esperienza
monastica di S. Chiara prende il nome dal monastero che è alle origini di questo
stesso Ordine. Scrivendo alla badessa e alle monache del monastero di San Damiano
in Assisi i Sommi Pontefici si esprimo in questi termini: “Dilectis in Christo Filiabus
universis Abatissis, et Monialibus inclusis Ordinis Sancti Damiani.’’ Boni, ‘La legislazione
Clariana nel contesto giuridico’, 80–81.
159
For the text, see Escritos de Santa Chiara y Documentos complementarios, ed.
I. Omaechevarría (Madrid, 19822), 231–232, and Firmamenta trium Ordinum beatisimi
patris nostri Francisci (Paris, 1512) V. This privilege was repeatedly reconfirmed. Cf.
also Sicut Manifestum Est, in: Bullarium Franciscanum I, 771, Cum Omnis Vera Religio of
May 1239 (Gregory IX), in: Bullarium Franciscanum I, 263–267 and Solet Annuere
(November 1245, by Innocent IV), in: Bullarium Franciscanum I, 394–399.
174 chapter two
for this community, and for a select group of convents to which the
privilege in the course of time was granted on an individual basis.160
Thanks to this papal privilege, and to her ability to exploit the admo-
nitions written for her by Francesco d’Assisi (such as the Canto di
esortazione),161 Chiara was able to develop her own evangelical lifestyle
within the walls of San Damiano. Yet she was not able to extend
this lifestyle to all new Damianite monasteries.
To appease Damianite communities that wanted a more positive
Franciscan tinge to their monastic regulare propositum, Pope Innocent
IV issued on 6 August 1247 a new rule for the Damianites. This
rule maintained the cloistered quality of the Damianite communities
in accordance with the requirements of a monastic religio, but openly
acknowledged the Franciscan inspiration of their chosen way of life,
by allowing the sisters to adhere to the Franciscan rule in matters
of obedience, poverty and perpetual chastity (quantum ad tria tantum,
videlicet, obedientiam, abdicationem proprii in speciali et perpetuam castitatem).162
As this rule did not integrate the Privilegium Paupertatis, and in prin-
ciple was valid for all Damianite communities, Chiara d’Assisi took
the initiative to develop a rule of her own, with recourse to Francesco
d’Assisi’s rudimentary Forma Vivendi from 1215, the Franciscan Regula
Bullata, the 1219 Forma Vitae of Ugolino, and the 1247 rule of Innocent
IV: combining all these with her own spiritual wishes.163 In her own
160
Other communities of Poor Sisters/Damianites that in the course of time
received this privilege were the convent of Monticelli (lead by Agnes d’Assisi), the
convent of Prague (lead by Agnes of Prague), and the convent of Queen Sancia di
Napoli. When Agnes of Prague expressed the wish to follow Chiara’s original exam-
ple and establish her own convent of Poor Sisters on the basis of Francesco d’Assisi’s
Forma Vivendi, pope Gregory IX was adamant that Agnes accepted his own rule of
1219, which he sent to her with a few modifications. Gregory argued that the orig-
inal Forma Vitae of Francesco was but milk for babies and that established com-
munities like hers should sustain themselves with solid food. Eventually, only Chiara’s
intervention induced the pope to grant Agnes a Privilegium Paupertatis akin to that
granted to the Poor Sisters of San Damiano. Alfonso Marini, ‘“Ancilla Christi, plan-
tula sancti Francisci”. Gli scritti di santa Chiara e la Regola’, in: Chiara d’Assisi, Atti
del XX Convegno internazionale Assisi, 15–17 ottobre 1992 (Spoleto, 1993), 127–145,
119. See also the letter Angelis Gaudium (11 May 1238) and Pia Credulitate Tenentes
(15 April 1238), of Gregory IX, in: Bullarium Franciscanum I, 242–245 (no. 264) &
Bullarium Franciscanum I, 236–237 (no. 255).
161
G. Boccali, ‘Canto di esortazione di san Francesco per le poverelle di San
Damiano’, CF 48 (1978), 5–29; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes 285
(Paris, 1981), 346–347.
162
The bull Cum Omnis Vera Religio, in: Bullarium Franciscanum I, 476–483. The
Regula Innocenziana can also be found in Escritos de Santa Chiara y Documentos comple-
mentarios, ed. I. Omaechevarría (Madrid, 19822), 237–259.
163
Chiara’s Regula, or rather her Forma Professionis/Forma Vitae/Forma Paupertatis
rule, Chiara showed keen insight into what was acceptable in the
eyes of male authority. She also provided an answer to contemporary
attempts of the Friars Minor to get rid of many of their traditional
obligations towards the Damianites: by overtly binding her commu-
nity into the Franciscan family, where she thought the Damianites
belonged.164
Chiara was careful to present her Forma Vitae/Forma Professionis as
the full-blown expression of the Forma Vivendi handed down by
Francesco d’Assisi.165 To strengthen this representation, Chiara inserted
in the middle of her text the words of the Forma Vivendi given to her
(compiled between 1247 and 1252, and officially approved in November 1253) can
be found in the Opera Omnia editions of Chiara’s writings mentioned above. I make
use of Claire d’Assise, Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-
France Becker, Jean-François Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes, 325
(Paris, 1985) 120–165. Chiara’s Forma Vitae of 1253 also has been edited in old and
new collections of Franciscan legislative texts, such as the Seraphicae Legislationis Textus
Originales (Quaracchi, 1897), 49–76 (with the text of the bull of approval on 2–3);
Regulae et Constitutione Generales Monialium Ordinis S. Chiarae (Rome, 1973). Cf. also
E. Grau, ‘Die papstliche Bestätigung der Regel der hl. Klara (1253)’, FrSt 35 (1953),
317–323. For an analysis of Chiara’s proposed form of life, see: Jean-François Godet,
‘Il progetto evangelico di Chiara oggi’, Vita Minorum 3 (1985), 198–301. This arti-
cle was translated as: ‘A new look at Clare’s Gospel Plan of Life’, Greyfriars Review
5 (1991), Supplement.
164
‘Visitator noster sit semper de Ordine Fratrum Minorum (. . .) Capellanum
etiam cum uno socio clerico bonae famae, discretionis providae, et duos fratres
laicos sanctae conversationis et honestatis amatores in subsidium paupertatis nos-
trae, sicut misericorditer a praedicto Ordine Fratrum Minorum semper habuimus,
intuitu pietatis Dei et beati Francici, ab eodem Ordine de gratia postulamus.’ Regula,
Chapter XII. In the 1250s and 1260s, the Friars Minor showed ample signs that
they wanted to be rid of all obligations connected with the ‘cura monialium’, aside
from the voluntary task of providing spiritual guidance. For several decades, the
friars got away with this, until, in 1296, the Pope made the Friars Minor again
responsible for all aspects of the ‘cura monialium,’ and placed the nuns officially
under the jurisdiction of the cardinal protector of the Franciscan order. See Alfonso
Marini, ‘Ancila Christi, plantula sancti Francisci’. Gli scritti di Santa Chiara e la
Regola’, in: Chiara di Assisi, Atti del XX Convegno internazionale Assisi, 15–17 otto-
bre 1992 (Spoleto, 1993), 109–156, 118–119.
165
Hence, the rule properly speaking starts as follows: ‘Forma vitae Ordinis
Sororum Pauperum, quam beatus Franciscus instituit, Haec est: Domini Jesu Christi
sanctum Evangelium observare, vivendo in obedientia, sine prioprio et in castitate.
Chiara, indigna ancilla Christi et plantula beatissimi patris Francisci, promittit obe-
dientiam et reverentiam Dominae Papae Innocentio et successoribus eius canonice
intrantibus et ecclesiae romanae. Et sicut in principio conversionis suae una cum
sororibus suis promisit obedientiam beato Francisco, ita eamdem promittit inviola-
biliter servare successoribus suis. Et aliae sorores teneantur semper successoribus
beati Francisci et sorori Chiarae et aliis abbatissis canonice electis ei succedentibus
obedire.’ Claire d’Assise, Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-
France Becker, Jean-François Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes 325
(Paris, 1985), 124.
176 chapter two
by Francesco, and made sure to include in her rule many elements

from the Franciscan Regula Bullata.166 At the same time, she was care-
ful not to transgress the boundaries set by Lateran IV, by leaving
intact the monastic elements of her chosen way of life, with recourse
to the essential monastic commands of the Benedictine rule.167
The twelve chapters in which Chiara’s rule or Forma Vitae has
come down to us, and which to a large extent mirror the chapters
of the Franciscan Regula Bullata,168 provide a good insight in the pro-
ject of evangelical life put into practice in Chiara’s own community
of Poor Sisters, even more so as they probably reflect actual reli-
gious experience as it had evolved at San Damiano in the decades
before 1253.169
166
For Francesco’s Forma Vivendi, see Forma Vivendi S. Chiarae Datae, in: Opuscula,
ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 162–163; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources
Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 214–215. On the relationship between Francesco’s
Forma Vivendi and Chiara’s rule of 1253, see the remarks of Marini, ‘‘Ancilla Christi,
plantula sancti Francisci’’, 12: ‘I dodici capitoli della “regola” di santa Chiara altro
non sono che l’ampliamento giuridico e pratico di quello breve “forma vitae” data
da Francesco attorno al 1215.’ For the presence of the Regula Bullata in Chiara’s
Forma vitae, see: Ch. Lainati, ‘La Regola Francescana e il II° Ordine’, Vita Minorum
44 (1973), 227–249; E. Grau, ‘Die Regel der hl. Klara (1253) in ihrer Abhängigkeit
von der Regel der Minderbrüder (1223)’, FrSt 35 (1953), 211–273.
167
Cf. Catherine Savey, ‘Les autorités de Claire’, in: Sainte Claire d’Assise et sa
postérité (Nantes-Paris, 1995), 61–86; V. Henri de Sainte Marie, ‘Présence de la Règle
Bénédictine dans la Règle de sainte Claire’, AFH 82 (1989), 3–20.
168
The original version of Chiara’s Forma Vitae apparently did not have a chap-
ter division. However, soon it was divided into twelve chapters, in analogy with the
Regula Bullata by Francesco d’Assisi, and symbolising the apostolic character of the
sisters’ chosen way of life.
169
Of particular interest for an insight into the daily religious life of the Poor
Sisters of San Damiano are the chapters three (De divino officio et ieiunio, de confessione
et communione), five (De silentio ac de locutorio et crate), six (De non habendis possessionibus),
seven (De modo laborandi), eight (Quod nihil approprient sibi sorores, et de eleemosyna procu-
randa et de sororibus infirmis), nine (De poenitentia sororibus peccantibus imponenda et de sororibus
servientibus extra monasterium), ten (De admonitione et correctione sororum), eleven (De clausurae
custodia), and twelve (De visitatore, capellano et cardinali protectore), sketching an enclosed
life in silence and penitence, with ongong fasting practises throughout the liturgical
year, and a strict adherence to the liturgical order of the day. For more information
on the daily religious life of the San Damiano community in relation to the 1253
Forma Vitae, see L. Bracaloni, ‘Il primo rituale francescano nel breviario di S. Chiara’,
AFH 16 (1923), 71–88; Z. Lazzeri, ‘L’orazione delle cinque piaghe recitata da
S. Chiara’, AFH 16 (1923), 246–249; A. van Dijk, ‘The breviary of Saint Chiara’,
FS 8 (1948), 25–46, 351–387; Z. Lazzeri, ‘La forma vitae di s. Chiara’, in: S. Chiara
d’Assisi, Studi e cronaca del VII centenario (1253–1953) (Assisi, 1954), 79–121; L. Iriarte,
Letra y espíritu de la Regla de Santa Chiara (Valencia, 1975); J. Garrido, La forma de
vida de Santa Chiara (Aranzazu, 1979); Marco Bartoli, ‘La pedagogia di santa Chiara’,
Forma Sororum 35 (1998), 322–335 & 36 (1999), 47–57 (an English version of this
Like Francesco d’Assisi, Chiara allegedly left behind a Testamentum,

retracing the origins of her life and her motivations, and speaking
of herself, Francesco, her sisters, her life in absolute poverty, and
the special relation with the Friars Minor.170 This Testamentum would
have been Chiara’s final statement. First of all, it indicates that the
Poor Sisters had established themselves at San Damiano, by the will
of God and of ‘our father Francesco’. Second, it expresses that
Francesco himself not only had provided the sisters with a Forma
Vivendi, but also with sermons, examples and written exhortations, to
ensure that the sisters would persevere and would never swerve from
their path of holy poverty.171 Thirdly, this Testamentum once again
commands Friars Minor to keep up their spiritual care of the Poor
Sisters/Damianites, and beseeches the sisters to maintain a life of
holy simplicity and poverty, and to aspire to the honestatem sanctae
article appeared in Greyfriars Review 14 (2000), 111–132); Chiara Agnese Acquadro,

‘“Saepe enim Dominus quod melius est minori revelat” (Regula s. Chiarae IV,18): un
errore di lettura ormai vecchio di cinque secoli’, CF 71,3–4 (2001), 521–576.
170
For a long time no manuscript of the text could be found. This fuelled doubt
about the Testamentum’s authenticity. Several scholars maintained that it was a later
medieval forgery. In the course of the twentieth century, however, several medieval
manuscripts were discovered that contain the Testamentum (in the vernacular and in
Latin), and studies appeared that argued for the authenticity of the text. See on
these discussions Ch.A. Lainati, ‘Testamento di S. Chiara’, in: Dizionario Francescano
(Padua, 1984) col. 1827–1846; Claire d’Assise, Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction,
notes et index, ed. Marie-France Becker, Jean-François Godet, Thaddée Matura,
Sources Chrétiennes, 325 (Paris, 1985), 22–27. This Sources Chrétiennes volume
also presents the manuscripts, a new stemma, and a new edition of the Testamentum
(pp. 166–185). Older editions of the Testamentum can be found in several Opera Omnia
collections, in collections of Franciscan legislative texts (such as the Seraphicae Legislationis
Textus Originales (Quaracchi, 1897), 273–280), and (the oldest edition of of all) in
Lucas Wadding, Annales Minorum (Quaracchi, 1931) III, 340–343. Recently, the dis-
cussion on the authenticity of the Testamentum (as well as the authenticity of the
Privilegium Paupertatis) has flared up again, thanks to the study of Malaczek, ‘Das
“Privilegium Paupertatis” Innocenz III.’, 5–85.
171
‘Et sic de voluntate Dei et beatissimi patris nostri Francisci ivimus ad eccle-
siam Sancti Damiani moraturae, ubi Dominus in brevi tempore per misericordiam
suam et gratiam nos multiplicavit, ut impleretur quod Dominus praedixerat per
sanctum suum. Nam antea steteramus in loco alio, licet parum. Postea scripsit nobis
formam vivendi et maxime ut in sancta paupertate semper perseveraremus. Nec
fuit contentus in vita sua nos hortari multis sermonibus et exemplis ad amorem
sanctissimae paupertatis et observantiam eiusdem, sed plura scripta nobis tradidit,
ne post mortem suam ullatenus declinaremus ab ipsa, sicut et Dei filius, dum vixit
in mundo, ab ipsa sancta paupertate numquam voluit declinare.’ Claire d’Assise,
Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-France Becker, Jean-
François Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes, 325 (Paris, 1985), 172. Cf.
also Marini, ‘‘Ancilla Christi, plantula sancti Francisci’’, 145ff.
178 chapter two
conversationis, in accordance with the teachings of Christ and Francesco

d’Assisi.172 If genuine, the Testamentum may be seen as Chiara’s last
attempt at safeguarding her chosen way of life. However, a grow-
ing number of modern scholars maintain that the work is a fifteenth-
century forgery, made within the circle of Observant Poor Clares
from Perugia (in the Monteripido and Monteluce convents).173
Whatever the status we attach to the Testamentum, some months
before her death Chiara was to some extent vindicated in her endeav-
ours, thanks to Innocent IV’s approval of her rule (9 August 1253,
almost a year after the approval of her rule by the Damianites’ car-
dinal protector).174 Initially, Chiara’s Forma Vitae was only approved
for the San Damiano monastery. In the course of time, a few other
convents of Poor Sisters succeeded in adopting Chiara’s Forma Vitae,
such as the convent of Agnes of Prague. Nevertheless, this rule was
not binding for all the other communities of Damianites or Poor
Sisters, most of which continued to adhere either to the Formae Vitae
of Ugolino or to that of Innocent IV, some with and some without
the Privilegium Paupertatis.175
172
‘Et sicut Dominus dedit nobis beatissimum patrem nostrum Franciscum in
fundatorem, plantatorem et adiutorem nostrum in servitio Christi et in his quae
Domino et beato patri nostro promisimus, qui etiam dum vixit sollicitus fuit verbo
et opere semper excolere et fovere nos, plantulam suam, sic recommendo et relin-
quo sorores meas, quae sunt et quae venturae sunt, successori beatissimi patris nos-
tri Francisci et toti religioni, ut sint nobis in adiutorum proficiendi semper in melius
ad serviendum Deo et observandam praecipue melius sanctissimam paupertatem.
(. . .) Moneo et exhortor in Domino Jesu Christo omnes sorores meas, quae sunt
et quae venturae sunt, ut semper studeant imitari viam sanctae simplicitatis, humil-
itatis, paupertatis ac etiam honestam sanctae conversationis, sicut ab initio nostrae
conversionis a Christo edoctae sumus et a beatissimo patre nostro beato Francisco.’
Claire d’Assise, Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-France
Becker, Jean-François Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes, 325 (Paris,
1985), 178–180. For a more in-dept study of the Testamentum, see also S. Lopez,
‘Lectura teologica del Testamento de Santa Chiara’, Selecciones de Franciscanismo 11
(1982), 299–312.
173
These scholars seem to support the arguments of Maleczek. See especially
Alberzoni, ‘San Damiano nel 1228’, esp. 462–463.
174
L. Oliger, ‘De origine regularum ordinis sanctae Chiarae’, AFH 5 (1912),
181–209, 413–447; Aidan McGraith, ‘Between charism and institution: The approval
of the rule of Saint Clare in 1253’, Évangile aujourd’hui. Revue de spiritualité franciscaine
185 (2000), 177–202.
175
As can be seen in the official letters of Innocent IV and cardinal Raynaldus
that approve of the rule: ‘Ex parte siquidem vestra nobis exstitit humiliter suppli-
catum, ut cum vitae formulam, iuxta quam communiter in spirituum unite ac voto
altissimae paupertatis vivere debetis, vobis a beato Francisco traditam et a vobis
sponte susceptam . . .’; ‘Eapropter vestris piis precibus inclinati, formam vitae et
Matters became even more complicated in 1259. In that year the

Poor Sister Isabelle de France (sister of King Louis IX), who appar-
ently did not want to follow the 1247 rule of Innocent IV and might
not have known Chiara’s Forma Vitae of 1253, obtained approval
from pope Alexander IV for a new rule (aliquam certam Regulam seu
vivendi regulariter formulam specialem), to guide her own Longchamp com-
munity of Poor Sisters, the so-called Sisters of the Order of Humble
Maidens of the Glorious and Blessed Virgin Mary (Sorores Ordinis
Humilium Ancillarum Beatissimae Mariae Virginis Gloriosae).176 The accep-
tance of this rule (which soon became known as the Regula beatae
Isabellae Franciae) alongside of Ugolino’s Forma Vitae, the Regula Innocentiana
of 1247 and the 1253 Forma Vitae of Chiara, created substantial leg-
islative uncertainty.
An attempt at streamlining the legislations for the various communi-
ties of Poor Sisters was made in 1263, under pope Urban IV. Unable
or unwilling to dispense with the juridical autonomy of the communi-
ties initiated by Isabelle de France, Urban re-issued in July 1263 a
modified version of Isabelle’s rule, which now became known as the
Regula Sororum Minorum Inclusarum,177 indicating that the communities
modum sanctae unitatis et altissimae paupertatis quam vobis beatus pater vester sanc-
tus Franciscus verbo et scripto tradidit observandam . . .’ Claire d’Assise, Écrits.
Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-France Becker, Jean-François
Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes 325 (Paris, 1985), 120–123. It is
important to note that the 1247 rule of Innocent IV did not make the 1218/19
Forma Vitae of Ugolino obsolete. As late as 1257 and 1258, the Poor Clares of
Salamanca and Mayorca received papal bulls from Alexander IV, stating that
‘. . . ordo monasticus, qui secundum Deum et beati Benedicti Regulam atque insti-
tutionem Monialium inclusarum sancti Damiani Assisinatis et Formulam vitae ves-
trae a felicis recordationis Gregorio papa praedecessore nostro Ordini vestro traditam,
cum adhuc esset in minori officio constitutus, in eodem loco institutus esse dignos-
citur, perpetuis ibidem temporibus inviolabiliter observetur.’ Cited from Isaac Vázquez,
‘La “Forma vitae” Hugoliniana para las Clarisas en una bula desconocida de 1245’,
Antonianum 52 (1977), 113–114. Cf. also Oliger, ‘De origine regularum ordinis
S. Clarae’, esp. 426–427.
176
The bull Sol Ille Verus, February 1259, Bullarium Franciscanum III, 64–68. In
order to validate this new Formula Specialis, the pope gave Isabelle special dispensa-
tion from the prohibitions of Lateran IV. This makes clear that Isabelle’s rule was
more than just a Forma Vitae subservient to another general rule. Cf. Boni, ‘La leg-
islazione clariana’, 86. The rule was produced at the request of Isabelle herself,
with counsel taken from Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio (then minister general),
Guillaume de Meliton, Eudes de Rosny (the confessor of the princess), Geoffrey de
Vierzon and Guillaume d’Harcombourg (then provincial minister of the French
province).
177
The papal bull Religionis Augmentum of 27 July 1263, to be found in: Bullarium
180 chapter two
following this rule were Franciscan nuns.178 Parallel with his revision
of this rule, pope Urban IV also composed a new Regula Ordinis S.
Chiarae (soon to be known as the Regula Urbaniana) for the other com-
munities of Poor Sisters/Damianites, which now officially were united
in the Order of Poor Clares.179
The rule of Urban IV reasserted the monastic regulare propositum
of the sisters along the lines of the rule of Ugolino (with its foun-
dations in the Benedictine religio monastica). At the same time it
acknowledged the Franciscan inspiration of the religious life of the
Poor Clares (almi Cristi confessoris beati Francisci exemplis laudabilibus infor-
mata, ac salutaribus instituta doctrinis), and left room for additional Formae
Vitae and constitutions (such as the Privilegium Paupertatis). It soon
became the standard rule for many convents of Poor Clares, with
as notable exceptions the convent of Isabelle (which maintained its
own rule), and the communities of Prague (the convent established
by Agnes) and Assisi, which shortly after the death of Chiara had
moved from San Damiano to the new Santa Chiara monastery.180
In this new abode, to which the body of Chiara d’Assisi had been
transferred on 3 October 1260, the nuns received from pope Clement
IV in 1266 a confirmation of the 1253 Forma Vitae (subsequently
known as the Regula Prima, as opposed to the rule of Urban IV,
which became known as the Regula Secunda).181 Furthermore, in 1278
pope Nicholas III confirmed to this community all privileges con-
ferred by his predecessors, including the Privilegium Paupertatis.182
Franciscanum, II, 477–486, no. 77. The rule can also be found in: L. Wadding,
Annales Minorum (Quaracchi, 1931) IV, 573–582.
178
This rule did not have a very large diffusion. It was adopted by several French
houses of Poor Clares, especially by those with links to French royalty.
179
The bull Beata Chiara, 18 October 1263, Bullarium Franciscanum II, 509–521.
180
For more information on the history of these various rules for the Poor Clares,
see Oliger, ‘De Origine Regularum Ordinis S. Chiarae’, 181–209, 413–447;
Omaechevarría, ‘La “Regla” y las Reglas de la Orden de Santa Chiara’, 93–119;
Omaechevarría, Las Clarisas a travès de los siglos, passim; P. Anft, ‘An Overturned
Victory: Clare of Assisi and the Thirteenth Century Church’, Journal of Medieval
Studies 17 (1991), 23–134; Marco Bartoli, ‘Francescanesimo e mondo femminile nel
XIII secolo’, in: Francesco, il Francescanesimo a la cultura della nuova Europa, ed. I. Baldelli
& A.M. Romanini (Florence, 1986), 167–180. This latter article places the devel-
opments within the Order of Poor Clares in a wider context of female religiosity
during the thirteenth century.
181
In the papal bull Solet Annuere, 3 December 1266, Bullarium Franciscanum III,
107 (no. 116); Cf. P. Robinson, ‘Inventarium omnium documentorum que in archivo
protomonasterio S. Clarae Assisiensis nunc asservantur’, AFH 1 (1908), 421.
182
Cum a Nobis, August 1278, Bullarium Franciscanum III, 334 (no. 52); Robinson,
‘Inventarium omnium documentorum’, 422.
Hence, the house that kept the body of Chiara d’Assisi at first
did not follow the Regula Ordinis S. Chiarae, but maintained for a
while its allegiance to Chiara’ Forma Vitae of 1253. During the late
thirteenth century and throughout the fourteenth century, however,
both the Santa Chiara monastery and most of the other communi-
ties of Poor Clares lived according to the 1263 Regula Ordinis S.
Chiarae (or the Regula Secunda) of Urban IV, whereas the Longchamp
community of Isabelle and some associated French convents adhered
to Regula Sororum Minorum Inclusarum. There are indications to assume
that some communities of Poor Clares continued to adhere to the
1219 Forma Vitae of Ugolino or to the 1247 rule of Innocent IV.
Moreover, as Urban IV’s Regula Secunda like its predecessors allowed
for additional regulations for individual convents, it left ample space
for more inclusive constitutions at the convent level. The thirteenth-
century statutes of Cardinal Iacopo Colonna for the S. Sylvester
monastery in Rome are of special interest in this regard, as they
provide more detailed regulations about the performance of the divine
office, the maintenance of silence, the conduct during meals, and
the adherence to a strict clausura.183
The existence of such additional regulations points out that the
‘Urbanisation’ of the Poor Clares, which never was completed to
begin with, did not necessarily imply an increase in laxity. However,
the laxity that did occur over time gave rise to a call for ‘returning’
to the 1253 Regula Prima of Chiara d’Assisi. At first this did not go
183
Constitutiones a. Card. Iacobo de Columna pro monasterio S. Silvestri in Capite, Romae,
conditae, saec XIII, ed. L. Oliger, ‘Documenta Originis Clarissarum’, AFH 15 (1922),
99–102. With regard to the divine office, the statutes inform us (ed. Oliger, p. 99):
‘Divinum Officium cum omni devotione et silentio celebretur, ad quod omnes sane
die noctuque diligenter et studiose conveniant nec recedant usque ad finem absque
urgente necessitate corporis aut obedientie mandato, exceptis officialibus communibus,
et hoc tantum dum in communi officio sive servitio occupantur. Et ut idem officium
devotius celebretur, due ordinentur, una ab uno choro et alia ab altero, que sol-
licite sint, ut officium tractim et distincte dicatur et exitent in officio dormientes . . .’
As is stipulated in great detail, laxity in liturgical performance is liable to punish-
ment. The same disciplinary emphasis can be found in the articles on silence, sleep-
ing hours, and the community meals. With regard to the latter (ed. Oliger, p. 100):
‘Item in refectorio mane et sero non ponantur aut fiant nisi due mense; in prima
mensa omnes sane venire teneantur et manducare, exceptis officialibus, que tunc
temporis in communi servitio occupantur, infirme vero vel debiles in infirmaria dep-
utate in communi refectorio non audeant manducare, sed in infirmeria (. . .) Summum
silentium semper in prima mensa servetur mane et sero, ut divina lectio diligentius
audiatur, quam non legi sed cantandi iubemus, ut ei devotius intendatur . . .’
182 chapter two
beyond several initiatives by individual convents.184 More wide-spread

attempts at returning to a more strict life of evangelical perfection
with recourse to Chiara’s Regula Prima occurred during the closing
decades of the fourteenth and the early decades of the fifteen century.185
A major landmark in this process was the Colettine reform move-
ment initiated by Colette de Corbie in France (1381–1447). At the
age of 17 (after the death of her parents) Colette became attached
to a community of local Beguines. Some time thereafter she sojourned
as a conversa among female Benedictines and among the Urbanist
Poor Clares of the Royal Abbey of Moncel. By 1402, she had gained
the acquaintance of a few Franciscan Observant friars from the
Hesdin convent (notably the guardian Jean Pinet). Colette took the
vows of the Third Order and settled as a recluse in Corbie (1402–1406).
During this period, she obtained the respect of other reform-minded
Franciscans in Corbie and Hesdin, among whom was friar Henry
de Baume. In 1406, Colette obtained permission to leave her cell,
to travel with friar Henry de Baume and several high aristocratic
female supporters (such as Blanche de Genève, sister of the late pope
Clement VII) to the papal court of Benedict XIII in Nice. Benedict
gave Colette permission to establish a reformed convent of Poor
Clares.186 In addition, Colette was allowed to establish or to reform
other religious convents and to draw on male Franciscan commu-
nities to assist her in these matters.187 The pope also assigned Henry
de Baume with the task of guiding Colette in all her efforts.188 After
some abortive attempts, Colette and Henry succeeded in establish-
ing in 1410 a reformed Colettine convent at Besançon. Thereafter,
things definitely improved. With high aristocratic sponsorship, no less
than 18 convents were established before Colette’s death.189
184
Mario Sensi, ‘Chiara d’Assisi nell’Umbria del Quattrocento’, CF 64 (1994),
215–239.
185
See in general: Mario Sensi, ‘Clarisses entre spirituels et observants’, in: Sainte
Claire d’Assise et sa postérité (Paris-Nantes, 1995), 101–118.
186
Bullarium Franciscanum, ed. C. Eubel (Rome, 1904) VII, 342–343 (no. 1004).
187
Bullarium Franciscanum VII, 347 (no. 1015).
188
To assist these reformed houses, Henry was given the power to act as gen-
eral visitator. He also became general vicar of the male reformed Franciscan con-
vents from which were recruited confessors and priests to serve the female Colettine
communities. These male reformed convents evolved into the Coletan movement.
189
See for details A. de Sérent, ‘Une nouvelle vie de Sainte Colette’, EF 17
(1907), 426–442; Élisabeth Lopez, Culture et Sainteté, Colette de Corbie (1381–1447),
C.E.R.C.O.R., Travaux et Recherches (Saint-Etienne, 1994); Idem, ‘Sainte Colette’
Shortly after 1410, Colette obtained a copy of Chiara’s 1253 Forma

Vitae. With the assistance of Henry de Baume, Colette added to this
Forma Vitae her own constitutions (which were officially confirmed by
the Franciscan minister general Guglielmo da Casale in 1434)190 and
an array of admonitory writings, including a Testament of her own.191
All these writings were written to coach the sisters in the new Colettine
convents towards the primitive poverty of the early San Damiano
community, now refurbished with a more elaborate liturgy, and with
very specific guidelines about daily prayer sessions, penitential activ-
ities, and devotional exercises centred on the suffering Christ.192 Over
time, the popularity of Colette’s constitutions did not remain confined
to the communities of Colettine sisters. In the early modern period,
they were adopted by many communities of Poor Clares in France,
Spain and the New World. With slight alterations and without
acknowledgement of their Colettine origin, they were also used to
in: Sainte Claire d’Assise et sa postérité, Actes du Colloque international organisé à l’oc-
casion du VIIIe Centenaire de la naissance de sainte Claire, ed. by G. Brunel-
Lobrichon et al. (Nantes, 1995), 193–217.
190
Edited in: La Règle de l’Ordre de Sainte Claire, avec les Statuts de la Réforme de Sainte
Colette, quelques lettres de cette Glorieuse Réformatrice, ses Sentiments sur la Sainte Règle, etc.,
(Bruges, 1892). These constitutions were approved and promulgated by the Franciscan
minister general Guglielmo da Casale on 28 September 1434. They were confirmed
24 years later by pope Pius II. The final version of the constitutions contains 15
chapters. For a detailed comparison of the constitutions of Colette with the Forma
Vitae of Chiara d’Assisi, see: Lopez, Culture et Sainteté, Deuxième partie, chap. IV &
V, 203–251. A shortened version of this analysis can also be found in Lopez, ‘Sainte
Colette’, 203–209, which shows that Colette strengthens the role of the abbess, pays
much attention to the practice of poverty, gives detailed reglementations for prayer,
and sharpens the rules on enclosure (with recourse to the 1247 rule of Innocent
IV), bringing it in line with the enclosure requirements found in the rule of Isabelle
de France and with the rules for the enclosure of nuns promulgated by pope Boniface
VIII in 1298.
191
Colette’s Testament, a long spiritual letter written near the end of her life, has
been published in the Seraphicae Legislationis Textus Originales (Quaracchi, 1897), 298–307.
It was given a modern French translation in Lettres de Ste Colette (Paray-le-Monial,
1981), 54–66. For information on her other spiritual admonitions, see the edition
of her constitutions (which also includes Colette’s Sentiments, a precursor to her con-
stitutions, amounting to a statement in twelve chapters on the way in which the
Colettine sisters should adhere to the rule), as well as Ubald d’Alençon, ‘Documents
sur la réforme de sainte Colette en France’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 2 (1909),
447–456, 600–612; 3 (1910), 82–97.
192
For Italian translations of her letters, admonitions, the constitutions and the
Testament, see Colette di Corbie, ed. Soeur Maria Colette & Soeur Chiara Giovanna
Cremaschi, in: Mistici Francescani, III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 683–738. For the
Colettine life of prayer, see Christopher Bisett, ‘St. Colette of Corbie: Mysticism as
a life of prayerful discernment’, The Cord 49 (1999), 196–203.
184 chapter two
shape the religious life in a number of female Capuchin houses. One

could say that Colette’s constitutions were instrumental in reviving
the 1253 Regula Prima as the Forma Vitae par excellence for all com-
munities of Poor Clares (whether Colettine, Observant or Capuchin)
that aspired or were pushed towards a more stringent observance of
the Franciscan life of poverty and humility.193
The Colettine reform was not the only attempt at re-establishing
religious rigour in the order of Poor Clares. The leaders of the
Franciscan regular Observance likewise found much laxity in the
female monasteries under their spiritual care, most of which followed
the Regula Secunda of 1263. In the process of reforming female monas-
teries within the context of the regular Observance, it became fash-
ionable to abandon the rule of Urban (Regula Secunda) and to reach
back to the Forma Vitae of Chiara d’Assisi (Regula prima).194 This also
materialised in the appearance of vernacular versions of the latter,
frequently on the initiative of female communities themselves,195 which
had a role of their own in the spread of the regular Observance
(albeit with support of male Observant preachers and confessors such
as Cherubino da Spoleto, Niccolò dal Monte and Ludovico da
Severino). Witness for instance the reform activities of Eustochia
Calafato at Santa Maria di Montevergine, the major actions of the
Poor Clares of Santa Lucia da Foligno (under Cecilia Coppoli), and
193
Lopez, ‘Sainte Colette’, 199: ‘Le succès et l’extension du texte colettin s’ex-
plique par sa nature même: ensemble structuré et précis, il offre une base solide à
toute réforme; en outre, il anticipe les exigences rappelées par le concile de Trente
et sera entre les mains de la hiérarchie post-tridentine un instrument efficace; au
point que, lorsque les évêques voudront réformer tel des monastères de leur diocèse
tout en confiant la jurisdiction aux observants—alors que de farouches colettines
arguant de leur fidélité à la réformatrice, refusent le gouvernement de ceux-ci-, ils
utiliseront les Constitutions de sainte Colette sans les nommer.’
194
John Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to the Year 1517
(Oxford, 1968), 551 makes out that the reformers did not always introduce a new
rule but were keen to make sure that the sisters were more faithful to whatever
rule (the urbanist rule, the rule of Isabelle or that of Chiara) they had promised
to obey.
195
Sensi, ‘Clarisses entre spirituels et observants’, 110–111 mentions the vernac-
ular versions made at the request of the nuns of Montevergine (Messina), and at
the request of the nuns of Santa Chiara d’Urbino (who asked their confessor
Bonaventura Fabbri to make an Italian version of Chiara’s rule). Other such ini-
tiatives in Italy and France are mentioned in F. Accrocca, ‘I codici romani della
‘Leggenda di santa Chiara’ in volgare, Collectanea Franciscan 63 (1993), 55–70; Beauté
et pauvreté. L’Art chez les clarisses de France (Paris, 1994); D. Ciccarelli, ‘Volgarizzamenti
siciliani inediti della regola di S. Chiara’, Schede medievale 4 (1983), 19–51.
the initiatives of sisters from the Monteluce convent (Perugia) who,

from 1448 onwards, reformed a dozen or more female religious com-
munities in central Italy.196
The urge to go back to the Forma Vitae of Chiara d’Assisi brought
about a call for renewed interpretation. An important landmark in
this context was Giovanni da Capistrano’s Declaratio Primae Regulae S.
Clarae dating from 1445.197 He wrote this rule commentary at the
request of sister Elisabeta, abbess of the Poor Clares of Mantua, who
was keen to re-establish religious observance in her community by
returning to the Regula Prima of 1253.
Giovanni’s Declaratio makes ample use of papal decrees, but also
enlists the constitutions produced by Colette de Corbie.198 It consists
of a highly polished epistola responsiva to abbess Elisabeta, a declaratio
regulae, and a concluding exhortatio, followed by a solutio quorundam
dubiorum. The rule commentary itself closely follows the text of the
Prima Regula Sanctae Clarae, stressing the liturgical and penitential oblig-
ations of the sisters and the importance of the rule of silence. The
196
In addition to the articles of Sensi, whose lead I follow here (and who right-
fully emphasises the importance of female initiative in these matters, highlighting
the close epistolary contacts both between the well-educated puellae litteratae in different
communities of Poor Clares and between the sisters and their female relatives out-
side the cloister), see M. Faloci Pulignani, Notizia della B. Cecilia Coppoli di Perugia
monaca clarissa in S. Lucia di Foligno (Perugia, 1891); Antonio Fantozzi, ‘Documenti
intorno alla B. Cecilia Coppoli clarissa (1426–1500)’, AFH 19 (1926), 194–225,
334–384; Idem, ‘La riforma osservante dei monasteri delle clarisse nell’Italia cen-
trale (documenti, sec. XV–XVI)’, AFH 23 (1930), 361–382, 488–550; C. Cenci, ‘Il
testamento della B. Cecilia Coppoli di Perugia e di Battista (Girolama di Montefeltro)’,
AFH 69 (1976), 219–226; F. Terrizzi, La beata Eustochia (1434–1485) (Messina, 1982);
Memoriale di Monteluce, cronaca del monastero delle clarisse di Perugi dal 1448 al 1838, ed.
C.A. Lainatti (Santa Maria dei Angeli, 1983); Mario Sensi, ‘L’osservanza frances-
cana al femminile’, Bailamme 6, 11–12 (1992), 139–161; Marie Richards, ‘Community
and Poverty in the Reformed Order of St. Clare in the Fifteenth Century’, The
Journal of Religious History 19,1 (1995), 10–25.
197
This text can be found in the manuscripts L’Aquila, Biblioteca provinziale.
S. 73 ff. 284–292; Rome, Biblioteca S. Isidoro cod. 184 ff. 198v–213v; Rome,
Biblioteca S. Isidoro cod. 165a ff. 68v–79r; Oxford, Bodleian Canon. Miscel. 65.
It has been edited as: Declaratio Primae Regulae S. Chiarae Auctore S. Ioanne Capistranensi
(1445), ed. D. van Adrichen, AFH 22 (1929), 336–357, 512–528. An introduction
to the text, replete with an edition of the introductory letter, can be found in AFH
5 (1912), 301ff. A Dutch version of the text can be found in David de Kok, Bijdragen
tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Klarissen en Tertiarissen voor de hervorming (Utrecht,
1927), 62–84.
198
An interesting comparison between the Constitutions by Colette de Corbie and
the Explicatio by Giovanni da Capistrano has been made by Élisabeth Lopez, in:
Idem, ‘Sainte Colette’, 209–212.
186 chapter two
Declaratio vocals Giovanni da Capistrano’s problems with oblate recruits

and overly young postulants,199 and deals at length with the impor-
tance of bodily labour (as a weapon against otiositas),200 the necessity
of mutual support in matters of penitence,201 the stern but loving
behaviour of the abbess towards her sisters, and the charitable love
that the sisters should cultivate amongst themselves.202 In the con-
cluding exhortation at the end of the Declaratio, the abbess herself is
urged once more to be an example of perfection as the spiritual
director and the mother-virgin of the community, whose virtues, good
example and love for the virgins in her trust will be the foundation
for the religious fecundity and wellbeing of all.203
Giovanni da Capistrano was not the only Observant leader engaged
in the writing of guidelines for the observance of the Regula Prima
in newly Observant communities of Poor Clares. In his Libro delle
199
With reference to Colette of Corbie, who did not accept postulants under
eighteen, Giovanni urges the abbess to look for postulants of seventeen and older.
200
With regard to De modo laborandi (chapter seven of Chiara’s rule), Giovanni
makes it clear ‘quod intentio beati Francisci et sanctae Clarae fuit excludere otium,
quia multam malitiam docuit otiositas (Eccl. 33, 29). Item quod laboritium non ver-
setur circa inhonesta et vana ad religionem non convenientia.’ Declaratio, ed. D. van
Adrichem, AFH 22 (1929), 512.
201
In his comments on the ninth chapter, which deals with penitence, Giovanni
suggests that sisters should help each other and that ‘abbatissa et sorores caveant,
ne irascantur vel conturbentur propter peccatum alicuius.’ Declaratio, ed. D. van
Adrichem, AFH 22 (1929), 515.
202
See on this the remarks of Giovanni concerning the tenth chapter of Chiara’s
rule (De admonitione et correptione sororum), stating that ‘abbatissa familiarem se exhibeat
sororibus, ut patienter eas audiat et discrete ac benigne respondeat non reputans
se dominam sed ancillam, quia et ipsa ancilla Christi est, et tanquam ancilla Domini
spiritualiter et corporaliter iuxta posse ceteris ancillis, quae serviunt in domo Domini
famuletur.’ Declaratio, ed. D. van Adrichem, AFH 22 (1929), 516; ‘. . . sorores sem-
per invicem sollicite servent mutue dilectionis unitatem quae est vinculum perfec-
tionis.’ This rule directive is interpreted as follows: ‘Hoc est dicere: quod sorores
invicem se diligant sicut Christus dilexit nos et tradidit semetipsum pro nobis obla-
tionem et hostiam Deo in odorem suavitatis . . .’ Declaratio, ed. D. van Adrichem,
AFH 22 (1929), 516.
203
‘Quae mater est aliarum, in bonis operibus ceteras vincat. Prius seipsam
perficiat, ut filias suae curae commissas ad perfectionem (. . .) invitet . . .’ Declaratio,
ed. D. van Adrichem, AFH 22 (1929), 523. This explanation had considerable suc-
cess but apparently left some room for misunderstanding and spiritual anxiety (with
regard to the question which transgressions lead to a state of mortal sin). Pope
Eugenius IV therefore declared in the papal bull Ordinis Tui (February 1447), that
among the 118 precepts in Capistrano’s Declaratio only a few were obligatory sub
gravi, namely those dealing with the principal vows of obedience, poverty, clausura,
and the rules on the election and the deposition of the abbess. Bullarium Franciscanum
n.s. I, 524–526 (no. 1045)), See Sensi, ‘Clarisses entre Spirituels et Observants’, 110.
degnità et excellentie del ordine della seraphica madre delle povere donne Sancta
Chiara da Asisi, Mariano da Firenze also mentions the commentaries
writen by Bernardino da Siena (spurious?), Niccolò da Osimo and
Guglielmo da Casale.204 Of these, the commentaries of Niccolò (a
further Explicatio on the commentary by Giovanni da Capistrano)205
and Guglielmo have survived.206 From a later generation are Francisco
de Quiñones’ constitutions for the Poor Clares connected with the new
Recolección movement in Spain,207 and the commentary on the rule
of Urban IV and Chiara d’Assisi’s Testamentum written in the early
1530s by the Observant Leipzig lector and provincial minister
Augustinus von Alveldt (at the request of sister Ursula, abbess of the
Poor Clares at Eger). The last-mentioned work, which shows us that
not all female Observant initiatives necessarily implied a return to
the Regula Prima of Chiara,208 focuses on ascetical instruction and
204
Mariano da Firenze, Libro delle degnità et excellentie del ordine della seraphica madre
delle povere donne Sancta Chiara da Asisi, ed. G. Boccali (Florence, 1986), 65. Cf. Sensi,
‘Clarisses entre Spirituels et Observants’, 110.
205
Niccolò da Osimo’s Declaratio Preceptorum Regule Sancte Clare has been edited by
L.M. Núñez, AFH 5 (1912), 299–314. Niccolò’s Declaratio, probably written as a
clarification of Giovanni da Capistrano’s commentary (which seemed to turn any
transgression of the rule into a case of mortal sin), starts as follows: ‘Rogatus ut
que in regula beate Clare obligatione ad peccatum mortale continentur edisseram,
licet ad id me non sufficientem agnoscam, tamen ut, iuxta gratiam mihi a Domino
collatam, petentibus satisfaciam, ad eorum editonem procedam secundum quod col-
ligi potest in co Exiit qui seminat, de verborum significatione, lib. VI et in de Exivi,
et a declarationibus sancte ecclesie et summorum Pontificum super regulam fratrum
Minorum, quae magnam habet cum regula sancte Clare conformitatem. Dico igi-
tur quod in regula sancte Clare triplex maneries continetur preceptorum, quorum
transgressio ducit ad [peccatum] mortale, videlicet unum universale; tria generalia;
et non nulla particularia.’ See also Z. Lazzeri, ‘Novae animadversiones circa dec-
larationes regulae s. Chiarae a s. Joane a Capistrano e a fr. Nicolao ab Auximo
conscriptas’, AFH 9 (1916), 445–447.
206
Bullarium Franciscanum ns. II, 260–276 (which contains the commentary of
Guglielmo da Casale as part of the bull Etsi ex suscepti regiminis officio of Pius II,
issued in October 1458).
207
Written when Francisco was minister general of the order. On these see Cf.
L. Carrión, ‘Las casas de recolección de la provincia de la Inmaculada Concepción
y estatutos por los que se regían’, AIA 9 (1918), 264–272 & I. Omaechevarría, ‘Fr.
Francisco de Quiñones. Autor de la relación más antigua acerca de la Concepción
franciscana de Toledo’, AIA 33 (1973), 61–75. Cf. also Wadding, Annales Minorum
XVI (Quaracchi, 1933), 193–197 (Latin version).
208
As I mentioned in a previous note, John Moorman already had noticed this.
Not so long ago, it has been established that the Observant Poor Clares of Nuremberg,
as well as those of Brixen (under the firm abbatiate of Barbara Freydung) contin-
ued to follow the rule of Urban IV, yet combined it with appropriate ‘observan-
tist’ and Franciscan elements from the rule of Chiara and the hagiographical tradition.
188 chapter two
does not spend overmuch attention to legal issues. At times, Augustinus

takes a strong stance against Luther and his partisans (against whom
he was to write a number of additional pamphlets and treatises).209
The well-educated Italian Observant Poor Clares and their counter-
parts in Southern Germany (such as the Poor Clares of Nuremberg
and Brixen) did not leave the spiritual guidance on the observance
of the rule totally in male hands. Female initiative is visible in Battista
Alfani’s vernacular reworking of the Latin Legenda Sanctae Clarae Virginis.
She included in her legend the Privilegium Paupertatis, Chiara’s
Testamentum, the Benedictio and elements of Chiara’s Forma Vitae.210
Comparable independence is shown in Evangelista da Perugia’s trans-
lations of Chiara’s Forma Vitae,211 and in Caterina da Bologna’s
See Renate Mattick, ‘Eine Nürnberger Übertragung der Urbanregel für den Orden
der hl. Klara und der ersten Regel der hl Klara für die armen Schwestern’, FrSt
68 (1987), 173–232. Renate Mattick’s article gives an edition of the fifteenth-cen-
tury German translation of Urban’s rule, as well as the German rule excerpts pro-
duced by sister Barbara Freydung and the German version of Chiara d’Assisi’s rule
that functioned in the Nuremberg community alongside of the rule of Urban IV.
209
Augustinus’ Commentarius super Regulam Sanctae Clarae can be found in MSS
Prague UB XVI E 20 (Latin, 1534); Prague UB XVI H 1 (German, 1535); Munich,
Nationalmuseum 3751. In the early eighteenth century, Theodoricus Dinger, lector
of theology and confessarius ordinarius of the Eger Poor Clares, produced and pub-
lished a German reworking of this text: Regul deren wohl-ehrwürdigen und geistlichen
Closter-Jungfrauen Ordens der heiligen Jungfrauen und Mutter Clarae, welche Pabst Urbanus der
IV in dem Jahr Christi 1264 denselben gegeben und zu halten anbefohlen. Sambt einer kurtzen
Außlegung der Heil. Regul, der heiligen Mutter Clarae Testament und Segen (. . .) (Eger: Johann
Frantz Fritschen, 1704). As said before, Augustinus also would have written a com-
mentary on the Franciscan Regula Bullata. For manuscripts of this Commentarius super
Regulam Sancti Francisci, see: MS Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August Bibl. Cod. Guelf. 1905
Helmst. On Augustinus von Alfeldt’s life, his struggles against Lutheranism and his
literary output, see L. Lemmens, Pater Augustin von Alfeld (d. um 1532). Ein Franziskaner
aus den ersten Jahren der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland (Freiburg, 1899); Idem, ‘Zur
Biographie des P. Augustin von Alfeld’, FrSt 5 (1918), 131–134; L. Oliger, ‘Zur
Augustin von Alfelds Regelerklärung des Klarissenordens’, FrSt 5 (1918), 220–2;
H. Smolinsky, Augustin von Alveldt und Hieronymus Emser. Eine Untersuchung zur Kontrovers-
theologie der frühen Reformationszeit im Herzogtum Sachsen, RST 122 (Münster, 1983).
210
See on this the forthcoming article of Lezlie Knox in the volume Gender and
the Transmission of Knowledge. I would like to thank her for the opportunity to see
the typescript version. Battista Alfani’s Leggenda della Serafica Vergine Santa Chiara can
be found in MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Magliabecchiano XXXVIII
135. The Observant Nuremberg nuns had access to a fourteenth century Sankt-
Klara-Buch with comparable materials. Kurt Ruh, ‘Das Sankt-Klara-Buch’, W&W
46 (1983), 192–206; Ruth Meyer, ‘Junckfraw-Muter-Helferin. Das Bild der heiligen
Klara im St.-Klara-Buch und seine Rezeption im 15. Jahrhundert’, CF 62 (1992),
507–532.
211
Regula Beate Clare Vulgarizata: MS Rome Curia Gen. O.F.M. Archivium Ordinis
A. 60.
unedited and untitled ‘Explicatio Formae Vitae’, which amounts to a

treatise on the vigilance of the abbess, and on her obligation to make
the nuns in her charge read and observe the rule and the com-
mandments of the monastery. A careful reading of this work shows
that we are dealing with a commentary on Chiara d’Assisi’s Forma
Vitae, designed for the nuns of the Corpus Christi convent at Bologna.212
With Caterina da Bologna’s treatise we have come to a group of
texts—predominantly statutes, treatises and official letters—that reg-
ulated in greater detail aspects of the religious life in individual con-
vents of Poor Clares. Although the output of such texts goes back
to the thirteenth century (witness the thirteenth-century statutes of
Iacopo Colonna for the S. Sylvester monastery mentioned above,
and the many regulations issued by various provincial ministers for
convents in their province),213 the implementation of a more Observant
adherence to the religious precepts of the rule at the convent level
(which frequently but not always went together with an exchange of
the rule of 1263 for the Regula Prima of 1253) began in earnest in
the 1450s. A large majority of the surviving constitutions pertaining
to individual communities of Poor Clares actually dates from the
later fifteenth century and thereafter. Most important among these
is the surprisingly large number of convent statutes of Italian origin,214
212
Cf. Gabriella Zarri, ‘Écrits inédits de Catherine de Bologne et de ses
Compagnons’, in: Sainte Claire d’Assise et sa postérité (Nantes-Paris, 1995), 223, who
refers us to MS Archivio generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, Archivio Beata Caterina,
carton 25, Libro 3, no. 2, ff. 175v–184. This work can be placed in the context
of other spiritual writings originating from the female Corpus Christi convent
(Bologna) during the fifteenth century. We will encounter some of these writings in
other chapters.
213
A good example is the 1303 letter by the provincial minister Heinrich von
Ravensburg to all the Poor Clare convents in the Upper Germany province. Cf.
MS Einsiedeln 203, ff. 188–197. See also the surviving statutes for the Poor Clares
of Cologne, edited in R. Mattick, ‘Ordensregel und Statuten für das Kölner
Klarenkloster. Eine ripuarische Übertragung des 14. Jahrhunderts’, FrSt 68 (1986),
141–92.
214
For Italian convent constitutions, see: Benvenuto Bughetti, ‘Statuta pro Clarissis
a B. Angelo de Clavasio O.F.M. ordinata’, AFH 6 (1913), 101–110; S. Mencherini,
‘Ordinazioni delle monache di S. Chiara Novella d’Arezzo compilate l’anno 1543’,
La Verna 10 (1912–1913), 418–426; Livarius Oliger, ‘Documenta Originis Clarissarum
Civitatis Castelli, Eugebii (a. 1223–1263) necnon Statuta Monasteriorum Perusiae
Civitatisque Castelli (saec. XV) et S. Silvestri Romae (saec. XIII)’, AFH 15 (1922),
71–102; Idem, ‘Statuta monasterium Montislucis (Perusiae) et Clarissarum Civitatis
Castelli, saec. XV’, AFH 15 (1922), 93–98. These detailed fifteenth-century Perugia
statutes deal in ten articles with: 1.) Del divino offitio (‘Imprima che tucte le suore
che non ànno legitimo inpedimento vengano in chiesia al primo suono de ciascuna
190 chapter two
and the statutes written for the Poor Clares of Brixen, Pfullingen,215
Breslau and Weißenfels.216
hora ad aparechiare il suo cuore laudare il Signore. Et quelle che sença legitima
cagione tardasseno tanto che comenze a sonare la secunda, dica cinque Pater nos-
tri in croce a la mensa. Et quando stesse tanto che fosse dicto l’inno o un psalmo,
dica a la mensa in croce i tre primi psalmi de li psalmi penitentiali. Et chi per sua
negligentia non ce vienne, faccia la disciplina e mangi in terra . . .’); 2.) Del vestire;
3.) De la obedientia; 4.) Del sancto silentio; 5.) De la colpa; 6.) De la mensa; 7.)
Del dormire; 8.) De l’abbadessa; 9.) Di queste ordinationi (‘. . . Item aciochè queste
ordinatione meglio se observano, volemo che se legano omne mese una volta in
presentia de tucte le suore. Et questo se faccia per obedientia . . .’); 10.) Questa è
la forma del silentio. More information on such materials can be found in
Omaechevarría, Las Clarisas a través de los siglos, passim. Just as they did for tertiary
communities, friars also composed ceremonies for the admission of novices for the
Poor Clares. See for instance the Caeremoniale Admissionis Novitae in Monasterium an.
1490, per fratrem Paulum in Perpignam ad usum Eleanorae de Ortafa Novile, Clarissiae de
Perpignam: MS Oxford, Bodleian Library Lat. Liturg. E.8.
215
The statutes for the convents of Brixen (1456) and Pfullingen (1462) were
compiled by the provincial vicar Johannes von Lare. The Pfullingen statutes have
been described and partly published in Alemania Franciscana Antiqua. 193–211. These
statutes are particularly interesting in their emphasis on silence as condition for spir-
itual growth, and in their prescriptions for the performance of the liturgy. The sis-
ters ‘. . . sollen nicht zu sehr eilen im Singen und Sprechen, nicht zu hoch, nicht
die Noten brechen und ihre Stimme nicht mutwillig oder traglich nicht sparen und
alles Ungestüm und Zwietracht im göttlichen Dienst ganz vermeiden. Dazu dient
wohl auch, daß zumal die jungen Schwestern vor dem Anfang des göttlichen Dienstes,
alle Dinge vorsehen, übersingen und überlesen die Bücher und was not ist zugerichtet
wird. Welche Schwester aber mit der Messe und dem göttlichen Amt zu tun hat,
so soll sie singen, lesen und loben, sich mit den Büchern darum bekümmern, darin zu
lesen und zu beten. Wenn eine das versäumt, so soll die Äbtissin oder ihre Stell-
vertreterin, welche solches gewahr wird, sie dieser Bücher berauben und ohne strenge
Not bis zu des Visitators Urteil oder Erlaubnis nicht wiedergeben.’ Ibidem, 206.
216
The statutes for the Poor Clares of Breslau (1507–1508) and Weißenfels (March
1513) were written by the provincial minister Ludwich Henning, who took the
reform of female monasteries very much at heart. The Weißenfels statutes have sur-
vived in MS Dresden, Staatsarchiv Or.Ur. 9964, and have been edited by Ferdinand
Doelle in Idem, ‘Die Statuten der Klarissen zu Weissenfels aus dem Jahre 1513’,
FrSt 1 (1914), 356–362. Perusing through Doelle’s edition, it becomes clear that
these statutes are very much concerned with the upkeep of the rule and the nuns’
sequestration: ‘Et quidem imprimis moneo et hortor vos omnes et singulas sorores
in visceribus Jesu Christi, ut mutuam pacem, concordiam et charitatem fovere et
conservare studeatis, quod, ut melius observeretur, sub pena excommunicationis
mando, ne aliqua sororum altere detrahat, aut quippiam mali de ea loquator, aut
infirma aliqua secularibus personis revelet. Item nulla soror temere loquatur contra
edificia erecta aut erigenda, cum ex mea ordinatione et beneplacito fiant pro bono
monasterii vestri. Item mando, ut nulla soror loquatur cum artificibus aut edificatoribus
quemadmodum, nec cum aliis quibuscumque personis secularibus, nisi exigente
necessitate et opportunitate, et tunc fiat de licentia domine abbatisse iuxta modum
vobis prescriptum in regula. Ad id districte mando, ut nulla soror sola loquatur tal-
ibus personis secularibus aut religiosis, sed ordinentur et deputentur due mature
sorores, que ambo, aut ad minus una earum, sint presentes, audientes et atten-
E. Rules and regulations for Tertiaries
The penitential movements of the later Middle Ages did not find
their origin in the initiatives of Francesco d’Assisi. On the contrary,
one could argue that the Franciscan order itself started as yet another
penitential community alongside others, some of which had a much
longer history. The penitential lifestyle outside the monastic walls
was already recognised in the Decretum Gratiani and became rather
popular in the closing decades of the twelfth century. From that
period stem the Waldensians, the Humiliati, the Beguine groups of
dentes, ut verba sororum sic loquentium religiosa sint et honesta statui et ordini
earum non derogancia. Et sorores, que sic licentiate personis talibus loquuntur, non
debeant submurmurare aut silenter auribus insusurrare, sed patenter, que necessaria
et oportuna fuerint, loqui, ita ut auscultatrices presentes id valeant audire. Item
statuo, ordino et mando, ut puelle seculares nequaquam maneant aut retineantur
in monasterio vestro, nisi forte ordinem et religionis vestem assumere velint, in quo
casu anuo, ut uno anno aut dimidio vobiscum in monasterio manere et in hiis, que
honestatis religionisque sunt, inbui valeant, antequam ordinem et religionis vestem
assumant. Et nunc quidem consensi et consentio, ut sex poelle investiantur, dein-
ceps vero nulla assumetur ad ordinem aut investiatur sine consensu meo speciali.
Item, ut sorores novicie et alie iuvencule studiosius in disciplina regulari educantur,
ordino et precipio, ut per dominam abbatissam deputetur una honesta et matura
soror, cuius directioni (p. 361) omnes predicte novicie et iuvencule subsint. Et ipsa
sit communis magistra et informatrix omnium talium. Et nulla soror aliquas novi-
tias specialiter sibi deputare aut in curam suam suscipere amplius presumat. (. . .)
Item mando, ut clausura monasterii diligentissime observetur. Nec sub horis divi-
nis aperiatur, nisi magna id exigerit necessitas. Super quod venerabilis domina
abbatissa et seniores singulariter invigilare debent unacum patribus confessoribus,
quibus id sub eterne maledictionis pena, quemadmodum per ordinationes apostoli-
cas michi iniungitur, mando. (. . .) Item mando sub pena excommunicationis, ut
nulla soror quicquam, sive magnum fuerit sive parvum, extra monasterium et ordinem
personis secularibus dare aut vendere presumat, cum iuxta statum, ordinem et pro-
fessionem vestram sic passim dare aut vendere minime potestis, eo quod nullam
proprietatem in speciali habere debitis. Item ordino et mando, ut omnes et singule
sorores, quas causa rationabilis et manifesta non excusat, die noctuque ad persol-
vendum divinum officium in choro conveniant. Et si alique frequenter Matutinum
neglexerint, puta bis aut eo amplius in ebdomada, puniantur, ut tempore prandii
sedeant in terra. (. . .) Item ordino et sub pena excommunicationis districte preci-
pio, ut nulla soror litteras seu brevia, aut dirigat principibus, aut aliis quibuscunque
secularibus sive religiosis personis, nisi prius domina abbatissa ad hoc consensum
prebuerit et ipsas litteras viderit et legerit. (. . .) (p. 362) Hec sunt, charissime sorores,
que, dum presens fui, vive vocis oraculo vobis tradidi, et jam in hiis scriptis trado
monendo, hortando, rogando et districte precipiendo, ut ea studiose adimplere
curetis, quo tandem per viam mandatorum et consiliorum Christi, que servare vovis-
tis ad terminum felicitatis supreme pervenire sine offensa valeatis.’ (ed. Doelle,
360–362). Cf. L. Lemmens, ‘Die Provinzialminister der alten sächsischen Provinz’,
Beiträge zur Geschichte der sächsischen Franziskanerprovinz vom hl. Kreuze 2 (1909), 10f.
192 chapter two
Northern France, the Rhine land and the Low Countries, the con-
fraternities of married and unmarried lay people found within the
Italian urban landscape, as well as many recluses and hermits.217
The oldest known official ‘rule’ meant to provide general regula-
tions for the lifestyle of all sorts of mixed penitential groups, the
Memoriale Propositi of 1221,218 was written at a time when the Franciscan
movement itself was transforming into a hierarchically organised
order. The Memoriale Propositi was produced by the immediate circle
of Ugolino dei Conti di Segni, cardinal-protector of the Franciscan
order, and the later pope Gregory IX: The same cardinal who some
years before had written a Forma Vitae for Italian communities of
female penitents, including those that in due course would consti-
tute the order of Poor Clares.219
217
For a first introduction to other penitential movements in the later twelfth
and early thirteenth centuries, see M.-D. Chenu, ‘Moines, clercs, laïcs, au carrefour
de la vie évangélique (xiie siècle)’, RHE 49 (1954), 59–89; A. Pompei, ‘Il movimento
penitenziale dei penitenti nei secoli XII–XIII’, CF 43 (1973), 9–40; G.G. Merlo,
Tensioni religiose agli inizi del duecento. Il primo francescanesimo in rapporto a tradizioni eremitico-
penitenziali, esperienze pauperistico-evangeliche, truppi ereticali e istituzioni ecclesiastiche (Torre
Pellico, 1984). On the Waldensians, see K.V. Selge, Die ersten Waldenser, mit Edition
der ‘Liber Antiheresis’ des Durandus von Osca, 2 Vols. (Berlin, 1967). On the Humiliati,
who were first condemned in 1184, but after their reconciliation seventeen years
later expanded into a highly successful religious order in Northern Italy, see Frances
Andrews, The Early Humiliati, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
(Cambridge, 1999).
218
The Memoriale Propositi has been edited in: Dossier de l’Ordre de la pénitence au
XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg, 1961/Fribourg, 1982), 82–112, and in:
Testi e documenti sul Terzo Ordine Francescano (sec. XIII–XV), originale latino e versione ita-
liana, ed. Lino Temperini (Rome, 1991), 84, 90–110. Meersseman distinguishes
between a pre-Memoriale (ca. 1515) and the Memoriale itself (the composition of (sev-
eral versions of ) which he dates between 1221 and 1228). It contains rules for the
way of life of penitents ‘in domibus propriis’, regulating matters such as clothing,
abstinence and fasting, prayer, liturgical obligations, regular confession, communion,
the bearing of arms (pacifism), the instruction via sermons, the clerical control by
visitators, the care of the sick and the burial of members of the confraternity.
219
The Memoriale makes use of elements taken from the already existing Propositum
of the Humiliati and from rules of other penitential groups, such as the Poor
Lombards. Ugolino’s activities might of course have been influenced by the appeal
of the Franciscan call for penitence in the Italian urban landscape, and there is
some evidence to assume that Ugolino produced his rule with the Franciscan care
for the penitential life in the back of his mind. In his Liber de Laudibus beati Francisci,
Bernard de Besse writes for instance: ‘In regulis seu vivendi formis Ordinis istorum
dictandis sanctae memoriae dominus Papa Gregorius in minori adhuc officio con-
stitutus, beato Francisco intima familiaritate coniunctus, devote supplebat quod viro
sancto iudicandi scientia deerat.’ AF III (Ad Chiaras Aquas, 1897), 686. Cf. Ottaviano
Schmucki, ‘Il T.O.F. nelle biografie di san Francesco’, in: L’Ordine della penitenza di
Although the Franciscans cannot be made responsible for Ugolino’s

attempts at fashioning general regulations for the various forms of
penitential life that were thriving in the Italian peninsula and beyond,
it seems beyond doubt that Francesco and his early companions
recognised the penitential wishes and initiatives undertaken by lay
people, and kept close contacts with several illustrious lay penitents,
whose form of life was seen to be akin to the Franciscan objectives.220
Moreover, Francesco felt a spiritual responsibility (if no direct organ-
isational responsibility) for the new penitential fraternities that sprouted
in reaction to the Franciscan preaching effort.
Francesco’s two Epistolae ad Fideles can be interpreted as attempts
at reaching out to all people wanting to live a sincere life of penitence.221
Although these letters do not amount to a rule properly speaking,
san Francesco d’Assisi nel secolo XIII (Rome, 1973), 117–143; Marco Bartoli, ‘Gregorio
IX e il movimento penitenziale’, in: La ‘Supra montem’ di Niccolò IV (1289): Genesi e
diffusione di una regola (Rome, 1988), 47–60. Nearly all medieval popes from Innocent
III onwards took initiatives to support local penitential groups or larger congrega-
tions of penitential groups with special privileges and additional guidelines. A num-
ber of thirteenth-century papal letters and bulls can be found in Meersseman’s
dossier (bulls and letters by Gregory IX, Clement IV, Nicholas IV and Boniface
VIII). A larger number of papal privileges has been gathered in Apostolica Privilegia
Fratrum Tertii Ordinis Sancti Francisci de Poenitentia Nuncupati, ed. A. De Sillis (Venice,
1551). Many of these can also be found in the Bullarium Franciscanum series. A more
or less complete overview for the medieval period, with additional bibliographical
references, is given the following articles: Giovanni Odoardi, ‘L’Ordine della pen-
itenza di san Francesco d’Assisi nei documenti pontifici del secolo XIII’, in: L’Ordine
della penitenza di san Francesco d’Assisi nel secolo XIII (Rome, 1973), 79–115; Idem,
‘L’Ordine della penitenza nei documenti pontifici del secolo XIV’, in: I frati peni-
tenti di San Francesco nella società del due e trecento, ed. Mariano D’Alatri (Rome, 1977),
21–49. For a short discussion of most of these papal statements, see Gabriele
Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco nella sua storia e nelle sue leggi (Rome,
1993) I, passim.
220
A case in point is Francesco d’Assisi’s close friendship with the penitent woman
Filippa Mareri, who eventually, in 1228, chose to live as a Franciscan Poor Sister,
and established a convent in the old Benedictine monastery S. Pietro al Mulino in
the Kingdom of Naples. See: A. Chiappini, ‘S. Filippa Mareri e il suo Monasterio
di Borgo San Pietro de Molito nel Cicolano (biografia-liturgia-documenti)’, MF 22
(1921), 65–119; Edith Pásztor, ‘Filippa Mareri e Chiara d’Assisi modelli della spiri-
tualità femminile francescana’, IF 63 (1988), 27–48; Santa Filippa Mareri e il monas-
tero di Borgo San Pietro nella storia del Cicolano, Atti del Convegno di studi di Borgo
San Pietro 24–26 ottobre 1986 (Borgo San Pietro di Petralla Salto-Rieti, 1989).
Another example is the special relationship between Francesco and ‘frate Jacopa’
(Giacomina Frangipani di Settesogli).
221
These texts initiate a long series of Franciscan letters, sermons and treatises
in support and in defense of the penitential lifestyle, such as those by Matteo
d’Aquasparta, Alvaro Pais (Alvaro Pelayo), Giovanni da Capistrano, Bernardino da
Busti and Mariano da Firenze.
194 chapter two
they do provide religious inspiration and moral guidelines for living

a fruitful penitential life in the world. The first so-called Epistola ad
Fideles,222 addressed to all ‘christianis religiosis’ (by whom Francesco
probably meant men and women in search of penitence), is a lauda-
tion of the Christian life style of the conversi. In two short chapters
it speaks of those who engage in penitence (‘de illis qui faciunt poen-
itentiam’), praising their intentions and indicating that they are the
sons of the Heavenly Father and the spouses, brothers and mothers
of the Lord Jesus Christ,223 and of those who do not engage in pen-
itence (‘de illis qui non agunt poenitentiam’), lamenting their blind-
ness and the tribulations that await them after death. Francesco’s
second Epistola ad Fideles224 has close affinities with the first one but
is much longer. It praises the word of God made flesh in Christ on
earth and indicates that Christ wants all mankind to be saved through
Him and wants people to receive Him with a pure heart and a
chaste body. On the basis of this hopeful premise Francesco’s Epistola
unfolds a complete but stern religious programme for the christiani
religiosi in all social strata.225
222
Epistola ad Fideles I (Exhortatio ad Fratres et Sorores de Poenitentia), in: Opuscula, ed.
K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 107–112; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes
285 (Paris, 1981), 220–227; Testi e documenti sul terzo Ordine Francescano, ed. Lino
Temperini (Rome, 1991), 46–52.
223
‘Omnes qui Dominum diligunt ex toto corde, ex tota anima et mente, ex tota
virtute et diligunt proximos suos sicut se ipsos, et odio habent corpora eorum cum
vitiis et peccatis, et recipiunt corpus et sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et
faciunt fructus dignos poenitentiae: O quam beati et benedicti sunt illi et illae, dum
talia faciunt et in talibus perseverant, quia requiescet super eos spiritus Domini et
faciet apud eos habitaculum et mansionem, et sunt filii patris caelestis, cuius opera
faciunt, et sunt sponsi, fratres et matres Domini nostri Jesu Christi (. . .)’
224
Epistola ad Fideles II, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 113–128;
François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes 285 (Paris, 1981), 228–243; Testi e docu-
menti sul Terzo Ordine Francescano, ed. Lino Temperini (Rome, 1991), 62–80. Esser
regards this second letter, which like the first one is directed at ‘Universis christia-
nis religiosis, clericis et laicis, masculis et feminis . . .’, as a ‘redactio posterior’.
Nevertheless, the chronological priority of these two letters is still under discussion.
225
‘Diligamus igitur Deum et adoremus eum puro corde et pura mente (. . . .)
Debemus siquidem confiteri sacerdoti omnia peccata nostra; et recipiamus corpus
et sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi ab eo (. . .) Qui autem potestatem iudi-
candi alios receperunt iudicium cum misericordia exerceant, sicut ipsi volunt a
Domino misericordiam obtinere. Iudicium enim sine misericordia erit illis qui non
fecerint misericordiam. Habeamus itaque caritatem et humilitatem; et faciamus
eleemosynas, quia ipsa lavat animas a sordibus peccatorum (. . .) Debemus etiam
ieiunare et abstinere a vitiis et peccatis et a superfluitate ciborum et potus et esse
catholici. Debemus etiam ecclesias visitare frequenter et venerari clericos et reveri,
non tantum propter eos, si sint peccatores, sed propter officium et administrationem
After the Franciscan movement transformed into an order of clerics

and teachers with its own rule,226 it gradually obtained specific respon-
sibilities for local penitential groups that either sought affiliation with
the new and successful order of Friars Minor, or that were forced
to do so by the ecclesiastical authorities.227 Franciscan churches became
meeting places for penitential confraternities (where they would be
made responsible for the upkeep of chapels and provided liturgical
assistance during special festivities), and friars became active as their
spiritual counsellors. In the course of the thirteenth century, the friars
also engaged in the drafting of statutes for local confraternities,228
sanctissimi corporis et sanguinis Christi (. . .) Debemus odio habere corpora nostra

cum vitiis et peccatis (. . .) Debemus observare praecepta et consilia Domini nostri
Jesu Christi. Debemus etiam nosmetipsos abnegare et ponere corpora nostra sub
iugo servitutis et sanctae obedientiae, sicut unusquisque promisit Domino (. . .) Non
debemus secundum carnem esse sapientes et prudentes, sed magis debemus esse
simplices, humiles et puri. Et habeamus corpora nostra in opprobrium et despec-
tum, quia omnes per culpam nostram sumus miseri et putridi, foetidi et vermes
(. . .) Et omnes illi et illae, dum talia fecerint et perseveraverint usque in finem,
requiescet super eos Spiritus Domini et faciet in eis habitaculum et mansionem (. . .)
Omnes autem illi, qui non sunt in poenitentia et non recipiunt corpus et sanguinem
Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et operantur vitia et peccata, et qui ambulant post
malam concupiscentiam et mala desideria, et non observant, quae promiserunt, et
serviunt corporaliter mundo carnalibus desideriis, curis et sollicitudinibus huius sae-
culi et curis huius vitae, decepti a diabolo, cuius filii sunt et eius opera faciunt,
caeci sunt, quia verum lumen non vident Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum.
Sapientiam non habent spiritualem, quia non habent Filium Dei in se, qui est vera
sapientia Patris (. . .) Sed sciant omnes, quod ubicumque et qualitercumque homo
moriatur in criminali peccato sine satisfactione et potest satisfacere et non satisfecit,
diabolus rapit animam eius de corpore suo cum tanta angustia et tribulatione, quan-
tam nullus scire potest, nisi qui recipit. (. . .) Corpus comedunt vermes; et ita perdit
corpus et animam in isto brevi saeculo et ibit in inferno, ubi cruciabitur sine fine.
(. . .) In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Ego frater Franciscus, minor
servus vester, rogo et obsecro vos in caritate, quae Deus est, et cum voluntate oscu-
landi vestros pedes, quod haec verba et alia Domini nostri Jesu Christi cum humil-
itate et caritate debeatis recipere et operari et observare . . .’
226
It can be argued that the Franciscan order only became a proper religious
order with the Regula Bullata of 1223. Likewise, the followers of Chiara d’Assisi ini-
tially were ‘Sorelle della Penitenza.’
227
See in general the volume Prime manifestazioni di vita comunitaria maschile e fem-
minile nel movimento francescano della Penitenza (1215–1247) (Rome, 1982). Sometimes,
penitential groups resented the spiritual direction by the friars, as it infringed on
their independence. Cf. G.G. Meersseman, Ordo fraternitatis. Confraternite e pietà dei
laici nel medioevo (Rome, 1977) I, 428–434; Mariano D’Alatri, Aetas poenitentialis. L’antico
Ordine francescano della penitenza, Bibliotheca Seraphico-Capuccina 42 (Rome, 1993),
27. From the mid 1240s onwards, it became increasingly normal for episcopal and
papal authority to entrust the visitation of Italian confraternities to the Friars Minor.
228
D’Alatri, Aetas poenitentialis, 26 & notes 5–9 mentions for instance the statutes
written by friar Rufino Gurgone for the Milizia della beata Vergine (1261), meant for
196 chapter two
and began to promote the cult of lay penitents that died with a rep-
utation of sanctity.229
However, the Franciscan order was not keen to take up overly
binding responsibilities for such penitential confraternities, if only for
fear of antagonising the secular clergy or local urban authorities and
for fear of becoming associated by the heterodox reputation of some
Beguine groups.230 It is also very clear that, throughout the thirteenth
century, many penitential groups sought spiritual affiliation with other
friars ‘in conventibus commorantibus’ and for people ‘in domibus propriis’, the
statutes of Benvenuto da Orvieto for the the confraternity of the Raccomandati della
Vergine (1261), the statutes made by friar Bonincontrò (guardian of the Brescia con-
vent) for the Confraternità di Santa Maria e San Francesco that had ties with the
local Franciscan convent (ca. 1265–1272), and friar Raniero da Genova’s renewed
statutes for the confraternities of Reggio Emilia and Parma (1295). These various
statutes have been edited in: Dossier de l’ordre de la Pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G.
Meersseman (Fribourg, 1961), 295–307 & Meerseman, Ordo fraternitatis II, 1262–1267
(the statutes composed by Rufino Gurgone); Giovanna Casagrande, Le fraternite
medievali di Assisi, linee storiche e testi statutari (Assisi, 1989), 189–198 (the statutes writ-
ten by Benvenuto da Orvieto); Paolo Guerrini, ‘Gli statuti di un’antica congregazione
francescana di Brescia’, AFH 1 (1908), 544–568 (the statutes of Bonincontro);
G. Saccani, ‘Statuto dugentesco della società della B. Vergine e di S. Francesco
presso i Frati minori a Reggio Emilia’, AFH 14 (1921), 130–137 & B. Giordani,
‘Statuta consortii B. Mariae Virginis et S. Francisci Parmae saec. XIV’, AFH 16
(1923), 356–368 (statutes compiled by Raniero da Genova). A first introduction to
the early history of the Franciscan penitents (until 1289), with additional informa-
tion on local statutes and religious practices can be found in: A.G. Matanic, ‘I pen-
itenti francescani dal 1221 (Memoriale) al 1289 (Regola bollata) principalmente attraverso
i loro statuti e le regole’, in: L’Ordine della Penitenza di san Francesco d’Assisi nel secolo
XIII (Rome, 1973), 41–63 & H. Roggen, ‘Les relations du Premier Ordre francis-
cain avec le Tiers-Ordre au XIIIe siècle’, in: L’Ordine della Penitenza di san Francesco
d’Assisi nel secolo XIII (Rome, 1973), 199–209; Prime manefestazioni di vita comunitaria
maschile e femminile nel movimento francescano della penitenza (1215–1447), Atti del con-
vegno di studi francescani: Assisi, 30 giugno-2 jùglio 1981, ed. Raffaele Pazzelli &
Lino Temperini (Rome, 1982).
229
On the Franciscan promotion of cults of tertiary saints during the thirteenth
century and the first half of the fourteenth century, see Bert Roest, Reading the Book
of History. Intellectual Contexts and Educational Functions of Franciscan Historiography 1226—
ca. 1350 (Groningen, 1996), 92–98. Alongside of saints and beati that belonged to
tertiary groups associated with the Franciscan order (such as Umiliana dei Cerchi,
Rosa da Viterbo, Marguerita di Cortona, Luca da Poggibonsi and Pietro Pettinaio),
the Friars Minor also claimed as ‘their’ tertiaries some illustrious beguines and
recluses who during their lifetime never had an affiliation with the Franciscan order
of penitents (such as Giovanna da Segni, Marguerita da Faenza and Chiara da
Rimini). For more information, see also Santi e santità nel movimento penitenziale frances-
cano dal Duecento al Cinquecento, ed. L. Temperini, Analecta TOR (Rome, 1998).
230
Cf. Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s letter Cur fratres non promoveant ordinem
Poenitentium, in: S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898), VIII, 368–369. This
text can also be found in Dossier de l’Ordre de la pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G.
Meersseman (Fribourg, 1961), 123–125.
orders (such as the Dominicans and the regular canons).231 Moreover,

penitential groups that opted for close ties with neighbouring Franciscan
convents, still had a choice between a variety of rules to formalise
their religious lifestyle, sometimes with and sometimes without addi-
tional statutes of Franciscan or non-Franciscan provenance.232
With the bull Supra Montem of August 1289, Pope Nicholas IV
produced a new ‘Regula Bullata’ for the penitents. This new rule
supposedly was to succeed the Memoriale of 1221. Nicholas presented
Francesco d’Assisi as the originator of the ‘order of penitence’ and
as the auctor intellectualis behind the penitential rule. This finally placed
the lay penitential movements more or less officially under Franciscan
tutelage.233 Nicholas IV’s initiative should be seen in the context of
the second Council of Lyon, which condemned heterodox Beguine
groups (which had come under attack in Guibert de Tournai’s Tractatus
de Scandalis Ecclesiae, written in preparation to the Lyon Council) and
re-issued the prohibition of Lateran IV to create new rules and new
religious orders. By presenting Francesco d’Assisi as the originator
of the ‘order of penitence’ and as the auctor intellectualis of its rule (a
myth that previously had been propagated by Franciscan hagiogra-
phers, such as Julian von Speyer and Bernard de Besse),234 Nicholas
could by-pass this prohibition, and provide a streamlined official
profile to a rather amorphous movement that on more than one
occasion had raised the suspicion of bishops and inquisitors.235
231
Dossier de l’Ordre de la pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg,
1961), 85.
232
Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare, 39ff.
233
Not only does the rule of Nicholas mention Francesco as the originator of
the ‘order of penitence’, in subsequent papal bulls the pope also mentions Francesco
as the author of the Memoriale of 1221. The rule of Nicholas IV, published in the
bull Supra Montem, has been edited in Bullarium Franciscanum, IV, 94–97; Seraphicae
legislationis textus originales (Quaracchi, 1897), 76–94; Dossier de l’ordre de la Pénitence au
XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg, 1961), 75, 92–112, 128–138; Ai Fratelli
e alle Sorelle dell’Ordine della Penitenza. Regola di Niccolò IV, ed. L. Temperini (Rome,
1988), 44–47; Testi e documenti sul Terzo Ordine Francescano, ed. Lino Temperini (Rome,
1991), 248–276. It can also be found in several early sixteenth-century source col-
lections. Meersseman traces the origin of the rule of Nicholas IV back to a rule
for penitents produced by the Franciscan friar Caro (1284), visitator of the ‘Franciscan’
grey penitents of Florence. This attribution has been disputed. Cf. L. Temperini,
‘L’approvazione pontifica del Terz’Ordine Francescano e la Regola di Niccolò IV’,
Analecta T.O.R. 11 (1968), 172–184; D’Alatri, Aetas poenitentialis, 30, no. 34, 60 & La
‘Supra montem’ di Niccolò IV (1289): Genesi e diffusione di una regola, ed. R. Pazzelli &
L. Temperini, Analecta tertii ordinis regularis S. Francisci, 20 (Rome, 1988).
234
See on this Heribert Roggen, Geschichte der Franziskanischen Laienbewegung, Bücher
Franziskanischer Geistigkeit Band XV (Werl, 1971), 31ff.
235
This was also due to the frequent contacts by penitential groups and beguine
198 chapter two
Nicholas IV’s Supra Montem was an attempt at making penitential

practices more uniform and at strengthening the grip of ecclesiasti-
cal authority over enthusiastic lay religious activities. In short, the
new rule regulated all important aspects of the penitential life in a
well-organised statute of 20 chapters, with specific guidelines for devo-
tional exercises, the liturgical order of the day, and the way in which
the penitents had to be instructed before hearing Mass and receiv-
ing the Eucharist.236 Ideally, Supra Montem was intended to become
communities with Franciscan spirituals and fraticelli. Cf. Pierre Péano, ‘Les beguins
du Languedoc ou la crise du T.O.F. dans la France meridionale (XIII–XIVe siècles)’,
in: I frati penitenti di san Francisco nella società del due e trecento, ed. Mariano d’Alatri
(Rome, 1977), 139–159; Clement Schmitt, ‘La position du tiers-ordre dans le conflit
des spirituels et de fraticelles en Italie’, I frati penitenti di san Francisco nella società del
due e trecento, ed. Mariano d’Alatri (Rome, 1977), 179–190. In the early fourteenth
century, when the papal curia came down hard on heterodox beguine groups, spir-
itual friars and ‘fraticelli’, popes like John XXII took care to support orthodox pen-
itent fraternities, which ran the risk of being lumped together with these condemned
groups. In his bull Etsi Apostolicae Sedis (February 1319) and in the papal letter
Altissimo in Divinis (November 1323), John XXII expressed his full support for the
friars (and sisters) of the order of penitence who followed the ‘Regula Tertii Ordinis
B. Francisci.’ For the text of Altissimo in Divinis, which by Gabriele Andreozzi and
other scholars has been interpreted as a papal ‘Magna Carta’ for the Franciscan
third order of penitents in Italy, see: De antiquitate religionis Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci
et de absoluta iurisdictione itali Generalis illius, ed. F. Bordoni (Bologna, 1644), 9–10;
Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco, 83–84 (with an Italian transla-
tion on 74–75).
236
The chapters of the rule, as edited by Meersseman, deal with: I, De modo
examinandi volentes intrare ordinem; II, De forma recipiendi volentes intrare ordinem;
III, De forma habitus et qualitate indumentorum; IV, Quod non vadant ad inhon-
esta convivia et spectacula et quod histrionibus non dent; V, De abstinentia et ieiu-
nio; VI, Quoties debeant confiteri per annum et sumere Corpus Christi; VII, Quod
non ferant arma impugnationis; VIII, De dicendis horis canonicis (fleshing out a
complete order of the day: ‘Dicant universi quotidie septem horas canonicas, videlicet
matutinum, primam, tertiam, sextam, nonam, vesperas et completorium . . .’); IX,
Quod omnes, qui de iure possunt, faciant testamentum; X, De pace reformanda
inter fratres et alios extraneos; XI, Quando molestantur contra ius aut eorum pri-
vilegia; XII, Quod caveant, in quantum possunt, a iuramentis solemnibus; XIII, De
audienda missa et congregatione facienda (stating, among other things, that the pen-
itents ‘. . . si commode possunt, virum religiosum et in verbo dei competenter instruc-
tum habere procurent, qui eos ad poenitentiam et misericordiae opera exercenda
hortetur sollicite, moneat et inducat . . .’); XIV, De fratribus infirmis et defunctis;
XV, De ministris; XVI, De visitatione et correctione delinquentium (urging the
penitents ‘. . . ut visitatores et informatores de fratrum Minorum ordine assuman-
tur, quos custodes vel guardiani eiusdem ordinis, cum super hoc requisiti fuerint,
duxerint assignando . . .’); XVII, De vitandis litigiis inter se et cum aliis; XVIII,
Qualiter et per quos in abstinentiis possit dispensari; XIX, Quod ministri eorum
manifestas culpas denuntient visitatori; XX, Qualiter in praedictis nemo obligetur
ad culpam mortalem. For a characterisation of the penitential lifestyle of the con-
the permanent rule for all penitential groups, aligning them with the
Friars Minor. Yet it would be rash to declare that Nicholas IV
wanted to create a centralised Franciscan order of penitents, or that
the rule confirmed the existence of a uniform Franciscan third order
in the strict sense of the word. Many penitential groups kept their
autonomy after 1289. It is not even clear how quickly the majority
of penitential groups took the rule of Nicholas IV as the point of
departure for the organisation of their life of religious penitence,237
whether or not with additional statutes. Nevertheless, it became
increasingly common in papal letters and other official documents
to use designations such as ‘frater penitenti ordinis sancti Francisci’
and ‘tertius ordo Fratrum Minorum.’238 Moreover, the same year in
which Supra Montem was published also saw the appearance of the
first encompassing interregional or ‘general’ statutes of a North-Italian
federation of Franciscan penitential groups, which by then had organ-
ised themselves in various provinces.239
fraternities that followed the rule of 1289, see Roggen, Geschichte der franziskanischen
Laienbewegung, 49–65.
237
There are examples showing that, long after 1289, various confraternities and
other penitential gatherings continued to use other rules than that of Nicholas IV.
Even confraternities officially associated with the Franciscan order and under con-
trol of Franciscan visitators and confessors could have other rules. Hence, the Poor
Sisters of Santa Croce sull’Arno in 1294 still followed the rule of Augustine. Cf.
for these and other examples Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco, 49ff.
238
D’Alatri, Aetas poenitentialis, 59f. Designations such as ‘tertius ordo fratrum
minorum’, ‘congregatio s. Francisci’, ‘tertius ordo fratrum et sororum de poeniten-
tia’ became quite common in papal letters from the pontificate of Boniface VIII
onwards. Cf. Dossier de l’ordre de la Pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman
(Fribourg, 1961), 80–81 (which contains an edition of letters by Boniface VIII,
addressing the penitents as follows: ‘. . . dilectis filiis fratribus et dilectis in Christo
filiabus sororibus ordinis de Penitentia beati Francisci in Alemania Superiori . . .’;
‘. . . dilectis filiis universis fratribus et dilectis in Christo filiabus sororibus Continentibus,
de Penitentia sancti Francisci vulgariter nuncupatis . . .’), as well as Giovanni Odoardi,
‘L’Ordine della penitenza nei documenti pontifici del secolo XIV’, in: I frati peni-
tenti di San Francesco nella società del due e trecento, ed. Mariano D’Alatri (Rome, 1977), 33f.
239
The coming into being of the first known penitential order ‘province’, that of
Lombardy, which regularly held provincial chapter meetings, goes back to the 1260s.
Some provincial chapter ordinations dating from ca. 1280 have been edited by
Lemmens, AFH 6 (1913), 249–250 and by Meersseman. See: Dossier de l’Ordre de la
pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg, 1961/Fribourg, 1982) 163–165.
In 1289, this initially large and amorphous Lombard province was split into four
separate provinces (Bologna, Padua, Milan, and Genoa), each with their own provin-
cial vicars and diffinitors, who would elect a general vicar during a ‘general’ chapter
(where also representatives from other Italian regions were present). The statutes of
the 1289 provincial and ‘general’ chapter have been edited and studied in H. Golu-
bovich, ‘Acta et statuta Generalis Capituli Tertii Ordinis Poenitentium D. Francisci
200 chapter two
Hence, from the late thirteenth century onwards it had become

quite common for old and new penitentiary groups inside and out-
side Italy to adopt the rule of Nicholas IV, to live in close symbiosis
with local Franciscan houses, and to organise themselves in larger
federations that held regional and provincial chapter meetings.240 In
Bononiae celebrati an. 1289’, AFH 2 (1909), 63–71; Dossier de l’ordre de la Pénitence
au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg, 1961), 168–171; D. Neri, ‘I primi
congressi del Terz’Ordine Francescano’, SF 7, 2–3 (1921), 21–36; A. Chiappini,
‘Constitutiones Fratrum de Poenitentia S. Francisci factae in Capitulo Bononiae an.
1289 iuxta novum codicem’, AFH 18 (1925), 346–350. It would seem that the 1289
Bologna statutes take the general guidelines of Supra Montem into account. Other
rudimentary statutes from local and regional chapters held at Città di Castello and
Marciano (August 1289) and in Umbria (1290) have been edited by L. Oliger, AFH
26 (1933), 417–418 and by Bughetti, AFH 14 (1921), 120–121. They are reprinted
in Dossier de l’ordre de la Pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg,
1961), 166–167, 177–178.
240
An initial overview of the proliferation of Franciscan penitents/tertiaries after
ca. 1240 can be found in the various articles of I frati penitenti di san Francisco nella
società del due e trecento, ed. Mariano D’Alatri (Rome, 1977), and more particular in
the contributions of Michael Bihl, Francesco Costa, Engelbert Grau, Benjamin De
Troeyer, and Isodoro de Villapadierna. See also M. Bihl, ‘De Tertio Ordine
S. Francisci in Provincia Germaniae Superioris sive Argentinensi syntagma’, AFH
14 (1921), 138–198, 442–460, 15 (1922), 349–381, 17 (1924), 237–265, 18 (1925),
63–89; Isodoro de Villapadierna, ‘Observaciones críticas sobre la Tercera Orden
de Penitencia en España’, CF 43 (1973), 219–227; Koen Goudriaan, ‘De derde
orde van Sint Franciscus in het bisdom Utrecht. Een voorstudie’, Jaarboek voor mid-
deleeuwse geschiedenis 1 (1998), 205–260. The ‘Ragusina’ order statistics of 1385, which
lists the 34 provinces, 10 vicariates, 256 custodies and 1641 convents of the Friars
Minor, as well as the 394 convents of Poor Clares, also lists 244 congregations of
‘Franciscan tertiaries’ all over Europe and in the Holy Land. Cf. G. Golubovich,
Bio-Bibliografica della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente Francescano (Quaracchi, 1906–) II, 254f.;
Ubald d’Alençon, ‘Statistique franciscaine de 1385’, EF 10 (1903), 96f. Cf. L. Temperini,
‘Origine, approvazione e organizzazione del Terzo Ordine regolare francescano’,
Analecta T.O.R. 11 (1968/70), 312–351. The increasing integration of the emerging
Third Order in the Franciscan family can be charted in the late medieval provin-
cial and general constitutions of the Friars Minor. See Atanasio G. Matanic,
‘Legislazione propria dei penitenti francescani dal 1289 a tutto il secolo XIV’, in:
I frati penitenti di san Francesco nella società del due e trecento, ed. Mariano D’Alatri (Rome,
1977), 59; F. van den Borne, ‘Analecta de tertio Ordine’, AFH 9 (1916), 118–133.
At the same time, it would be a mistake to underestimate the bonds between pen-
itential groups and their local parish and/or diocese. Contrary to the friars, the
third order for a long time did not become exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, and
there were quite a few obligatory links between the penitents and their local parish
church. Cf. Atanasio G. Matanic, ‘Legislazione propria dei penitenti francescani dal
1289 a tutto il secolo XIV’, in: I frati penitenti di san Francesco nella società del due e
trecento, ed. Mariano D’Alatri (Rome, 1977), 64: ‘. . . i nostri Penitenti che recitavano
le loro preghiere liturgiche—perché si trattava di tutto l’ufficio divino prescritto e
collegato alla massa quotidiana—nelle chiese parrocchiali, contribuivano molto alla
stessa vita liturgica delle parrocchie.’ Could it be that a large part of the mendi-
cant impact on late medieval religious life found its way into main-stream parish
life via the penitents and tertiaries?
this context should be placed the emergence of various vernacular

versions of the 1289 rule of Nicholas IV.241 Yet for a long time this
Franciscan order of penitence remained extremely diversified, includ-
ing confraternities of married and single lay people living in their
own homes, but also recluses, people living in hermitages, and con-
vent-like communities. A more or less unified order of Franciscan
tertiaries, with emerging secular and regular branches—consisting of
male and female penitents living their penitential life in the world
and of penitentiary communities living a more regulated religious
life in separate communities respectively—did not fully emerge before
the end of the fourteenth century. By then, the regular variety living
in semi-enclosed communities was beginning to win out, and had
established the custom to hold general chapter meetings at regular
intervals, during which provincial representatives elected a minister
general.242
This process went hand in hand with the production of a large
number of local, regional and supra-regional regulations, constitutions,
statutes, papal bulls and admonitory letters. Some of these shed light
on the religious instruction and the penitential lifestyle of peniten-
tial communities in this long period of transmission.243 Of particular
241
See for instance Kurt Ruh, David von Augsburg und die Anfänge eines franziskani-
schen Schrifttums in deutscher Sprache, ‘Augusta’ (Munich, 1955), 75; Idem, Bonaventura
Deutsch, 44–45.
242
The long and intricate history of centralisation from the fourteenth to the
early sixteenth century is charted in Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco,
109–333. The emergence of a more or less unified order of Franciscan tertiaries
goes hand in hand with the appearance of Franciscan collective biographies or
hagiographic accounts of sanctified and beatified tertiaries. On this latter phenom-
enon, which saw a major break-through with the insertion of many tertiary saints
in Bartolomeo da Pisa’s Liber de Conformitate sancti Francisci ad Vitam Domini Jesu Christi
(1385) and became an important aspect of Franciscan Observant historiography,
see Chiara Mercuri, Santità e propaganda. Il terz’ordine Francescano nell’agiografia osservante,
Bibliotheca Seraphico-Capuccina 59 (Rome, 1999). With thanks to the author for
providing me with her valuable study.
243
The rule of Nicholas IV permitted the use of local or provincial statutes and
additional rules tailored to the variegated forms of religious life in penitential com-
munities, which ranged from small hermitage-like convents to urban hospitals and
guild-like gatherings of lay people. The production of specific statutes therefore did
not come to an end when the rule of Nicholas IV was more widely adopted. A
case in point are the statutes for the Tuscan penitents issued by the papal legate
Matteo d’Aquasparta (the former minister general of the Franciscan order), included
in the Dossier de l’ordre de la Pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg,
1961), 157–158. Matteo’s statutes can be interpreted as a first explanatory letter,
elucidating some aspects of the rule of Nicholas IV. See on additional elucidations,
regulations and statutes Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco, passim;
202 chapter two
interest are the synodal regulations produced in 1359 by the Franciscan

bishop Alessandro Vincioli for the ‘fraticelli’ of the Terra Santa her-
mitage near Gualdo Tadino,244 and the strict Regula produced for a
monastery of nuns of the third order at Compluto produced by
Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros (1433–1517), which stands out because
of its draconic fasting obligations.245
It would seem that the promotion of a recognisable tertiary iden-
tity under the umbrella of the Franciscan order was very much taken
to heart by the leaders of the Franciscan regular Observance. They
sang the praises of the Franciscan tertiary lifestyle in their sermons246
and published separate treatises to defend the tertiary order against
outside critics.247 Most famous probably is Giovanni da Capistrano’s
Defensorium Tertii Ordinis of 1440, with which he intended to clarify
Dossier de l’ordre de la Pénitence au XIII e siècle, ed. G.G. Meersseman (Fribourg, 1961),
159 (a rite for the clothing of new penitents. This rite can also be found in AFH
14 (1921), 112.); Modus Recipiendi Personas ad Tertium Ordinem S. Francisci: MS Naples,
Naz. XII.F.4 ff. 33cd–35c (ascribed to Giovanni di San Marco); Atanasio G. Matanic,
‘Legislazione propria dei penitenti francescani dal 1289 a tutto il secolo XIV’, in:
I frati penitenti di San Francesco nella società del due e trecento, ed. Mariano D’Alatri (Rome,
1977), 51–67; Celestino Piana, ‘La posizione giuridica del Terz’Ordine della Penitenza
a Firenze nel sec. XIV’, AFH 50 (1957), 49–73; H. Goyens, ‘Monumenta histor-
ica inde ab anno 1397 circa vetus Hospitale Sancti Iohannis Gandavi III Ordinis
S. Francisci’, AFH 7 (1914), 511–526; H. Lemaitre, ‘Statuts de réligieuses du Tiers-
Ordre Franciscain dites Soeurs Grises Hospitalières (1483)’, AFH 4 (1911), 713–731.
244
Cf. M. Sensi, Le osservanze francescane nell’Italia centrale (Rome, 1985), 313–315;
Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco, 142ff.
245
This stands in an Observant tradition to impose very strict rules on commu-
nities of Franciscan nuns and female tertiaries. This rule obtained a mitigating
modification by pope Paolo III in 1538 (in the apostolic letter Exponi Nobis). Cf.
Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco, 142ff.
246
See for instance sermon 27 of Bernardino di Busti’s Rosarium Sermonum
Praedicabilium: ‘De imitatione Christi per assumptionem status tertii ordinis.’ This
sermon has been included in A. de Sillis, Studia, originem, provectum atque complemen-
tum Tertii Ordinis de Poenitentia S. Francisci concernentia (Naples, 1621), 68–85. See also
L. Oliger, ‘Due prediche sul Terz’Ordine dei secoli XIII e XV (Umberto de Romanis
O.P. ed un Anonimo Francescano)’, SF 7 (1921), 37–51. Bernardino recognised in
the rule for the third order twelve perfections (perfezioni/virtù) that could act as
even so many steps on the ladder of sanctity, the kernel of which is formed by the
imitatio Christi. The twelve perfections are fede, esperanza, carità, pietà, umiltà, onestà
dei costumi, sobrietà nei cibi, devozione, esemplarità di vita, amore, pace (with fel-
low friars and one’s neighbour), discrezione.
247
This also shows in the Observant concern to produce catalogues of sanctified
and beatified tertiaries, which culminated in the Trattato del Terz’Ordine of Mariano
da Firenze and the Firmamenta Trium Ordinum from 1512. Cf. Mercuri, Santità e pro-
paganda, passim.
the legal position of the tertiaries as members of the Franciscan fam-

ily alongside of the Friars Minor and the Poor Clares, and in which
he described their obligations vis-à-vis the order and the (urban)
communities in which they were situated.248 Shortly thereafter, in
July 1447, Pope Nicholas V issued the apostolic letter Pastoralis Officii.
This put the Italian congregation of the regular tertiaries on a sound
canonical footing, dealt with their organisation in congregations,
provinces, fraternities, hermitages and hospitals, and presented an
outline of general constitutions for the Franciscan order of tertiaries
as a whole.249
During this period many already existing beguinages and compa-
rable religious groups in the German lands, The Netherlands and
Northern France were more or less forced to accept Nicholas IV’s
1289 rule for tertiaries, and to organise themselves into enclosed
communities.250 It also was the period in which it became common to
expose old and new tertiary communities to systematic visitations. In
the context of one such visitation of Belgian, Bohemian and German
tertiary communities by a committee lead by Cardinal Cusanus around
1450, Dionysius the Carthusian (d. 1472) wrote an Elucidatio in Tertiam
S. Francisci Regulam. This soon became the normative interpretation
248
Defensorium Tertium Ordinis (Venice, 1580); Defensorium Tertium Ordinis, ed. Hilarius
Parisiensis (Geneva-Paris, 1888). On this text and additional letters of Giovanni da
Capistrano dealing with tertiaries, see G. Andreozzi, ‘San Giovanni da Capestrano
e la sua difesa del T.O.F.’, Analecta T.O.R.. 6 (1955/1956), 806–814; L. Canonici,
‘San Giovanni da Capestrano difensore del Terz’Ordine’, Frate Francesco 38 (1971),
247–258; A.G. Matanic, ‘Il “Defensorium Tertii Ordinis Beati Francisci” di S. Giovanni
da Capestrano’, in: Il movimento francescano della Penitenza nella società medioevale. Atti del
Convegno Padova, 1979 (Rome, 1980), 47–57; G. Andreozzi, S. Giovanni da Capestrano
e il Terzo Ordine di S. Francesco (Rome, 1987).
249
Cf. Bullarium Franciscanum n.s. I, no. 1083, 547–548; Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine
Regolare di San Francesco, 159ff., 175f. Cf. L. Wadding, Annales Minorum XI, 324 (ad
an. 1447): ‘Jam enim Nicolaus V, anno 1447, Fratribus et Sororibus universis eius-
dem [Tertii Ordinis] tria vota religiosa emittentium concesserat auctoritatem con-
dendi leges et statuta atque ad Capitulum Generale convocandi; huius virtute indulti,
aliqui Superiores, nimio zelo ducti, volebant suos subditos ad plura et arctiora com-
pellere, quam ipse status exigebat, aut S. Francisci regula, vel Pontificum decreta
praescribunt. Revocavit itaque anno 1449 Nicolaus V quidquid circa huius Ordinis
observantiam vel Regulam ultra S. Francisci et Nicolai IV vivendi formas quoquo
modo fuerat decretum.’
250
See on this the insightful study of Goudriaan, ‘De derde orde van Sint
Franciscus in het bisdom Utrecht’, 205–260, which shows that even then the whole-
sale adoption of the rule of 1289 did not necessarily imply that such communities
developed close ties with the order of Friars Minor, or saw themselves as being
part of the Franciscan order family.
204 chapter two
of the 1289 rule of Nicholas IV for the regular tertiaries of Flanders

and (after 1467) Lombardy, and received official approbation at the
general chapters of the regular tertiaries in 1487 and 1533.251
After 1517, when the regular Observance had officially become
the dominant member of the Franciscan order family, Pope Leo X
for once and for all desired to turn the regular branch of the ter-
tiaries into a monastic order under Observant control. To this pur-
pose, a new general rule for the tertiary order was issued in January
1521, rephrasing and systematising the 1289 rule of Nicholas IV.
The new rule dealt in ten chapters with the acceptance of novices,
the vows that should be taken by people who wanted to join, the
fasting habits, the personal examination of one’s conscience, the litur-
gical and confessional obligations, the community’s enclosure and the
reports with people outside, the role of Franciscan provincial minis-
ters and visitators, and the burial of the dead.252
Whatever Pope Leo’s ambitions, his 1521 rule did not prove to
be final. Soon it was eclipsed by the more encompassing rules issued
by Pope Paul III (in July 1547) for all groups of secular and regu-
lar Franciscan tertiaries in Spain and Portugal. These rules, which
gave the male and female branches of regular tertiaries their own
superiors and a relative autonomy vis-à-vis the first Franciscan order,
quickly were taken over by tertiary communities all over Europe.253
251
Dionysii Carthusiani in Tertiam S. Francisci Regulam Elucidatio: Religiosis quidem scripta,
verum nulli Christiano non maxime necessaria. Ac Tractatus Patris Bernardini de Busto de
Imitatione Christi per Assumptionem Status tertij Ord. de Paenitentia, in: Antonio de Sillis,
Studia Originem, Provectum atque Complementum tertii Ordinis de Paenitentia S. Francisci
Concernentia (Naples, 1621) II, 1–68 & 68–85. Cf. Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare
di San Francesco, 219ff. For the fate of the various statutes resulting from late fifteenth-
century general chapter meetings of regular tertiaries, which have not survived but
in conjunction with the rule of Nicholas IV apparently governed the life of many
Italian congregations of Franciscan tertiaries, see Ibidem, 247ff.
252
The text of this rule can be found in several of the large sixteenth-century
source collections and in Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San Francesco, 272–275
(I: De novitiorum seu novitiarum ingressu; II: De his quae debent promittere fratres et sorores in
professione hujus tertiae regulae; III: De jejunio; IV: De divino officio et oratione; V: De prae-
latorum et officiorum ordinatione; VI: De modo interius exteriusque conversandi; VII: De visita-
tione et cura infirmorum; VIII: De visitatione, quam praelati debent facere circa fratres et sorores;
IX: De officiis mortuorum; X: De obligatione contentorum in regula).
253
This rule, divised by minister general Andreas Alvares, is divided into three
parts, repectively directed to friars (male regular tertiaries), nuns (female regular ter-
tiaries) and married couples (secular tertiaries). The part directed to the friars—a
rule in ten chapters—is predominantly based on the rules of Nicholas IV and Leo
X (taking into account papal privileges issued in the course of the centuries): In the
The rules issued by Pope Paul III, written when the Observant
control over tertiary communities was challenged by dramatic new
developments within the Franciscan order family, came out just before
the publication, in 1549, of a new set of general statutes for the reg-
ular tertiaries in Italy. These statutes provided in no less than 30
short chapters very detailed regulations for the daily religious life
with regular tertiary communities.254 In their detail, these general
statutes were indicative of what was to follow in the later sixteenth
century.
first chapter, it is stated (in accordance with the earlier rules) that penitent friars
have to observe the three vows of poverty, obedience and chastity, that they have
to be obedient to the papacy and to the minister general of the order of penitents.
The second chapter deals with the novices and their training. The third chapter is
concerned with the habit and the tonsure. Chapter four regulates the recitation of
the divine office (or the Pater Noster recitations by the lay friars), confession obliga-
tions and the way in which the penitents have to hear Mass and follow the rule
of silence. Chapter five explains the fasting regime and additional disciplinary issues.
Chapter six deals with the preachers and confessors active inside and outside the
communitues, and with the behaviour of friars outside the cloister. Chapter seven
provides guidelines for the care of the sick and the office of the dead. Chapter
eight deals with the minister general and the general chapter. Chapter nine speaks
about the minister of the community and visits by the minister general. It closes
with general admonitions, the powers of the minister general, and remarks about
the extent to which the various parts of the rule have the status of obligations or
admonitions. The complete text of this rule can be found in Andreozzi, Il Terzo
Ordine Regolare di San Francesco II, Chapter XVII.
254
I. De frequentioribus comitiis sive capitulis generalibus; II. De provincialibus capitulis; III.
De generalis visitatoris officio; IV. De officio vicariorum provincialium; V. De coenobiorum min-
istris; VI. De coenobiorum vicariis; VI. De novitiorum praeceptoribus; VIII. Qui in ordinem
recipiendi; IX. Quomodo et quando religionis professio emittenda; X. Sint fratribus communia
omnia; XI. Nostratum habitus; XII. Vana et curiosa vitanda; XIII. De ieiuniis; XIV. De
sacramentali Poenitentia et Eucharistia; XV. De canonicis horis persolvendis; XVI. De aegroto-
rum et funerum curatione; XVII. De Sacrificiis Anniversariis; XVIII. Humilitatis et pietatis
apprehendenda disciplina; XIX. De reverentia praelatis exhibenda; XX. Quid in vagos et errantes
observandum; XXI. Quid e coenobiis exeuntibus agendum; XXII. Non temere obeundum audi-
endae confessionis munus; XXIII. Fratrum ad sacros ordines promotio; XXIV. De silentio;
XXV. Arcana ordinis occultanda; XXVI. Periculosa et suspecta familiaritas tollenda; XXVII.
Quoties et ubi recitanda decreta; XXVIII. De coenobiorum bonis cautio; XXIX. De novis
coenibus edificandis; XXX. De clericali tonsura. These Generalia Statuta ac Decreta Fratrum
Tertii Ordinis Sancti Francisci de poenitentia nuncupati, regularis observantiae Congregationis
Lombardiae in habitu heremetico degentium were published under the aegis of minister
general of the third order of penitence Bonaventura da Vicenza, and received official
approbation by the cardinal protector Rodolfo Pio da Carpi on 29 April 1549. For
a discussion of these constitutions, see Andreozzi, Il Terzo Ordine Regolare di San
Francesco I, 279ff. Andreozzi also produces the Latin text and an Italian translation
(on pp. 316–332 and 294–306 respectively, based on the edition and translation found
in the Regola del Terz’Ordine di S. Francesco d’Assisi, ed. E. Maricotti (Rome, 1889).
CHAPTER THREE
RULES AND TREATISES FOR NOVICE TRAINING
After Francesco d’Assisi and his band of penitents received the ton-
sure in 1209, the movement gradually obtained the character of a
religious order, with its own regulations regarding the behaviour and
the religious duties of its members. These regulations eventually found
their codification in the rule of 1221 and in the definitive Regula
Bullata of 1223. Both of these rules phrased the acceptance of new
postulants in accordance with the bull Cum Secundum (1220), issued
by Honorius III:1 those who wanted to join the order were expected
to complete the noviciate period, which lasted a year. During this
period, the candidate had to be initiated into the basics of the
Franciscan way of life.2 At the end of the noviciate, the novice could
be admitted to the profession of obedience and allowed to exchange
his noviciate cloths for the friar’s habit, on the condition that the
candidate was considered suitable and promised to observe the
Franciscan way of life as expressed in the rule.3
1
BF I, 60. Cf. Franco Bernarello, La formazione religiosa secondo la primitiva scuola
francescana (Venice, 1961), 37.
2
See on the noviciate in general Alvaro Huerga, ‘Noviciat’, DSpir XI (Paris,
1982), 483–495. In the early Franciscan movement, the initiation of new postulants
was done by Francesco himself. Celano writes about this: ‘Coeperunt multi de po-
pulo, nobiles et ignobiles, clerici et laici, divina inspiratione compuncti, ad S. Franciscum
accedere, cupientes, sub eius disciplina et magisterio perpetuo militare. Quos omnes
sanctus Dei, velut caelestis gratiae rivus uberrimus, charismatum imbribus rigans,
agrum cordis ipsorum virtutum floribus exornabat (. . .) Omnibus quoque tribuebat
vitae ac salutis viam in omni gradu veraciter demonstrabat.’ Tommaso da Celano,
Vita Prima S. Francisci, c. 15 in: AF X (Ad Claras Aquas-Quaracchi, 1926–1941), 41.
At first, learned clerical postulants were able to enter the order without or after a
very short noviciate. In 1244, pope Innocent IV tried to curb this exemption, mak-
ing a noviciate period of twelve months a prerequisite for entering the order. Cf.
BF I, 342–343. The thirteenth-century provincial statutes of Aquitaine, however,
make it clear that dispensations continued to be granted. Statuta Provincialia Provinciarum
Aquitaniae et Franciae (saec. XIII–XIV), ed. M. Bihl, AFH 7 (1914), 466–501, 470.
3
Cf. De Fratrum Minorum Constitutionibus Praenarbonensibus, ed. C. Cenci, AFH 83
(1990), 50–95, 76; Statuta Generalis Ordinis edita in Capitulis Generalibus celebratis Narbonae
an. 1260, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 13–94, 39; Statuta Provincialia Provinciarum
Aquitaniae et Franciae (saec. XIII–XIV), ed. M. Bihl, AFH 7 (1914), 484; Documenta
saeculi XIV Provinciae S. Francisci Umbriae, ed. F.M. Delorme, AFH 5 (1912), 135–143,
rules and treatises for novice training 207
The progressive clericalisation of the order and its growing pas-

toral obligations made it necessary for new postulants to receive a
more thorough religious training. This explains why, by the late
1220s, the leadership of the order began to prefer clerical candidates
with some prior knowledge of Latin and religious learning. The pre-
Narbonne constitutions (–1239) expressed the wish to accept only
postulants competent in grammar, logic, law, or medicine. Other
clerics and lay men without such an adequate educational back-
ground should only be accepted when their edificatory example would
be beneficial to the populace at large.4 This drastically limited the
influx of uneducated lay adults in the Franciscan order, as is confirmed
by remarks in the chronicle of Salimbene.5 Around the same time,
however, the order began to accept young adolescents, who needed a
considerable amount of guidance in spiritual matters. This gradually
turned the noviciate period into a quintessential period of religious
formation.
For this, neither the old rule of 1221 nor the final rule of 1223
provided adequate provisions.6 Moreover, the general constitutions
were slow to deal with this issue. The 1260 Narbonne constitutions,
as well as the constitutions accepted in 1279 and 1292 still mention
eighteen years as the minimum age for incoming friars. Younger boys
from fifteen years onwards could only be admitted in exceptional
circumstances.7 The general constitutions of 1316 finally lowered the
520–543, 532. For details on the way in which the noviciate was dealt with in
canon law, the Rule of 1221 and that of 1223, as well as in subsequent Franciscan
rule commentaries and order regulations in the Conventual and Observant branches,
see Andrea Boni, Vangelo e vita religiosa (Rilettura teologica e storico-giuridica delle fonti),
Spicilegium Pontificii Athenaei Antoniani, 32 (Rome, 1994), 162–168, 172, 174,
178–188, 245–253, 285ff., 354–360; Andrea Boni, ‘Obbligatorietà del noviziato nel-
l’ordine dei frati minori’, Antonianum 71 (1996), 211–264.
4
‘Nullus recipiatur in ordine nostro nisi sit talis clericus qui sit competenter in
grammatica instructus vel logica vel medicina vel decretis vel legibus vel theologia,
aut nisi sit talis clericus vel laicus, de cuius ingressu esset valde famosa et celebris
edificatio in populo et in clero.’ De Fratrum Minorum Constitutionibus Praenarbonensibus,
ed. C. Cenci, AFH 83 (1990), 75. This was repeated in the Statuta Generalis Ordinis
edita in Capitulis Generalibus celebratis Narbonae an. 1260, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 39.
5
Salimbene da Parma, Cronica, ed. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores XXXII
(Hanover-Leipzig, 1905–1913), 103–104.
6
In contrast with the community of Chiara d’Assisi, whose rule of 1253 expres-
sively offers regulations for the acceptance of girls younger than twelve years. Livarius
Oliger, ‘De pueris oblatis in ordine minorum (cum textu hucusque inedito fr. Iohannis
Pecham)’, AFH 8 (1915), 389–447, 394.
7
Statuta Generalis Ordinis edita in Capitulis Generalibus celebratis Narbonae an. 1260, ed.
208 chapter three
official minimum age of admittance for clerical friars to fourteen,

maintaining the age limit of eighteen for prospective lay friars. The
1325 statutes of Lyon and the Farinerian constitutions of 1354
repeated this minimum age of fourteen for clerical friars, but also
began to mention oblates, who could be presented by their parents,
presumably at a younger age.8 As I have argued in a previous pub-
lication, the silence of thirteenth-century constitutions about the accept-
ance of postulants under eighteen did not correspond with reality.
At least from the 1240s onwards many friars entered the order in
their early teens, or even younger, a practice that gave rise to
significant polemics between spokesmen of the friars and represen-
tatives of the secular clergy.9
The increasing numbers of adolescents and mere children accepted
into the order radically changed the character of the noviciate period.
The Franciscan leadership now had a growing number of young-
sters on their hands who had to be coached and monitored during
and after their postulancy. Hence we see the emergence of the novice
master around 1240, followed shortly thereafter by the magister iuvenum,
responsible for friars under the age of 20 (or sometimes 25). By the
mid-thirteenth century, it had become customary to select one or
two convents within each custody to take care of incoming novices
in a more regulated manner.10 These centres normally also housed
M. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 39. Dominican legislation from 1265, in contrast, allowed
the entrance of boys who had reached their fifteenth birthday. M. Michèle Mulchahey,
“First the Bow is Bent in Study.” Dominican Education before 1350, PIMS Studies and
Texts, 132 (Toronto, 1998), 84.
8
‘. . . aetate xiv annorum ad minus, nisi fuerit a parentibus oblatus.’ See on
these developments Oliger, ‘De pueris oblatis in ordine minorum’, 394–400. Cf.
John R.H. Moorman, The Grey Friars in Cambridge 1225–1538, The Birkbeck Lectures
1948–9 (Cambridge, 1952), 106–107. These pueri oblati should be distinguished from
mature oblati: adults who offered themselves with their possessions to a monastery
or a convent, in order to live a religious life in service of the religious community
in question. In the Franciscan order, we do find (from the second half of the thir-
teenth century onwards) so-called famuli, familiares, conversi, pinzochere, semifratres. There
must have been a significant overlap between these various groups and the com-
munities of penitents and tertiaries allied with the order. See in particular Franco
dal Pino, ‘Oblati e oblate conventuali presso i mendicanti ‘minori’ nei secoli XIII–
XIV’, Quaderni di storia religiosa 1 (1994), 33–67; Élisabeth Lopez, ‘Frères et soeurs
extérieurs dans les couvents des ordres mendiants’, in: Les mouvances laïques des ordres
réligieux. Actes du Troisième Colloque International du C.E.R.C.O.R. en collaboration avec le
Centre International d’Études Romanes, Tournus, 17–20 Juin 1992, ed. N. Bouter (Saint-
Étienne, 1996), 117–133.
9
See on this Roest, A History of Franciscan Education, 238ff.
10
Cf. Statuta Generalis Ordinis edita in Capitulis Generalibus celebratis Narbonae an. 1260,
the custodial schools that provided the young friars after their pro-
fession with a training in the liberal arts, instruction in pastoral issues
and an introduction to the rudiments of moral theology. Throughout
these crucial years, the novices and the newly professed, as well as
those young oblates still too young to enter the noviciate would have
been under continual surveillance.11
A. The emergence of novice training treatises
Gradually, the noviciate became a quintessential period of basic reli-

gious formation, during which the incoming friars made themselves
thoroughly familiar with the divine office, and were taught to inter-
nalise the principles of their chosen vocation with the help of disci-
plinary and meditative exercises.12 To facilitate this rigorous programme
of personal transformation, which echoed older (Benedictine, Cistercian
and Victorine) educational agendas for beginning monks, Franciscan
authors soon started to write designated treatises and novice manuals.
Most famous and probably most influential amongst these were
a group of writings that now are known under the collective title
De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione Hominis. This conglomerate work
ed. M. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 40: ‘Ut autem novitii melius valeant informari, volu-
mus ut in qualibet custodia a Ministro assignetur domus aliqua magis apta, vel
duae, si una non sufficit, in qua vel in quibus omnes novitii de custodia collocen-
tur usque ad tempus professionis suae.’ These constitutions also provide some infor-
mation about the qualities of the novice master: ‘Ad quos informandos assignetur
frater religiosus et circumspectus, qui eos doceat pure et frequenter confiteri, arden-
ter orare, honeste conversari, humiliter obedire, servare cordis et corporis puritatem,
zelare sacratissimam paupertatem et ad omnis perfectionis apicem anhelare,’ Ibidem,
40. Further information on the novice master and the magister iuvenum is provided
by the Ordinationes a Benedicto XII pro Fratribus Minoribus promulgatae per Bullam 28
Novembris 1336, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 30 (1937), 309–387, 336–337. Cf. Bernarello, La
formazione religiosa, 38–39.
11
At first, newly professed friars were the direct responsibility of the guardian.
Yet the Narbonne constitutions stress the necessity to continue monitoring the ‘con-
versatio’ and the ‘praesumptio’ of the younger friars. Michael Brlek, De Evolutione
Iuridica Studiorum in Ordine Minorum. Ab initio ordinis usque ad an. 1517 (Dubrovnik, 1942),
67 therefore suggests: ‘Nil magis naturale quam ut magister novitiorum adhuc aliquo
tempore vigilet et curam habeat de ipsis.’ The 1316 provincial constitutions of the
Roman province make mention of magistri in individual custodies for the novices
and the ‘neoprofessi’ up to their twentieth year.
12
Salimbene started his lectures in theology during his noviciate period. Later
in the century, this was no longer possible. See on this Statuta Generalis Ordinis edita
in Capitulis Generalibus celebratis Narbonae an. 1260, ed. M. Bihl, AFH 34 (1941), 40.
210 chapter three
consists of a Formula de Compositione Hominis Exterioris ad Novitios, a

Formula de Interioris Hominis Reformatione ad Proficientes, and a De Septem
Processibus Religiosorum. All of these were written by David von Augsburg,
novice master at the Regensburg convent in the 1240s, and they
aimed at guiding novices and young friars in Regensburg and other
convents of the Strasbourg Province through the initial stages of their
religious life.13
Inspired by Gregory the Great’s theme of three levels leading to
religious perfection (a theme also pursued in Guillaume de St. Thierry’s
Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei ), David focused in his Formula de
Compositione Hominis Exterioris ad Novitios on the edification of outer or
exterior man, thereby providing behavioural guidelines and instru-
ments to strengthen virtue and to avoid vice. For didactic purposes,
chapters 27 to 41 of the Formula recapitulate these elements in twenty
‘virtuous steps’ (Viginti Passus de Virtutibus Bonorum Religiosorum ad Novitios).
These twenty steps to fortify the virtues and enable a closer con-
formity to the life of evangelical perfection, often survive in the man-
uscripts as a separate treatise.
The other two works of David’s trilogy, that is the Formula de
Interioris Hominis Reformatione ad Proficientes and the De Septem Processibus
Religiosorum, continue where the first Formula on the formation of exte-
rior man leaves of. They deal with the subsequent stages of religious
perfection from the viewpoint of inner or interior man. The first of
these two treatises stresses the transformation (reformatio) of the fac-
ulties of the soul, namely ratio, memoria, and voluntas, all of which are
hampered by original sin and its consequences. Through the trans-
formation of these faculties in the school of the Franciscan religious
life, the soul of the diligent friar once more can shine as a true
image of God.14 The De Septem Processibus Religiosorum thereafter unfolds
13
David von Augsburg, De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione Hominis Libri Tres
(Quaracchi, 1899). An older edition can be found in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia,
ed. A.C. Peltier (Paris, 1868), XII, 292–442. For a partial modern Italian transla-
tion of the work (chapters 52–70), see: I mistici. Scritti dei mistici Francescani, I: secolo
XIII, ed. L. Iriarte et al. (Assisi, 1995), 171–280.
14
On man’s internal reformation, David informs us that: ‘Interior reformatio in
spiritu mentis consistit, quia et interior homo et imago Dei est mens rationalis (. . .)
interior autem homo in bonis de die in diem renovatur et proficit in similitudinem
eius, ad cuius imaginem creatus est.’ David von Augsburg, De Exterioris et Interioris
Compositione Hominis Libri Tres (Quaracchi, 1899), 88. Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio
developed the theme of interior and exterior man on the basis of Paul’s second let-
ter to the Corinthians: ‘Scriptura distinguit hominem interiorem et exteriorem, sicut
a sevenfold programme of spiritual progression that eventually will

lead to perfection. Though initially presented as a further step in the
noviciate training, this treatise is mainly directed to mature religious.15
These three treatises both together and separately soon found their
way all over Europe, frequently alongside of other works by the same
author. Through the centuries they became the object of manifold
reworkings and translations, thereby stimulating the dissemination of
‘Franciscan’ religious ideas among religious and lay communities
alike.16
habetur secundae ad Corinthios quarto [II Cor., 4, 16] Etsi is, qui exterior est,
noster homo corrumpitur; interior tamen renovatur de diem in diem. Exteriorem
autem hominem vocat non ipsum corpus tantum, sed corpus cum viribus animae,
per quas habet his sensibilibus intendere, et eis in haerere. Interiorem autem hominem
vocat ipsum spiritum rationalem, secundum quod habet circa coelestia se ipsum
occupare.’ Bonaventura, In II Sent., d. 2, dub. 3, in: Idem, Opera Omnia (Ad Claras
Aquas: Quaracchi, 1885) II, 587. Cf. Bernarello, La formazione religiosa, 29–31.
15
See in particular Bernarello, La formazione religiosa, 24–26 and Kurt Ruh, Geschichte
der abendländischen Mystik. Zweiter Band: Frauenmystik und Franziskanische Mystik der Frühzeit
(Munich, 1993), 526–531.
16
The De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione has survived in many manuscripts, both
partially and as a whole. The Quaracchi edition already mentions more than 370
(Latin) manuscripts, and that listing is not complete. For editions of later vernacu-
lar adaptations, see: Formula de Compositione Hominis Exterioris ad Novitios, ed. K. Ruh,
in: Franziskanisches Schrifttum I, 141–144. Another late vernacular version, which
is ascribed to Katharina Ederin and addresses female novices, has been edited by
K. Rieder, in Alemannia 25 (1898), 166–180. Other vernacular versions can be found
in MSS Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek Cent. VI.43.h; Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek
Cent. b. II. 13; Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Patr. 65; Zürich, Zentralbibliothek A
131; St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 973. Cf. Franziskanisches Schrifttum I, 62, 144–146.
See also the remarks of Kurt Ruh, in VL2 II, 49 and Franziskanisches Schrifttum im
Deutschen Mittelalter Band II: Texte, 283–289. It is clear that, in the fifteenth century,
German versions of David’s novice treatises spread throughout the German lan-
guage area, alongside of, and in combination with, other Franciscan popular the-
ological texts. For medieval English translations of David’s novice training treatises,
see Domenico Pezzini, ‘David of Augsburg’s ‘Formula Novitiorum’ in three English
translations’, in: The Medieval Translator. The Theory and Practice of Translation in the
Middle Ages, ed. Roger Ellis et al. (Woodbridge, 1989), 321–347 and Domenico
Pezzini, ‘La tradizione manoscritta inglese del De exterioris et interioris hominis
compositione di Davide di Augusta’, in: Editori di Quaracchi 100 anni dopo: bilancio e
prospettive, ed. Alvaro Cacciotti & Barbara Faes de Mottoni (Rome, 1997), 251–259.
David also wrote several instructory letters to various novices and their teachers.
Some of these are included in the editions of the De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione
Hominis. Other letters of comparable import have been edited separately. See: De
Officio Magistri Novitiorum & Qualiter Novitius se Praeparat ad Horam ed. E. Lempp,
Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 19 (1899), 340–343 (on the basis of MSS Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Lat. 15312 and Munich clm 23444); Tractatus de Oratione,
ed. Lempp, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 19 (1899), 343–45. For a general introduc-
tion to David’s main Latin works, see A. Matanic, ‘La ‘hominis compositio’ tra la
scuola vittorina e la prima scuola francescana’, in: L’antropologia dei maestri spirituali,
212 chapter three
David von Augsburg and his immediate circle at Regensburg com-

plemented these Latin texts of religious instruction with multifarious
vernacular treatises that were overtly directed to lay brothers, Poor
Clares, and lay penitents. In a clear language and with careful sub-
stitution of conceptual terms with more concrete vernacular equivalents,
these texts developed the same themes as their Latin counterparts.
This suggests that, the difference between literati and illiterati notwith-
standing, all groups addressed by the Latin and the vernacular texts
were exposed to a comparable comprehensive programme of reli-
gious formation.17
Among the texts from this Regensburg circle explicitly tailored to
novices, two ‘sermons’ stand out in particular. One of these, the ver-
nacular ‘Lesepredigt’ Prüder Davids lere von geistleichen leuten, amounts
to a free translation of a prior abbreviation of David von Augsburg’s
De Exterioris et Interioris Hominis Compositione.18 The other sermon, which
ed. C.A. Bernard (Cinisello Balsamo, 1991), 163–177; Cornelius Bohl, ‘. . . Habent
tamen Desiderium Desiderii.’ David von Augsburg und sein Werk ‘De Exterioris et Interioris
Hominis Compositione’ (Rome 1994).
17
Several of these texts will be dealt with in subsequent chapters. For the impact
of David von Augsburg’s Latin and vernacular heritage, see the works of Bohl, Ruh
and Pezzini mentioned in the previous notes, as well as Georg Steer, ‘David von
Augsburg und Berthold von Regensburg. Schöpfer der volkssprachigen franziskanis-
chen Traktat- und Predigtliteratur’, in: Handbuch der Literatur in Bayern vom Frühmittelalter
bis zum Gegenwart, ed. A. Weber (Regensburg 1987), 99–118.
18
Prüder Davids lere von geistleichen leuten, edited in: Predigten und Stücke aus dem Kreise
Bertholds von Regensburg (Teilsammlung Yiii), ed. Frank G. Banta, Göppinger Arbeiten
zur Germanistik, 621 (Göppingen, 1995), 23–39. The text starts as follows: ‘Ein
iunger wegert von seinem maister, do er von im solte varen, daz er im ain lere
schribe, wie er sein leben solt richten in dem dienst unsers herren.’ The texts ther-
after is like a letter of advice or a monologue written by a departing (dying?) older
brother, eager to instruct a younger pupil: ‘Als du mich pete, do ich von dir schid,
also rat ich dir, daz du zem ersten gedenchest, warum du seist chomen ze gaistle-
ichem leben. Dez ersten solt du merchen ze allen zeiten, warumbe du chomen seist
und warumbe nicht, wan durch got alaine, daz er werde dein lone in dem ewigen
leben.’ Subsequently, the older brother deals in short paragraphs with obedience
(Von der gehorsam), peace (Von dem frïde, wi gut er ist), and with the way in
which religious people should live (Von der metten; Von zuchten und von guten
gewerden; Von dem capitel; Von dem tische; Von den slafhaus solt du lezen; Von
geistleicher begirde; Von der diemutikeit; Von der peichte; Du solt gerne in der
celle sein; Daz der mensche dez ersten sich selben ler und darnach die andern;
Von guten zuchten und wi du under den swestern lebest; Von dem leben der prüder
(Von dem gange, Von dem siczen, Von der rede); Von dem spiegel unsers herren;
Von der slecht gegen den menschen; Von huet undet den leuten; Von menleicher
hut vor den vrowen; Von gewaltikeit dez menschen. The work then ends: ‘Nach
diser vor geschriben lere so man ich dich aber chürczlich, daz du sis andechtig
gegen got und bechummer dich mit im. Wiz gehorsam, willichleich, an widerrede.
is written in Latin and bears the title Tria Sunt Genera Religiosorum
Dominus Resurrectus, probably came from the pen of David von
Augsburg’s friend and colleague Berthold von Regensburg. It describes
the noviciate as a more encompassing state of religious apprentice-
ship, and distinguishes between the novicii hominum (who normally
transcended their state of absolute beginners after a year’s proba-
tion), and the novicii dei (some of whom would remain beginners in
the religious life until the moment of their death). The man-made
noviciate with which young friars started their religious life was but
a reflection of the noviciate before God. The latter was a state of
apprenticeship that every man willing to live a Christian life had to
pass through by mala exstirpare and bona inserere—following the good
example of the gardener cultivating his domain. From that vantage
point all Christians should aim to reach higher levels of perfection.19
Wiz dienstleich den sichen. Wis züchtich in dem chore. Wiz mezzich an der not-
durft deines leibez. Wiz warhaft. Hinderrede nieman. Wiz parmherczich uber die
armen. Wiz cheusche an allen dingen. Daz helfe dir got volpringen.’ This German
rendition would come close to the Latin version of the De Exterioris et Interioris
Compositione found in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1854) CLXXXIV, 1189–1198.
19
This sermon has been edited in Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter.
Band II: Texte, 14–23, together with a German reworking (Ibidem, 9–13). The ser-
mon, which is not totally free from gender-based distinctions, teaches how Christ
[14] ‘. . . docuit in sua resurrectione, quomodo quilibet in congregatione positus
vivere debet. Cum enim sint tria genera bonorum hominum in religione, quorum
primi bene salvantur quia sunt in bono statu licet non magni meriti, eo quod primi
boni, secondi meliores, tercii optimi, primi incipientes, secundi proficientes, tercii
perfecti, quomodo ad quemlibet illorum statuum quis possit pervenire, ostendit domi-
nus in tribus apparitionibus in sua resurrectione. Nam dies resurrectionis qua domi-
nus a mortuis ad spiritalem vitam resurrexit, et a sepulcro ubi synodem et sudarium
reliquit mortuorum, significat resurrectionem spiritualem a peccato ad spiritualem
vitam. Resurrectus a mortuis idest a peccatoribus, et a sepulcro idest a mundo. (. . .)
Nam primo apparuit in specie et forma ortulani, post in specie et forma peregrini,
et post in forma propria. In prima Marie Magdalene, in secunda discipulis eun-
tibus in Emaus, in tercia apostolis cum bis eis dicit ‘Pax vobis!’ et ostendit eis manus
et pedes et latus. In prima apparitione apparuit femine, nota quod femine debiles
sunt. In secunda discipulis sed non maioribus immo minoribus. Tercio ipsis mag-
nis apostolis. In forma ortulani ubi apparuit primo peccatrici mulieri scilicet Marie
Magdalene, docuit debiles in spiritu, sive incipientes, qualiter sit incipiendum. Ita
dic de singulis duobus aliis: In secunda proficientes, in tercia perfectos. Novicius
sive incipiens debet duo facere. Primo enim oportet ut informetur incipiens sive
novicius, ut duo faciat spiritualiter, que ortulanus facit corporaliter. Dico autem
novicios, non tantum novicios hominum sed eciam novicios dei. Sunt enim dua
genera noviciorum, videlicet novicii hominum et novicii dei. Noviciatus hominum
terminatur semper ad annum. Noviciatus vero dei quandoque ad dimidium annum,
quandoque ad viii vel ad xv, vel ad xxx, vel ad l, vel quandoque durat usque ad
mortem in quibusdam. Novicii dei sunt qui prima duo non transeunt sed in eis
214 chapter three
Almost as important as David von Augsburg’s instructions for

novices and young friars was the Speculum Disciplinae, a work that
because of its Bonaventurian character for a long time was ascribed
to the minister general himself.20 In actual fact, it was written by
perseverant. Quam diu illa duo non transeunt, tam diu novicii sunt. Et tales novicii
in celo remunerabuntur secundum quod novicii remunerari debent. (. . .) [15] Discat
facere quod facit ortulanus, maxime in duobus que ortulanus inter cetera consue-
vit facere: Unum est, quod sicut ortulanus consuevit herbas malas ab orto exstir-
pare, sic et taliter debet studere ut mala a se exstirpet. Et maxime iiii genera
herbarum que multos religiosos seducent. (. . .) Primum est, quod debet destruere
a se omnia peccata mortalia, tam spiritualia quam carnalia. Aliter tales herbe mor-
tifere ei mortem inducunt. ii. quod debet diligenter studere ut eciam vicia sive
radices peccatorum sive voluntates peccatorum studiose evellat hinc inde a se. (. . .)
Item tertio debent studiose evelli occasiones sive vie ad peccatum perducentes. (. . .)
iiii. quod eciam a se debet exstirpare malos mores et malas consuetudines secu-
lares, ut homines deridere, se iactare, mentiri, secundum delectationes vivere, alios
contempnere, et iudicare et huiusmodi (. . .) [16] Novicii non solum debent mala
exstirpare sed etiam multa bona inserere. Debet eciam sicut ortulanus non solum
exstirpare mala, sed eciam inserere et plantare in se bona. Et dua genera bono-
rum. Unde et subdit dominus ‘et edifices et plantes’. Debet enim plantare in se
bona communia. Et eciam aliqua occulta bona, et debet eciam in circuitu sepem
edificare, ne velit pro bonis laudari vel vanam gloriam querere. (. . .) [16/17] De
proficientibus. Sed quia modicum esset religio, ulterius se non extendere, cum eciam
quilibet secularium ad predicta duo debeat studere, quod et fere omnis religiosus
qui predicta duo facit paratus est facere, ideo qualiter ad altiora proficere debeat
proponam. (. . .) [18] Volens igitur proficere, similiter faciat ut peregrinus et ut sol.
Non debet retrahi, eciam si viderit superiores et maiorem multitudinem, vel eciam
quia omnes perdere tempus quandoque in hac vel in hac stulticia, id est in rumoribus,
in ociositate, in vani operibus, in vanis verbis. (. . .) Secundum, quod sicut peregri-
nus de omnibus que in via videt nichil nimis diligit, et nichil sibi usurpat, de agris,
villis, civitatibus, castris et omnibus que in terris sunt per quas transit. (. . .) [19] De
perfectione. Vellet autem adhuc deus religiosum proficere scilicet ad perfectionem.
Ad quod super predicta quedam requiruntur, quorum duo dicam que ostendit in
hoc quod in propria forma in veritate, non ut ortulanus vel peregrinus, sed omnino
ut fuit magnis discipulis apparuit post apparitionem Magdalene et minorum duo-
rum discipulorum, et ostendit se vere eis, ut manus et pedes et latus (. . .) In hoc
quod se eis sic ostendit (. . .), in hoc docet perfectam obedientiam cum corpore,
cum manibus et pedibus, cum voluntate cordis, eciam si sit dura (. . .) [20] Secundo
dixit bis ‘pax vobis’ ut homo religiosus studeat habere plenam pacem cum proxi-
mis cum quibus est, ut illi tunc simul fuerunt cum deo.’
20
As was the case with David’s De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione Hominis. As a
result of this ascription, Bernard’s Speculum Disciplinae can be found in several Opera
Omnia editions of Bonaventura, such as Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898)
VIII, 474–492. The work has survived in many manuscript copies. See for exam-
ple MSS Emmerich, Stadtarchiv C 12 (ca. 1513) ff. 160–201v; Cologne, Diözesan-
und Dombibliothek 1500 (late 15th cent.) ff. 2–51v. In addition to the Latin versions,
there are several German and Dutch translations. See on these Kurt Ruh, Bonaventura
Deutsch (Bern, 1956), 283f. To Bernard probably should also be ascribed an Epistola
ad Quendam Novitium Insolentem et Instabilem, edited in: Bonaventure, Opera Omnia
(Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 663–666.
the Aquitainian custos Bernard de Besse who, for a number of years,

had been Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s trusted secretary and socius.
It could well be that the Speculum Disciplinae had its origin in Bernard’s
responsibilities for the religious formation of novices during his cus-
todianship in Aquitaine. Just like David von Augsburg’s De Exterioris
et Interioris Compositione Hominis, Bernard’s Speculum puts much emphasis
on the disciplinary constraint of body and mind as a tested method
for reaching a state of evangelical perfection.21 The Speculum argues,
in accordance with Hugues de St. Victor’s De Institutione Novitiorum,
that the exercitium disciplinae forms the foundation of the proper reli-
gious life on its road towards beatitude.22 The preparatory conditions
for this disciplinary training are the depositio vetustatis, the stabilitas
mentis, and the subiectionis humilitas.23 An internalisation of these prepara-
tory conditions, of which humility is described as the most pressing
one,24 enables the pupil to tackle the main elements of discipline
itself. These receive an additional 25 chapters, once more with
recourse to Hugues de St. Victor.25 This section explains how disci-
pline can be maintained in all the different aspects of religious life,
ranging from prayer, confession, and the participation in the divine
office, to eating habits, bodily care, corporal exercise, and the proper
comportment towards guests and strangers.26 In a final section, the
Speculum Disciplinae offers Franciscan novices six additional chapters
containing general rules with respect to the friar’s proper relationship
21
Bernard de Besse, Speculum Disciplinae, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi,
1898) VIII, 583–622. Cf. Bernarello, La formazione religiosa, 39f.
22
‘Nam, ut ait Hugo de sancto Victore, usus disciplinae ad virtutem animum
dirigit, virtus autem ad beatitudinem perducit; ac per hoc, inquit, exercitium disci-
plinae esse debet inchoatio, virtus perfectio, praemium virtutis aeterna beatitudo.’
Speculum Disciplinae, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 583.
23
‘Praeparatoria sunt per modum principii, medii et postremi depositio vetusta-
tis, stabilitas mentis adversus tentationes diaboli et subiectionis humilitas. Primum
praeparationem inchoat, secundum continuat, tertium vero consumat. Servanda erit
ubique maiorum et minorum paragraphorum distinctio ad seriei et ordinis eviden-
tiam ampliorem.’ Speculum Disciplinae, Prologus, in: Ibidem, 584.
24
In the first section of the Speculum Disciplinae, the depositio vetustatis and the con-
stantia mentis both receive a small chapter. The subjectionis humilitas, however, receives
a fuller treatment in four chapters.
25
‘Disciplina est, ut ait Hugo, conversatio bona et honesta, cui parum est mala
non agere, sed studet etiam in his quae bene agit, per cuncta irreprehensibilis
apparere. Item, disciplina est omnium membrorum motus ordinatus et dispositio
decens in omni habitu et actione (. . .)’ Ibidem, 591.
26
Pars Prima, chapters 7 to 32. Ibidem, 591–614.
216 chapter three
with God and himself, his attitude towards his fellow friars and
incoming postulants, and his dealings with received goods.27
Comparable themes are emphasised in Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s
Regula Novitiorum from 1259/1260, composed not so much to function
as a religious rule in the strict sense of the word—after all, Bonaventura
did not want to challenge the stature of the Regula Bullata—but as
a facilitatory work for novice masters and their pupils, at a time
when the influx of younger postulants made it necessary to take the
noviciate period more seriously.28 Heeding Paul’s admonition to the
Romans (Rom. 43,2), the Regula Novitiorum offers basic guidelines for
the life of evangelical perfection to newcomers, so that those who
desire to reform themselves in spiritu et moribus, could try to do so in
a regulated manner. The emphasis throughout the Regula is on order
and repetition, so as to ingrain the main elements of the Franciscan
religious life in body and soul.29 The Regula Novitiorum teaches begin-
ners in sixteen chapters how to perform the divine office, how to
pray, how to confess their sins, and how to receive communion; how
to eat and to fast, how to behave during day and night, and how
to resist to the most disturbing temptations of the flesh and the spirit;
how to be obedient and how to practise religious virtues by means
of silence, poverty, and a wide range of disciplinary, devotional, and
meditative exercises. Thus, novices could prepare themselves for the
religious profession and abide by the precepts embedded in the
Franciscan Regula Bullata.
27
‘Principali huius opusculi expedita, secundaria haec pauca epilogat et supplet
quaedam, ut novi discipuli Christi, qualiter ad Deum, ad se, ad proximum et ad
res etiam, quas aliquando servare vel tractare contingit, se habeant; quibus
differentiarum indiciis de sua conversione discernant; qualiter denique ipsi ad pro-
fessionem recepti se gerere debeant, vel breviter in aliquibus instruantur.’ Pars
Secunda, Quae de Generali Exhortatione Loquitur. Ibidem, 615–622, 615.
28
Bonaventura, Regula Novitiorum, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898)
VIII, 475–490. See for these and other educational writings by Bonaventura da
Bagnoreggio for young friars also the Selecta pro Instruendis Fratribus Ordinis Minorum
Scripta S. Bonaventurae, una cum Libello Speculum Disciplinae (Quaracchi, 1942), 237–257.
For late medieval German translations of Bonaventure’s Regula Novitiorum, see Kurt
Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch (Bern, 1956), 251–253.
29
‘Reformamini in novitate sensus vestri, ut probetis, quae sit voluntas Dei bona,
beneplacens et perfecta. Haec dicit Apostolus ad Romanos [Rom. 43,2] in persona
novitiorum, ut hi qui fuerunt per peccatum in saeculo deformati et erant tenebrosi,
modo in Religione positi, per finalem poenitentiam reformentur et fiant luminosi,
ut dicatur de eis: Eratis enim aliquando tenebrae, nunc autem lux in Domino; ut
filii lucis ambulate. [Eph. 5,8] Qui ergo desiderant in spiritu et moribus reformari
studeant vitam suam subscriptis rationibus reformare (. . .)’ Regula Novitiorum, in:
Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 475.
The vision of religious life portrayed in these Franciscan works

for novice-training was very much inspired by older monastic ideals.30
In that respect, there was a strong continuity between high medieval
monastic manuals for novice training and their later medieval Francis-
can counterparts. This is corroborated by the immediate sources in
which David von Augsburg, Bernard de Besse and Bonaventura da
Bagnoreggio found their inspiration and that helped them to for-
mulate their formative themes. In addition to the Bible (the Psalms
and the Gospels in particular), the most important immediate sources
for our Franciscan authors were Guillaume de St. Thierry’s Epistola
ad Fratres de Monte Dei, the spiritual writings of Bernard de Clairvaux,
and the De Institutione Novitiorum by Hugues de St. Victor and Gerard
Ithier. This implies that, with the transformation of the Franciscan
fraternity into a more regulated religious community, the Franciscan
way of life of evangelical perfection increasingly was modelled along
the lines of high medieval monastic spirituality.31
A possible counterpart to Bonaventura’s works for male novices
was his De Perfectione Vitae ad Sorores seu de Forma Perfectionis Religiosorum.
Among Bonaventura’s writings for Franciscan nuns this one was most
directly concerned with the way in which the Poor Clares could
have a religious life ‘commensurate’ with their gender. On top of
that, the De Perfectione Vitae is at the same time one of Bonaventura’s
most important works of passion devotion (next to his Lignum Vitae
and his Vitis Mystica). Bonaventura produced this ‘novice treatise’ for
Franciscan nuns shortly after the Regula Novitiorum (around 1260). It
shows in a prologue and eight chapters to Poor Clares the way
30
See, on top of Jean Leclercq, ‘Textes sur la vocation et la formation des moines
au Moyen Age’, in: Corona Gratiarum. Mélanges E. Dekkers (Brugge, 1975) II, 169–194
also Pierre Riché, ‘Sources pédagogiques et traités d’éducation’, Annales de l’Est 34
(1982), 15–29; Paul Gehl, ‘Mystical language models in monastic educational psy-
chology’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 14 (1984), 219–243; Jean Leclercq,
L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu. Initiation aux auteurs monastiques du moyen âge, 3e
édition corrigée (Paris, 1990).
31
See for a detailed analysis of these and other works by David von Augsburg,
Bernard de Besse and Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio in particular the aforemen-
tioned works of Bertinato and Bernarello. These authors also deal with the monas-
tic sources used by these Franciscan authors, and with the main characteristics of
the Franciscan life of evangelical perfection rising up from their works. See on the
influence of Guillaume de St. Thierry also J. Heerinckx, ‘Influence de l’Epistola ad
Fratres de Monte Dei sur la composition de l’homme extérieur et intérieur de David
ab Augusta’, EF 45 (1933), 332–347; André Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots
du moyen age latin, Études augustiniennes (Paris, 19712), 249, no. 1.
218 chapter three
towards spiritual perfection through the crucified Christ (via self-

knowledge, humility, poverty, silence, solitude in prayer, and a con-
tinual commemoration of the passion, sparking a perfect love of God
and inducing the perseverance necessary to hold out until the end).32
The Poor Clares—who were not supposed to read the Latin Bible
independently, with the exception of those biblical fragments with
which they became acquainted through the liturgy—should seek the
Lex Domini not so much in letters but in the affection of their devout
hearts.33 This depiction of the Poor Clares emphasises the emotional
and non-intellectual aspects of ‘proper’ female spirituality and stands
well within the accepted ecclesiastical tradition, that sees female reli-
gious perfection ‘as achieved through solitude deepened by humility
and silence (. . .)’34 As such, the work is very much akin to the spir-
itual guides for Franciscan nuns that we will encounter elsewhere in
this volume.
Confronted with, on the one hand, an increasing number of pre-
postulant youngsters in need of basic grammatical training and still
too young to embark on their noviciate and, on the other hand, the
necessity to design a training programme for adolescent Franciscan
friars who after their noviciate entered the sub-provincial school net-
32
De Perfectione Vitae ad Sorores seu de Forma Perfectionis Religiosorum, in: Bonaventura,
Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 107–127 & in: Seraphici Doctoris S. Bonaventurae
Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia (Quaracchi, 1965), 221–273. Ruh,
Bonaventura Deutsch, 182 gives information on a medieval Dutch translation found in
MS Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek Lett. 332 (olim 125) ff. 1r–54r. A modern Italian
translation of the Latin text by Bernardino Garcia can be found in I Mistici, I. Scritti
dei Mistici Francescani Secolo XIII (Assisi-Bologna, 1995), 419–466. A modern English
translation can be found in: The Works of Bonaventure, Vol. 1: Mystical Opuscula, trans.
J. de Vinck (Paterson, N.J., 1960).
33
‘. . . non tantum foris quarenda est in littera, sed potius per devotae mentis
affectum. Est autem desideranda in spiritu et virtute, ut ille videlicet intus doceat, qui
solus novit exteriorem legis asperitatem in interiorem dulcedinem commutare. Docet
autem lex Domini, quid agendum, quid fugiendum, quid credendum, quod orandum, quid
desiderandum, quod timendum; docet esse immaculatum et irreprehensibilem; docet ser-
vare promissa, deflere commissa; docet mundana contemnere, carnalia respuere;
docet denique totum cor, totam animam, totam mentem in solum convertere Iesum
Christum. Ad huius doctrinae comparationem omnis mundana sapientia stulta est
et fatua. (. . .) Ut autem facilius possis invenire quod quaris, ideo singulorum capitu-
lorum praemisi titulos’, namely: ‘I. De vera sui ipsius cognitione; II. De vera humili-
tate; III. De perfecta paupertate; IV. De silentio et tacurnitate; V. De studio orationis;
VI. De passionis Christi memoria; VII. De perfecta Dei caritate; VIII. De finali
perseverantia.’
34
Jeryldene M. Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality. The Poor Clares of Early Modern
Italy (Cambridge, 1996), 23–24.
work, several additional educational primers made their appearance

that combined basic moral and religious training with grammatical
instruction. Interesting texts in this regard are John of Wales’ Ordinarium
sive Alphabetum Vite Religiose,35 which assembles in three parts (called
Diaetarium, Locarium and Itinerarium respectively) thoughts and exam-
ples from saints, philosophers and patristic authors, to guide young
religious in their chosen Franciscan vocation, as well as the same
author’s more comprehensive Communiloquium, sive Summa Collationum
Dictus ad Omne Hominum Genus.36 This latter work contains a wealth
of teachings and examples from the life of the philosophers, aiming
to instil in the implied audience a humble disposition and coach this
same audience towards a more profound Christian life.
35
Printed in the Summa de Regimine Vite Humane (Venice: G. Arrivabene, 1496)
and as the Ordinarium Vitae Religiosae (Venice, 1496/Lyon, 1511). The Ordinarium has
survived in a large number of manuscripts. See for instance MSS Eichstätt, Uni-
versitätsbibliothek MS st. 231 ff. 265r–289r; Oscott College 1043 ff. 191v–245r;
Barcelona, ACA 157 ff. 1–92; Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya 648 ff. 157–195v;
Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya 649 ff. 1–60v; Tarragona, BP MS 17 ff. 329–424v;
Tortosa, Biblioteca Catedral MS 37 ff. 127v–131; Vic (Barcelona), Museu Episcopal
56 ff. 88–123v. For more manuscripts, see J. Swanson, John of Wales. A Study of the
Works and Ideas of a Thirteenth-Century Friar, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and
Thought, Fourth Series, 10 (Cambridge, 1988), Appendix. The introduction of the
Ordinarium confirms the implied audience of young friars: ‘Ideo ad exhortationem
juvenum religiosorum (. . .) collectae sunt auctoritates sanctorum et aliorum sapien-
tum in hac rudi collatiuncula.’
36
Communiloquium, sive Summa Collationum Dictus ad Omne Hominum Genus (Brussels,
1471/Cologne, 1472/Augsburg, 1475/Ulm, 1481 & 1493/Strasbourg, 1489 & Reprint
in 1964]/Venice: G. Arrivabena, 1496 (as the Summa de Regimine Vite Humane)/Cologne,
s.a. (ca. 1475)/Lyon, 1511). Some passages of this work have been edited in C.J.
Wittlin, ‘La ‘Suma de colaciones’ de Juan de Gales en Cataluña’, EsFr 72 (1971),
189–203. Like the Ordinarium, the Communiloquium has survived in many manuscripts.
See for instance: MSS Rome, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana Vat.Lat. 7612, ff.
1–117; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 3488 (14th cent.); Valencia, Cathedral
44; Valencia, Cathedral 135 ff. 1–96v; Valencia, Cathedral 181; Madrid, Biblioteca
Nacional 1470 ff. 1–201v; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. 2241 (14th
cent.); Prague, National Museum XVI D 6 (3682) (15th cent.); Prague, National
Museum XIII E 2; Barcelona, ACA 228 ff. 1–268 (from the Ripoll monastery);
Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya 648 ff. 1–155v; Tortosa, Catedral 37 ff. 1–91;
Vic (Barcelona), Museu Episcopal 252 (fragments). Swanson, John of Wales mentions
no less than 144 manuscripts, to which A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain
and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard Sharpe, Publications of The Journal of Medieval
Latin, 1 (Turnhout, 1997), 338 adds several others. The Communiloquium, as well as
the same author’s Breviloquium de Virtutibus, had a profound impact on the writings
of Eiximenis (especially the latter’s Regiment de la cosa pública and his Dotzen libre de
regiment dels princeps e de comunitats). On this, as well as on the general influence of
John of Wales’ works in later medieval Spain, see Conrado Guardiola Alcover,
‘Juan de Gales, Cataluña y Eiximenis’, Antonianum 64 (1989), 330–365.
220 chapter three
At the lower end of grammatical and liturgical training of pre-

noviciate youngsters and semi-literate adolescent friars should be
placed the Mammotrectus/Mammotreptus, ascribed to John of Wales’
contemporary and fellow lector Giovanni Marchesini, the Proverbia
by the later fourteenth-century lector Giovanni Quaia di Parma
(d. ca. 1398), and the bulky Trilogium Animae by Ludwig von Preußen
(fl. ca. 1495). The many manuscript copies of Giovanni’s Mammotrectus
provide in three main parts 1.) explanations for difficult biblical words
and passages, 2.) a series of digressions on orthography, the accents
of Latin words, the seven feasts of the Old Law, the clothing of
priests, principles of exegesis and translation, divination, the names
of God according to the Hebrews, the qualities and properties of
Scripture, a short treatise on the four main ecumenical councils, and
3.) rudimentary remarks on the properties of the Franciscan liturgy
(de responsoriis et antiphonis, de hymnis, de legendis sanctorum, de sermonibus
et homiliis de communi sanctorum et domenicalibus). As I mentioned in
Chapter II, the whole work closes with a grammatical elucidation
of the Franciscan rule.37
Giovanni Quaia’s Proverbia, probably composed during his lectorate
years at Pisa before 1381, is more in line with the texts compiled by
John of Wales. It teaches young pupils a variety of moral primers, in
this case embedded in 100 Latin proverbs and comparable ‘Sententiae’,
not unlike the famous humanist proverb collections of Erasmus and
Vives that were to play such a large role in the moral instruction
and Latin training of primary school pupils in the Renaissance.38
37
The Mammotrectus has survived in a very large number of manuscripts. The
existing partial editions from the early modern period do not adequately represent
the work’s scope. For a first introduction, see A. Teetaert, ‘Reggio (Marchesinus
de)’, DThC XIII-2, 2102–2104, as well as the appropriate footnotes in Chapter II
of this book.
38
The Proverbia can for instance be found in MSS Friuli, Biblioteca Comunale
de Sandaniele 165 ; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouv. Acq. Lat. 1905 ff. 96r–103v;
Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 9658 ff. 87r–95r; Rome, Biblioteca Boncompagni 537 ff.
17–22; Fabriano, Biblioteca Comunale 20 (incomplete); Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale
440 f. 81v (incomplete); Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale II.ii.15 ff. 38v–39v & II.ii.67
ff. 141r–151r & II.ix.141 ff. 70v–72v (incomplete). The Proverbia saw partial editions
(following the Fabriano manuscript) in: Proverbi in versi latini ed italiani, ed. A. Zonghi,
in: Saggio di sentenze latine transportate in poesia volgare (Fabriano, 1879). The initial let-
ters of the Latin verses reveal the identity of the author, who appears to be ‘Frater
Johannes Genesius Quaia de Parma, sacre theologie magister, ordinis fratrum mino-
rum professor illustris, fecit hoc opus ad honorem Dei, beate Marie virginis, et beati
Francisci, et amore nobilis Andree nati celsi domini Petri Gambacurte.’ For more
The lengthy Trilogium Animae by the Austrian theologian Ludwig

von Preußen, written in the studium of Brünn and accepted for pub-
lication at the Cismontan general chapter of 1493, includes just like
the work of Giovanni Marchesini a rule commentary catering to the
needs of young Franciscan students. Yet the Trilogium Animae in every
respect is more ambitious than Giovanni Marchesini’s Mammotrectus.
Taking Aristotle’s division of the soul’s powers in potencies, passions
and habits as its point of departure, it divides its subject matter in
three parts. The first of these describes in 52 chapters the soul’s
excellence and capacities. Part two dwells on the souls passions (32
chapters). Part three finally zooms in on the various habitus of the
soul (33 chapters). These include the intellectual habitus, which gave
Ludwig the opportunity to include lengthy forays on the liberal arts
and on the character of the higher disciplines of philosophy and the-
ology. Under this threefold umbrella, Ludwig’s Trilogium deals with
a wide gamut of basic theological and spiritual knowledge, includ-
ing guidelines pertaining to confession and liturgical matters, the
aforementioned explanation of the Franciscan rule, and concise intro-
ductions to biblical books (canonical and apocryphal), Lombard’s
Sentences and the various school disciplines—creating so-to-speak a
Franciscan Didascalicon.39
information, see E. Narducci, ‘Sentenze morali ridotte in versi latini ed italiani’,

MF 3 (1888), 129–139; Wadding, Scriptores (Quaracchi, 1906), 141, 146; Sbaralea,
Supplementum (Rome, 1921), 79–80; U. d’Alençon, EF 11 (1904), 565–567; B. Pergamo,
‘I Francescani alla facoltà teologica di Bologna (1364–1500)’, AFH 27 (1934), 3–61
(esp. 15–20); F. Ehrle, I piu antichi statuti della facoltà teologica dell’università di Bologna
(Bologna, 1932), 104; Mohan, ‘Initia Operum Franciscalium’, 149*.
39
For the publication of the work, Ludwig obtained the assistance of the Franciscan
historian Nicolaus Glassberger. For the 1498 edition, Glassberger added genealog-
ical materials on several important dynasties. Trilogium animae non solum religiosis verum
etiam saecularibus, praedicatoribus, confessoribus, contemplantibus, et studentibus lumen intellectus
et ardorem affectus amministrans (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1498). See Nikolaus
Glassberger, Chronica, in: AF II, vi–ix; Wadding, Annales Minorum XV (Quaracchi,
1933), 103 (ad. an. 1494, n. 63); Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 193; B. Kruitwagen,
‘Bio-bibliografisches zu Ludovicus de Prussia (. . .)’, FrSt 12 (1925), 347–363;
P. Minges, ‘Das Trilogium Animae des Ludwig von Preußen O.F.M.’, FrSt 1 (1914),
291–311; E. Wegerich, ‘Bio-bibliographische Notizen über Franziskanerlehrer des
15. Jahrhunderts’, FrSt 29 (1942), 180–182; L. Hardick, ‘Ludwig v. Preußen’, LThK 2
(1961) VI, 1195; C. Schmitt, ‘Louis de Prusse (Prutenus)’, DSpir IX (1976), 1058;
R. Pawis, VL2 V, 1030–1033.
222 chapter three
B. Late medieval developments
In combination with the instruction provided by rules, rule com-

mentaries, statutes, liturgical handbooks and a large number of hagio-
graphic materials read for personal and communal edificatory purposes,
the novice training treatises of David von Augsburg, Bernard de Besse
and Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio proved to be of lasting significance
for the religious formation of incoming friars, nuns and allied tertiary
groups. The formative impact of these texts did not change overnight
with the emergence of the Observance in the fifteenth century, wit-
ness their ongoing reception in Observant circles.40 The Observants
did of course provide hagiographic and historiographic texts of their
own to strengthen the Observant identity of their postulants and to
imbue them with the objectives of the Observant reform.41 Moreover,
the Observant leadership produced additional guidelines for the
instruction of novices within the Observant fold, both in the consti-
tutions issued at Observant general chapters—as I have pointed out
in Chapter II—and in separate letters and treatises.
A case in point is Giovanni da Capistrano’s letter from November
1452 to the Nuremberg guardian Albert Puchelbach, who had just
welcomed no less than 34 novices eager to embark on the Franciscan
life (inspired by the sermons Giovanni da Capistrano had given at
Leipzig). In his letter to Albert Puchelbach, Giovanni gave the
guardian guidance on the instruction of these eager novices. Albert
was to make sure that they learned how to sing. But they should
not overdo this. It was by far more important that these neophytes
learned to meditate on Christ’s passion, to contemplate their own
sins, and to engage in mental prayer, the conditio sine qua non for
developing their religious self.42
40
Hence, Konrad Nater, vice-guardian and guardian in the convents of Munich
(1486/1487/1489), Lenzfried (1490/92), Basel (1493), Oppenheim (1495/6), Nuremberg
(1498/99), and Mainz (1501), translated Bonaventura’s Regula Novitiorum into German.
This text can be found in various manuscripts and in old and modern editions:
MSS Kaufsbeuren, Franziskanerkloster Lit. 1 (Hauptstaatsarchiv München) ff. 19r–48r
(after 1492); St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 973, pp. 15–107 (1498). Cf. Ruh,
Franziskanisches Schrifttum, 130–138, 251; Bavaria Franciscana Antiqua I (Landshut, 1955),
389–426; Ruh, VL2 VI (Berlin-New York, 1986), 865–866.
41
Campagnola, Le origine francescane come problema storiografico, passim; Bert Roest,
‘Later Medieval Institutional History’, in: Historiography in the Middle Ages, ed. Deborah
Mauskopf Deliyannis (Leiden, 2003), 277–315, and esp. 299f.
42
‘i.). Placet mihi, quod Novitii discant cantare; magis tamen placeret, ut dis-
This emphasis on mental prayer and passion devotion was even

more outspoken in the novice training treatises and meditative rule
commentaries stemming from the Villacrecian, Recollect, and Alcanta-
rine reform movements (several of which I mentioned in Chapter II),43
and in the meditative treatises for novices and nuns produced by
fifteenth-century Observant Poor Clares. An important witness of the
latter is Caterina Vigri’s influential work on the seven weapons of
spiritual struggle (Le sette armi necessarie alla battaglia spirituale). Caterina
wrote the first version of this treatise during her years as novice mas-
ter at the Ferrara convent. She took the book with her to the Corpus
Domini convent at Bologna, which under her abbatiate reached high
levels of culture and spirituality.44 Shortly before her death, Caterina
revealed the existence of Le sette armi to her confessor, and via him
asked the nuns of Corpus Domini to copy the work for themselves
and for the nuns in her old Ferrara convent. After Caterina had
passed away, more copies were made for other Poor Clare com-
munities (such as that of Monteluce at Perugia), and the first printed
edition appeared as early as 1475. Many more editions followed
(until 1775, and again in the 20th century).45
cerent plorare et orationi vacare; quia quotidie cantare parit nobis Fratrum penuriam,
mentem vagam deducit, et adeo tempus consumit, ut nullus vestrum evadere pos-
sit in officio praedicandi clarus et peritus (. . .); ii.) Item, quod Magister saepenu-
mero hortetur Novitios suos, docatque meditari Passionem Christi, propriam miseriam,
diem mortis, infernales poenas, propria peccata perpetrata, et gloriam post poeni-
tentiam eis repromissam; iii.) Item, quod Novitii bis saltem in hebdomada confiteantur,
revelando malas phantasias et cogitationes, ut tentati ad vomitum non redeant.; iv.)
Item, quod singulis diebus faciant coronam beatae Mariae virginis cum septem medi-
tationibus (. . .); x.) Item, quod instituatur pro Novitiis una hora pro oratione mentali,
ut discant semetipsos cognoscere (. . .) et alias devotas Orationes faciant quotidie.’
Epistola ad Albertum Puchelbach, in: Lucas Wadding, Annales Minorum XII (Quaracchi,
1932), 183–185; Glassberger, Chronica, AF II, 342–343. For additional letters from
Giovanni da Capistrano to novices, in which the influence of Bonaventura da
Bagnoreggio’s Regula Novitiorum is clearly visible, see AFH 4 (1910), 116.
43
See my chapter on rules and rule commentaries. For the instructory writings
of Lope de Salinas and colleagues, see especially Fidel de Lejarza & Angel Uribe,
‘Escritos villacrecianos’ AIA 17 (1957), 663–945. We will encounter several texts by
the major Recollect authors in my chapter on Franciscan catechisms.
44
Serena Spanò Martinelli, ‘La Biblioteca del ‘Corpus Domini’ bolognese:
L’inconsueto spaccato di una cultura monastica femminile’, La Bibliofilia 88/1 (1986),
1–23; Zarri, ‘Écrits inédits de Catherine de Bologne et de ses soeurs’, 219–230;
Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, passim.
45
Le armi necessarie alla battaglia spirituale (Bologna, 1475/Bologna, 1511/Bologna,
1536/Bologna, 1654 etc./Bologna, 1900/Florence, 1922 [partial]); Le sette armi spiri-
tuali, ed. Cecilia Foletti (Padua, 1985); S. Caterina da Bologna, Le sette armi spirituali,
ed Illuminata Bembo, Ristretto dello specchio d’illuminazione, ed. Sergio D’Aurizio (Bologna,
224 chapter three
In tune with the original implied audience of novices and young

nuns, Caterina’s Le sette armi is very didactical. The work starts with
a lyrical call inviting the sisters enamoured with God to dance before
the Lord.46 Thereafter, Caterina explains that the soul needs seven
weapons to fight its spiritual battles: three offensive weapons and
four defensive ones. The offensive weapons are diligence, self-defiance
(or diffidence towards one’s own strength), and full confidence in
and obedience to God. The defensive weapons or mental exercises
are the relentless memory of Christ’s passion, the remembrance of
personal death, an acknowledgement of the promised heavenly rewards
(and the Glory of God), and a recognition of the authority of
Scripture.47 For further perfection, Caterina recommends a spirit of
prayer, frequent communion, and devotion to the Virgin Mary. Her
text is interspersed with religious poetry, and mixes narration with
dialogue, visionary experiences and other autobiographical references,
not unlike the I dolori mentali di Gesù by the Franciscan nun Battista
da Varano.48
1981); Le sette armi spirituali, ed. M. Paola Deodata Bentini, in: I mistici francescani III:
Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 101–168. A modern English translation appeared as: The
Seven Spiritual Weapons, trans. & comm. Hugh Bernard Feiss & Daniela Re, Peregrina
Translations Series, 25 (Toronto, 1999). An early Latin translation, made by J. Ant.
Flaminius d’Imola, appeared as the Sermones ad Sacras Virgines (Bologna, 1522/Bologna,
1653). French, Spanish, and Portuguese translations followed in the early modern
period. The Portuguese translation appeared in Marco de Lisbon’s Las Chronicas de
la Orden de los Frayles Menores (Lisbon, 1615) III, Liber IV, chapters 36–46.
46
‘Ciascaduna amante che ama lo Segnore/vegna alla danza cantando d’amore/
vegna danzando tutta infiammata/solo desiderando colui che l’ha creata.’ Le sette
armi spirituali, ed. Sergio d’Aurizio, 17.
47
‘La prima arma è la diligenza; la seconda è la diffidenza verso le proprie forze;
la terza è confidare in Dio; la quarta è non dimenticare mai la passione di Gesù
Cristo; la quinta è non dimenticare mai la propria morte; la sesta è non dimenti-
care mai la gloria di Dio; la settima e ultima è non dimenticare mai l’autorità della
Santa Scrittura, così come ne diede esempio Cristo Gesù, nel deserto.’ Le sette armi
spirituali, ed. d’Aurizio, 19 & ed. Foletti, 116.
48
For more information, see E. Henrion, ‘Una educatrice francescana del
Quattrocento, Caterina de’Vigri e il trattato delle armi spirituali’, Vita e Pensiero 18
(1927), 486–495; Serena Spanò Martinelli, ‘Per uno studio su Caterina da Bologna’,
Studi Medievali ser. 3 12 (1971), 713–759; Caterina Vigri da Bologna, ed. Mariafiamma
Maddalena Faberi et al., in: I mistici francescani III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 37–215;
Alfio Marcello Buscemi, ‘Le sette armi spirituali’ di santa Caterina da Bologna e
la Sacra Scrittura’, Forma Sororum 36 (1999), 25–42, 125–145; Idem, ‘Commento
biblico alle “Sette armi spirituali” di S. Caterina da Bologna. Sesta arma, memo-
ria dei beni del Paradiso’, SF 96 (1999), 189–209; Nicola Gori, Santa Catarina Vigri
(Montegrotto Terme, 1999).
As is shown in the first chapter of this book, the instruction of

female novices and professed nuns by Franciscan convent preachers
gave rise to a large number of ‘Lesepredigten’ and related genres of
spiritual literature. More closely directed to the instruction of female
novices properly speaking were the anonymous late fifteenth-century
Italian Opera devotissima ne la quale se continua el modo del vivere de una
vera religiosa and the closely aligned Doctrina utile alle religiose maxime
alle novitie mentioned by Gabriella Zarri,49 as well as various works
ascribed to the Alsacian Observant friar Heinrich von Weissenburg
(d. 1499), preacher and confessor of the Poor Clares in Alspach near
Colmar. It is particularly his Ermahnung zu einem wahren klösterlichen
Leben, with its recourse to the Speculum Disciplinae by Bernard de Besse
and the spiritual works of Bonaventura, and with its heavy empha-
sis on discipline, silence, obedience and endurance, that can be seen
as a spiritual guide for aspiring nuns in Alspach.50 The Alphabetum
Religiosorum and the Drei Predigten von den Anfechtungen der Closterlut, which
likewise are attributed to Heinrich, albeit with less certainty, repre-
sent comparable teachings.51
Among the most important Observant texts for Franciscan novices
and novice masters should be reckoned the lengthy Oratorio de reli-
giosos y ejercicio de virtuosos by Antonio de Guevara (1480–1545), which
was edited at least seven times in Spain, Italy and France between
1542 and 1605.52 Following a variety of introductory remarks in its
first chapters, it covers the qualities and requirements of novices and
49
Gabriella Zarri, ‘La vita religiosa femminile tra devozione e chiostro: testi
devoti in volgare editi tra il 1475 e il 1520’, in: I frati minori tra ’400 e ’500, Atti
del XII Convegno Internazionale Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986),
125–168 (esp. 139).
50
Ermahnung zu einem wahren klösterlichen Leben: MSS Überlingen, Leopold-Sophien-
Bibliothek 1 ff. 187ra–193va; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Mgo 571 ff. 13r–35r (16th cent.;
second part); St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 1859 pp. 469–499 (c. 1480); St. Gallen
Stiftsbibliothek 973 pp. 190–223 (independent translation from a Latin source text).
For a partial edition (of its third part), see: Franziskanisches Schrifttum I, 157–163.
51
Alphabetum Religiosorum: MS Bamberg, SB Msc. Lit. 178 (Ed. VIII.6) ff. 199r–205r;
Drei Predigten von den Anfechtungen der Closterlut: MSS Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale
et Universitaire 2797 ff. 96r–189r; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgf 1056 ff. 34vb–48vb,
73ra–90rb: Überlingen, Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek 1 ff. 245ra–279ra.
52
Oratorio de religiosos y ejercicio de virtuosos (Valladolid, 1542). It saw additional edi-
tions in Spain in 1570 and 1574. Italian editions appeared in 1567 and 1605,
whereas French editions appeared in 1578, 1584 and thereafter. A modern edition
was issued in Misticos Franciscanos Españoles Tomo II, Biblioteca Autores Cristianos
(Madrid, 1948), 445–761.
226 chapter three
novice masters in general (chapters 6–8), the religious virtues that

novices have to internalise (chapters 9–14), the responsibilities of the
novice master in this process (chapters 15–18), and an abundancy
of remarks on the sins of language, the magnificence of the religious
life, the necessity of corporal mortification, the proper way to cele-
brate the divine office, the character and modes of prayer, and the
nature of the monastic vows (chapters 19–51).
The Oratorio draws heavily on the other spiritual teachings by the
same author but is not lavish in its citation of medieval sources. It
mentions no Franciscan authority except Bonaventura. Non-Franciscan
medieval authorities likewise are cited only sparsely. Although ref-
erences to Anselm, Bernard de Clairvaux, and Hugues de St. Victor
do appear, Antonio’s Oratorio predominantly reaches back to Scripture,
classical authors (esp. Seneca), and the major Greek and Latin patris-
tic writers. It shows that Antonio was in tune with the humanist ten-
dencies of his time, which might explain the success of the work
throughout the sixteenth century.53
C. Novice training in the budding Capuchin order
The new Capuchin order took the noviciate seriously from the out-
set, as can be seen in the comparatively lengthy regulations devoted
to the reception of postulants and the formation of novices in the
Capuchin constitutions of 1536, 1552 and 1575. These early Capuchin
texts clearly based themselves on the 1260 Narbonne Constitutions:
announcing that novices should be more than seventeen years old
(‘finiti sedeci anni’), and that they could only be accepted after care-
ful investigation of their orthodoxy and their mental and physical
suitability. A new element was that postulants could only be accepted
into the noviciate after several days of careful observation. Both dur-
ing and after the noviciate, beginning Capuchin friars remained under
53
See on these and other works of Antonio: Lino Gómez Canedo, ‘Las obras
de Fr. Antonio de Guevara. Ensayo de un catálogo completo de sus ediciones’, AIA
6 (1946), 339–404; Agustín Redondo, Antonio de Guevara (1480–1545), et l’Espagne de
son temps. De la carrière officielle aux oeuvres politico-morales (Genève, 1976) (cf. AIA 39
(1979), 472–480); M. de Castro, ‘Guevara (Antoine de)’, DSpir VI, 1125; Manuel
Peña García, ‘Fray Antonio de Guevara guardián del convento de San Francisco
de Soria’, AIA 56 (1996), 447–450; Emilio Blanco, ‘Bibliografia de Fray Antonio
de Guevara, OFM (1480?–1545)’, El Basilisco 26 (Oviedo, 1999), 81–86.
the discipline of a novice master, who had to show them with word
and example the meaning of the Franciscan way of life (‘con exem-
plo e parole, dove consiste la vita del cristiano e del frate minore’).54
In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Capuchins made
ample use of existing novice treatises and meditative texts circulat-
ing in Conventual and Observant circles, whether or not combined
with recycled and at times newly invented materials ascribed to
Bernard de Clairvaux, Bonaventura and other authors from the
‘golden’ age of Minorite spirituality. Good examples are various newly
made ‘Bonaventurian’ texts, such as the Sex Documenta Beati Bonaventurae,
Cuilibet Proficere Volenti Utilissima, a work that is also known as the Sex
Documenta a Sancto Bonaventura Doctore Seraphico pro Iuvenum et Novissiorum
Instructione.55 In the context of establishing new paradigms for religious
formation, the early Capuchins took effort to combine these mate-
rials with new editions and translations of Francesco d’Assisi’s Regula
Bullata and his Testament, thus providing novices, novice masters and
Capuchin friars in general with formative ‘libretti della Regola’56
On top of compiling such compilations, the Capuchins became
active in producing novice treatises of their own. Early ventures in
this direction are the De Exercitiis Religiosorum by Franciscus Titelmans
(1502–1537), which is not very well-known,57 and Giovanni Pili da
Fano’s Brevis Discursus super Observantia Paupertatis/Breve discorso circa
l’Osservanza del Voto della Minorica Povertà (Brescia, 1536).58 This latter
54
I fratri cappuccini I, 269–283, 276.
55
This text can for instance be found in the Omnes plenariae et quacumque aliae sta-
tiones et indulgentiae fratribus minoribus (. . .) a summis pontificibus concessae ex privilegiorum
Ordinis compendio sedulo ac fideliter selectae et in hunc libellum breviter congestae (Toulouse,
1553), 92–94, in the Regula et Testamentum Nostri Seraphici Patris S. Francisci (Antwerp:
Plantijn, 1589), 111–113/Regola e Testamento del nostro serafico padre san Francesco (Venice:
Giunti, 1597), 70r–v, as well as in I fratri cappuccini I, 1495–1498.
56
See on these Elizondo, ‘Regola francescana presso i primi cappuccini’, 625–665;
Idem, ‘Ediciones capuchinas de la regla franciscana publicadas en lengua castel-
lana’, 65–103; Idem, ‘Ediciones capuchinas de la regla franciscana publicadas en
lengua alemana’, 301–342; Idem, ‘Ediciones latinas de la regla franciscana por
C. Plantin en 1589’, 23–74; Idem, ‘Ediciones capuchinas de la regla franciscana en
lengua italiana’, 169–226. The most influential ‘libretti della regola’ no doubt were
those published by the Plantijn printing house in 1589 and the Italian version pub-
lished in Venice (1597), and which are mentioned in the previous note. Many texts
of these collections have been edited in I fratri cappuccini I, 1491–1591.
57
Franciscus Titelmans allegedly composed this shortly after his transfer from the
Observants to the Capuchins, when he left his many theological ventures (and
polemical exchanges with the Erasmians) behind, to spent his few remaining years
as a caretaker of the sick in Rome.
58
Breve discorso circa l’osservanza del voto della minorica povertà (Brescia: Damiano &
228 chapter three
‘rule commentary’ for the instruction of young Capuchin friars might

be interpreted as an abbreviation and reworking of Giovanni’s own
lengthy Dialogo de la salute of 1535, a text that we have encountered
in Chapter II. After its first Italian edition in 1536, the Brevis Discursus
quickly became one of the most widely used manuals for practical
religious instruction within the Capuchin order. As a result, it saw
more than 100 editions in various languages, frequently in combi-
nation with materials from the above-mentioned ‘libretti della Regola’.
The production of more extensive novice training treatises came fully
under steam by the second half of the sixteenth century, finding an
important early seventeenth-century culmination in Bartolomeo Vecchi
da Bologna’s lengthy Modo d’incaminare i novizi con santa uniformità di
cerimonie e riti.59
Materials comparable with the Capuchin ‘libretti della Regola’ can
also be found for later medieval and early modern Franciscan tertiary
communities. Just like the Poor Clares, the tertiaries at first made
ample use of the novice training treatises written by David von
Augsburg, Bernard de Besse and Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, com-
bining translated and abbreviated versions of these texts with teach-
ings derived from sermons, rules and statutes. In addition, tertiary
communities and their spiritual guides took the initiative to create
more miscellaneous manuals of religious formation, combining the
text of the tertiary rule with saints catalogues and instructions per-
taining to the festive acceptance and the liturgical incubation of new
postulants. Francesco Costa, who thus far has published the most
in-dept study to these manuals for prospective tertiaries, shows that
the full-blown manuals of the sixteenth century, starting with the
incomplete Trattato del Terz’Ordine by Mariano da Firenze (d. 1523),60
Iacopo Philippo, 1536). Modern editions can be found in: Monumenta Historica Ordinis
Minorum Capuccinorum, V (Rome, 1946), 447–463; I fratri cappuccini I, 721–744. Cf.
Optat de Veghel, ‘Jean de Fano’, DSpir VIII, 507. For an overview of the editions
in the various languages of Europe, see Fidel Elizondo, ‘El “Breve discorso” de
Juan de Fano sobre la pobreza franciscana’, CF 48 (1978), 31–63. At many places,
the Breve discorso returns to the works of Francesco, Bonaventura, Ubertino da Casale,
the papal bulls Exiit qui Seminat of Nicholas III and Exivi de Paradiso of Clement V,
and to a range of Franciscan more rigorist rule commentaries (such as the com-
mentaries of the Four Masters, Hugues de Digne, and John Pecham).
59
For an initial overview of the Capuchin output of novice treatises and spiri-
tual adhortations for novices dating from the later sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies, see I fratri cappuccini I, 1277–1485.
60
Mariano da Firenze, Trattato del Terz’Ordine, ed. M.D. Papi, in: Analecta TOR
reach back to a medieval nucleus that combined the rule (the Memoriale
Propositi or the rule of Nicholas IV) with the Ritus ad Benedicendum
Vestes, a selection of papal privileges, specific prayers and lists of male
and female saints from the various orders within the Franciscan
family.61
18 (1985), 257–588. Written between 1519 and 1523, it contains not the rule itself
but an esposizione of the rule for tertiaries, replete with a rito della professione, lists of
esenzioni, uomini illustri and indulgenze granted by the papacy. Moreover, Mariano
started (but never finished) a second treatise in which the lives of illustrious ter-
tiaries would be dealt with in dept. Maybe due to this incompleteness, the work
did not have much influence, and was not used by later authors of TOR manuals,
such as Antonio Silli (d. 1636), Girolamo Comboni (d. 1656), and their successors.
61
See Francesco Costa, ‘Rituali e manuali come guida alla santità terziara secoli
XIII–XVI’, in: Santi e santità nel movimento penitenziale francescano dal duecento al cinque-
cento, ed. Lino Temperini (Rome, 1998), 207–245. Costa presents several late fifteenth
and early sixteenth-century ‘proto-manuals’ that have survived in manuscripts and
in print. See also Massimiliano Zanot, ‘Due Vademecum del Terzo ordine Francescano
del XVI secolo: la propaganda e il reclutamento (Codd. Vat. Lat. 7652 e Vat. Lat.
10768)’, Analecta TOR 28 (1997), 389–437 and Fidentius van den Borne, ‘Analecta
de tertio Ordine’, AFH 9 (1916), 118–124 (with information on the so-called Rosenthal
codex), as well as the Regula Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci cum Ceremoniis ad Induendum
Fratres et Sorores, cum Sermone Amplissimo ac Quibus Gaudeant Privilegiis (Pavia, 1506/Venice,
1542).
CHAPTER FOUR
FRANCISCAN CATECHISMS
The importance of teaching the basic tenets of faith to the population

at large was acknowledged by preachers and higher ecclesiastical
authority figures throughout the medieval period.1 Yet it is particu-
larly in the wake of the twelfth and early thirteenth-century Lateran
Councils that a wealth of episcopal legislation sprang up in which
the kind of religious instruction was called for that we have come
to understand as catechesis. This legislation dealt with topics on which
the bishop, his parish priests in the diocese, and auxiliary preachers
drawn from the regular clergy should focus in the religious instruc-
tion of the flock at certain occasions during the ecclesiastical year.
Such initiatives can be charted for many areas within Europe.2
1
A classic work was Gregory the Great’s Regula Pastoralis (ca. 591), which was a
source of inspiration for writings and directives on pastoral theology for many
medieval religious authors. It was particularly influentual during the Carolingian
period, when concerns to improve the level of pastoral care were raised at several
Councils (such as the Council of Mainz, held in 813 and the 845 Council of Meaux).
The Carolingian capitularies likewise mention the instruction of the laity in the
basic tenets of faith. Most important in this regard is the Admonitio Generalis of 789.
See: Neuf capitulaires de Charlemagne concernant son oeuvre réformatrice par les ‘Missi’, ed. &
trans. C. de Clercq (Milan, 1968), 9–34. From roughly the same period stem the
so-called Disputatio Puerorum ascribed to Alcuin (d. 804) and the ninth-century
‘Catechism’ from Weissenburg: Incerti monachi Weissenburgensis Catachesis teotisca seculo
IX conscripta, nunc vero primum edita, ed. J.G. Eccard (Hanover, 1713).
2
A good overview of guidelines for religious instruction in conciliar and synodal
legislation is given by: J. Sanchez Herrero, ‘La legislación conciliar y sinodal his-
pana de los siglos XIII a mediados del XVI y su influencia en la enseñanza de la
doctrina cristiana. Los tratados de doctrina cristiana’, Revista Española de Teologia 48
(1988); Jean Longère, ‘La prédication et l’instruction des fidèles selon les conciles
et les statuts synodaux depuis l’antiquité tardive jusqu’au XIII siècle’, in: L’encadrement
religieux des fidèles au Moyen-Age et jusqu’au Concile de Trente. La paroisse-le clergé, la pas-
torale-la dévotion, Actes du 109e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes, Dijon, 1984,
Section d’histoire médiévale et de philologie, Tome 1 (Paris, 1985), 391–418. Longère
pinpoints the importance of the early thirteenth-century Parisian synodal statutes of
bishop Eudes de Sully, the relevant canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, the
1216–1217 directives of the Synodal de l’Ouest published by Guillaume de Beaumont,
bishop of Angers (1202–1240), the Parisian statutes of Guillaume de Seignelay
(1219–1224) and Renaud de Corbeil (1250–1268), and a range of thirteenth-century
synodal statutes from Southern France and Cambrai. For interesting later medieval
franciscan catechisms 231
From the outset, Franciscan bishops took an active part in such

initiatives.3 A good example in this regard are the episcopal activi-
ties of Eudes Rigaud (master at the Franciscan studium generale at Paris
before his consecration to archbishop of Normandy in 1248). Through-
out his long episcopate of over 21 years, Eudes and his secretaries
kept a Regestrum Visitationum of his journeys and disciplinary measures
within his church province. This register shows that at regular inter-
vals Eudes organised provincial synods at which issues of religious
discipline and the proper instruction of priests held pride of place.4
Some of the best examples come from England. There, Robert
Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln and former teacher of the Franciscan
friars at Oxford, set up a method of episcopal visitations,5 employing
Franciscan and Dominican friars to implement the pastoral provisions
of Lateran IV.6 Grosseteste himself produced influential pastoral
synodal decrees and constitutions from other regions in Europe (alongside of some
of the English ones mentioned later on), see Smolinsky, ‘Kirchenreform als Bildungs-
reform’, 35–51.
3
Franciscan friars were elevated to episcopal positions from the late 1220s onwards,
in Northern Africa, Spain, Germany, the Baltic, Scandinavia, Italy, France, and
Ireland. See: Williell R. Thomson, Friars in the Cathedral. The First Franciscan Bishops
1226–1261, PIMS Texts and Studies, 33 (Toronto, 1975); Michael Robson, ‘Franciscan
Bishops of Irish Dioceses Active in Medieval England. A Guide to the Materials in
English Libraries and Archives’ Collectanea Hibernica 38 (1996), 7–39.
4
Regestrum Visitationum archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, ed. Th. Bonnin (Paris, 1852). An
older partial edition is the Visites pastorales d’Eudes Rigaud dans les diocèses de Basse-
Normandie, ed. A. de Caumont (Paris, 1837). An English translation of the work
(with numerous typographical errors) appeared as The Register of Eudes of Rouen, trans.
J.F. O’Sullivan & S.M. Brown (New York, 1964). See on this translation the com-
ments of Newman, in Speculum 40 (1965), 493–496. For more information on Eudes
as a bishop and synodal preacher, see P. Andrieu-Guitrancourt, L’archevêque Eudes
Rigaud et la vie de l’Église au 13e siècle (Paris, 1938); Eudes Rigaud, Sermones in Synodi
Rothomagensi (found in MSS Troyes 816, 1760, and 1965), ed. L. Duval-Arnould,
AFH 69 (1976), 336–400 & AFH 70 (1977), 35–71; Williell R. Thomson, Friars in
the Cathedral. The First Franciscan Bishops 1226–1261, PIMS Texts and Studies, 33
(Toronto, 1975), 74–91.
5
Cf. Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste, ed. F.N. Davis, Lincoln Record Society, 11 (Horncastle,
1914); H. Srawley, ‘Grosseteste’s Administration of the Diocese of Lincoln’, in: Robert
Grosseteste Scholar and Bishop: Essays in Commemoration of the Seventh Centenary of His Death,
ed. D.A. Callus (Oxford, 1955), 146–177; R.W. Southern, Robert Grosseteste. The
Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1986), 235–271.
6
In her lecture ‘The English Friars and the implementation of the pastoral pro-
visions of Lateran IV in the episcopate of Robert Grosseteste’, held at the Leeds
International Medieval Conference ( July 2001), Maura O’Carroll drew attention to
the close collaboration of the bishop and a group of mendicant friars, several of
whom were permanent members of his episcopal household, and engaged with epis-
copal support in the catechesis of lay people during their Sun- and weekday sermons.
232 chapter four
manuals for the instruction of the clergy,7 and in his Lincoln statutes
ordered parish priests to teach their parishioners the articles of the
creed, the ten commandments, the seven sacraments, the seven works
of mercy, the seven virtues and the seven vices. This should prepare
the faithful for proper confession, and help them to internalise the
basic elements of Christianity.8
Likewise, John Pecham, the Franciscan Archbishop of Canterbury,
issued a set of constitutions for the complete English Church province
at the 1281 Council of Lambeth. These Lambeth constitutions pro-
vided in outline a complete catechistic programme: prescribing curates
and auxiliary mendicant preachers to provide the laity four times a
year with homiletic instruction on seven doctrinal points, namely the
articles of faith, the ten commandments, the evangelical precepts,
the works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven virtues, and the
sacraments.9
In several of his surviving letters, Robert Grosseteste explained to cardinals and the
papal curia why and how he used the pastoral skills of the friars. See for instance
Constitutiones Robertus Episcopus Linc., edited in: Councils and Synods: with other documents
relating to the English Church, Volume II,1, ed. Frederick M. Powicke et al. (Oxford,
1964), 165.
7
Most famous, no doubt, is the Templum Dei, in which Grosseteste combines a
treatment of the articles of the creed, the theological and cardinal virtues, the Gospel
commandments and the decalogue, with a treatment of the seven deadly sins, the
petitions of the Pater Noster, the ‘mercies’ found in the Gospel, the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, the heavenly beatitudes, the seven sacraments and relevant information on
penance and excommunication. Robert Grosseteste, Templum Dei, ed. J. Goering &
F.A.C. Mantello, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts (Toronto, 1984). More directly
designed for the confessional is Grosseteste’s Deus Est, edited as ‘Robert Grosseteste’s
Treatise on Confession’, ‘Deus Est’, ed. Siegfried Wenzel, FS 30 (1970), 218–293
(239–293).
8
Constitutiones Robertus Episcopus Linc., edited in: Councils and Synods: with other doc-
uments relating to the English Church, Volume II,1, ed. Frederick M. Powicke et al. (Oxford,
1964), 269. Cf. David L. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality
(Lincoln, 1975), 188.
9
John Pecham’s synodal letters, his pastoral letters and the 1281 Lambeth cons-
titutions can be found in Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, ed. J.D.
Mansi, Reprint (Paris, 1903) XXIV, 403–422 and in the Concilia Magnae Britanniae
et Hiberniae ab Anno MCCLXVIII ad Annum MCCCXLIX, ed. D. Wilkins (London,
1737) II, especially p. 54: ‘De informatione simplicium: Ignorantia sacerdotum pop-
ulum praecipitat in foveam erroris; et clericorum stultitia vel ruditas, qui de fide
catholica mentes fidelium instruere jubentur, magis aliquando ad errorem proficit
quam doctrina. Quidam etiam caeci praedicantes non semper loca visitant, quae
magis constat veritatis lumen indigere; testante propheta, qui ait: quod parvuli
petiebant panem, nec erant qui frangerent: et alio clamante: quia egeni et pauperes
quaerunt aqua, et lingua eorum exaruit. In quarum remedium discriminum sta-
tuendo praecipimus, ut quilibet sacerdos plebi praesidens, quater in anno, hoc est,
Many elements of Pecham’s Lambeth constitutions, and particu-

larly those found in the section known as the Ignorantia Sacerdotum—
which lambasted the ignorance of priests and hammered on the
necessity of their engagement in catechistic activities10—found their
way into the famous Oculus Sacerdotis, compiled in the 1320s by (the
secular priest or Dominican?) William of Pagula. This work itself
thereafter was reworked by the Cambridge chancellor Johannes de
Burgo (into the Pupilla Oculi) and by the Augustinian canon John
Mirk (into the vernacular Instructions for Parish Priests). All these works
combine catechistic information for the instruction of priests (so that
they could pass on the elementary elements of Christianity to their
flock) with rather detailed guidelines concerning the treatment of sin
and confession, showing the overflow between these pastoral manuals
and full-blown confessional writings.11 Indirectly, Pecham’s Lambeth
constitutions and notably the Ignorantia Sacerdotum became a major
source of inspiration for the Lay Folks’ Catechism, produced in the
York diocese around 1357 by the English monk John Gaitrik, on
the basis of a Latin example text drafted at the Council of York
(under leadership of Archbishop John Thoresby).12
As is shown in the many texts surrounding the pastoral activities
of Grosseteste and Pecham, the implementation of synodal legisla-
tion went hand in hand with the production of a plethora of instruc-
tory materials. Some of these aimed at ameliorating the homiletic
prowess of the parish priest, so that he more successfully could teach
semel in qualibet quarta anni, die uno solenni vel pluribus, per se vel per alium
exponat populo vulgariter, absque cuiuslibet subtilitatis textura fantastica, quat-
tuordecim fidei articulos, decem mandata decalogi; duo precepta evangelii, scilicet
geminae charitatis; septem opera misericordiae; septem peccata capitalia cum sua
progenie; septem virtutes principales dictis ac septem sacramenta. Et ne quis a prae-
dictis per ignorantiam se excuset, quae tamen omnes ministri ecclesiae scire tenen-
tur, ea perstringimus summaria brevitate.’ See also: D. Knowles, ‘Some Aspects of
the Career of Archbishop Pecham’, English Historical Review 57 (1942), 1–18, 178–201;
Decima L. Douie, Archbishop Pecham (Oxford, 1952), passim; Decima L. Douie,
‘Archbishop Pecham’s Sermons and Collations’, Studies in Medieval History presented to
F.M. Powicke (Oxford, 1948), 269–282; J.J. Smith, The Attitude of John Pecham toward
Monastic Houses under His Jurisdiction (Washington, 1949).
10
See the previous note, as well as L. Kellog & E.W. Talbert, Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library 42 (1959–60), 345–377.
11
Cf. Leonard E. Boyle, ‘The Oculus Pastoralis and some other works of William
of Pagula’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. 5 (1955), 81–110, esp.
82.
12
Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 222; T.F. Simmons, The
Lay Folks’ Catechism, EETS OS, 118 (London, 1901), xiiff.
234 chapter four
his flock the elementary points of Christian doctrine and penitence,

whereas others were more directly tailored to the training and fine-
tuning of the priest’s own basic doctrinal and catechistic knowledge,
as well as his confession techniques. Franciscan authors made their
contribution in both areas.
Among the former, we can point to the many Franciscan sermon
collections mentioned in my chapter on preaching,13 and to those
curious combinatory works of predominantly English provenance that
hold a middle ground between preaching manuals, exempla collections,
and catechistic handbooks, such as the Speculum Christiani,14 the Speculum
13
Other interesting text corpora are formed by the rapiaria of Franciscan homiletic
practitioners, some of which abound in catechistic materials for use in the pulpit.
A good example is the autograph manuscript of Nikolaus von Kosel (d. ca. 1443),
active as a convent preacher among the Poor Clares of Bohemia and as a public
preacher in Olmütz and Oberglogau. The manuscript—MS Breslau (Wroclaw) I.Q.
466—started out as a letter copybook, and more and more was used to collect a
load of (Latin, German and Czech) theological texts, songs, hymns, sequences,
smaller notices, word lists, wisdom sayings, catechistic texts and prayers, confes-
sional materials taken from canon law, extracts from the Physiologus and the Regimen
Sanitatis Salernitanum, Bible pericopes, and a Hebrew alphabet. Ludwig Denecke,
‘Nikolaus von Kosel’, VL2 VI, 1089–1093 remarks (1090): ‘Das Breslauer Autograph
des N.v.K enthält überaus vielfältige und großenteils nur hier überlieferte Texte
und Aufzeichnungen. Es läßt erkennen, was einem Ordensmann und Prediger wert
erschien, festgehalten und wiederverwandt zu werden. Als Verfasser einzelner Texte
ist N.v.K. jedoch kaum irgendwo (vielleicht für die Glossen?) mit Sicherheit zu
erschließen. Zahlreiche zum Auswendiglernen geeignete Merkverse lassen den Schluß
auf Lehrtätigkeit zu.’ See also: H. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, ‘Nikolaus von Kosel,
ein böhmischer und deutscher Dichter vom jahre 1417’, Monatschrift von und für
Schlesien 2 (1829), 738–751; J. Feifalik, ‘Studien zur Geschichte der altböhmischen
Literatur’, Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der
Wissenschaften (WSB) 36 (1861), 211–246 (with editions of Latin poems found in the
manuscript); Idem, ‘Untersuchungen über altböhmische Vers- und Reimkunst’, WSB
39 (1862), 281–344 (with editions of Czech songs found in the manuscipt); J. Klapper,
‘Kirchliches Leben in Oberschlesien vor 500 Jahren. Bruder Nikolaus von Kosel’,
Aus Oberschlesiens vergangenheit und Gegenwart 2 (1922), 3–20; Idem, ‘Mal. Wanderer-
zähkungen in Oberschlesien’, Mitteilungen der Schles. Geschichte für Volkskunde 24 (1923),
85–94; Idem, ‘Das Volksgebet im Schlesischen Mittelalter’, Mitteilungen der Schles.
Geschichte für Volkskunde 34 (1934), 85–116; Idem, ‘Nicolaus von Kosel (. . .)’, Mitteilungen
der Schles. Geschichte für Volkskunde 36 (1937), 1–106 (with several partial editions of
the catechetical texts etc.); Idem, ‘Die ostmd. Evangelien-Perikopen des Nikolaus
von Kosel’, Festschrift H. Vollmer (Potsdam, 1941), 249–303; J. Janota, Studien zu
Funktion und Typus des deutschen geistlichen Liedes im Mittelalter, MTU, 23 (Munich, 1968);
W. Haug, Erzählforschung 2, ed. W. Haubrichs, LiLi Beiheft 6 (1977), 285f.; J. Dabrina,
Rocsnik Muzeum W Gliwicach, 7–8 (1991–2), 47–72.
14
The Speculum Christiani, ed. Holmstedt (on the basis of MS Harley 6580) aims
to furnish materials that the priest, in accordance with Pecham’s Lambeth statutes,
could use each quarter of the year to instruct the people in the knowledge neces-
sary for the salvation of their souls: the articles of faith, the ten commandments,
Laicorum,15 Nicholas Bozon’s Contes Moralisés,16 the Liber Exemplorum ad

Usam Praedicantium,17 the Fasciculus Morum,18 and the Gesta Romanorum.19
Alongside of synodal legislation, which in itself seems to have had
an impact on the Franciscan output of pastoral manuals, the issue
of proper religious instruction traditionally had been a major topic
among academic theologians. From the moment when, in the second
half of the twelfth century, the Parisian schools evolved into a universitas
studiorum, the school theologians tried to formulate comprehensive
and authoritative collections of theological knowledge, with as their
final goal the instruction of the Christian flock by well-schooled
preachers. The famous Sentences of Lombard, as well as the various
Summae of Alain de Lille and his immediate successors contained to
this purpose ample references to the major catechistic elements:
explaining their correct meaning and doctrinal import. Even a the-
ologian with the standing of Tommaso d’Aquino OP saw the proper
exposition of these catechistic elements as one of his major tasks, as
can be gathered from a glance at his various works on the symbolon,
the Pater Noster, the ten commandments, and the articles of faith.20
the Gospel precepts, the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins and their
offshoots, the seven principal virtues, and the seven sacraments of grace. The Speculum
also uses poems to illustrate or expound doctrinal and credal points and several
long prayers to bring about devotion and contrition. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric
and Franciscan Spirituality, 199f.
15
The Speculum Laicorum, ed. J.Th. Welter (Paris, 1914) was produced during the
closing decades of the thirteenth century. It probably is the work of a Franciscan
from East Anglia. It was used extensively until the seventeenth century, and still
survives in at least 18 manuscripts. It was dedicated to a curate and meant to facil-
itate the catechistic instruction of the people.
16
These are mentioned in my chapter on preaching.
17
Liber Exemplorum ad Usum Praedicantium, ed. A.G. Little, British Society of
Franciscan Studies, 1 (Aberdeen, 1908). This work was compiled c. 1275 by an
English Franciscan active in Ireland. It survives in a single manuscript that also
contains a copy of the Stimulus Amoris.
18
The Fasciculus Morum, probably written before 1340 and in most copies ascribed
to the Franciscan friar Robert Silke (Selk), has survived in at least 21 manuscripts.
The majority of these share a sevenfold division, each of which introduces a vice
with its counteracting virtue. One manuscript mentions John Spiser as its compiler.
See Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 190ff., 226, who touches
upon various manuscript traditions and explains that most manuscripts of this work
contain additional poems on the passion, on sin and repentance, and on the Pater
Noster, suggesting that this pastoral manual attempted to augment the programme
of lay instruction with vernacular English verse. More information on such matters
is given in my paragraph on Franciscan religious poetry.
19
Ibidem, 190ff.
20
See Tommaso d’Auino, Opera Omnia XXVII (Paris, 1884), containing his Expositio
236 chapter four
Comparable pieces were produced by Franciscan friars engaged

in studies or in teaching assignments at the order’s major studia gene-
ralia. Early on, Alexander of Hales (d. 1245) and his collaborators
incorporated encompassing treatments of the major catechistic pieces
in their Summae and handbooks of theology. On top of the materials
found in the Summa Halensis itself,21 important expositions of the
articles of faith, the sacraments, the Pater Noster, the virtues and vices,
and the decalogue were gathered in he Summa de Articulis Fidei, the
Summa de Decem Preceptis, and the Summa de Sacramentiis by Jean de la
Rochelle (d. 1245), one of Alexander of Hales’ closest collaborators.22
Symboli Apostolorum, his Expositio Orationis Dominicae, his Expositio Salutationis Angelicae,
De Decem Praeceptis et Lege Amoris, and De Articulis Fidei et Ecclesiae Sacramentis. Karin
Baumann, Aberglaube für Laien, 2 Vols. (Würzburg, 1989) I, 27: ‘Damit erschienen
die Lehren des Glaubensbekentnisses, Vaterunsers, des Englischen Grußes, des
Dekalogs und der Sakramente als gleichwertige katechetische Hauptlehrstücke. In
diesem Zusammenhang hob der Aquinate die Kenntnis der drei zum menschlichen
Heil notwendigen Voraussetzungen hervor: Was der Mensch glauben soll, lehre das
Symbolon, was er hoffen soll, stehe im Gebet des Herrn und zuletzt solle er das
tun, was ihn zur Erfüllung des Gesetzes verplichtet, wie Christus es befohlen hat.’
21
Summa Fratris Alexandri, 4 Vols. (Quaracchi, 1924–1948). Many parts of the
Summa esp. books I (De Deo) and III (De Verbo Incarnato; De Legibus et Praeceptis; De
Gratia et Virtutibus) were conceived under the editorial supervision of Jean de La
Rochelle.
22
All these works assumedly were planned to become part of one large Summa
Theologicae Disciplinae, to which would also have been assigned his Summa de Divinis
Nominibus. Jean’s Summa de Articulis Fidei has for instance survived in MSS Madrid,
Escorial C.VI.2; Milan, Biblioteca Universitaria Brera A.D.IX.7, ff. 75r–94r; Rome,
Casanat. 1473; Brussels, Bibl. Royale 21865; London, British Library 22041, ff.
397r–406v; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm 14620 ff. 130ra–134vb; Assisi, Biblioteca
Comunale 415 ff. 48ra–65ra; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.F.20; Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale Lat. 5565b ff. 67ra–73rb; Rome, BAV, Vat.Lat. 4298, 4350 & 6318;
Vorau, Bibliotheca Can.Reg. LXI & CCCVIII. Jean’s Summa de Decem Preceptis can
be found in MSS Oxford, Bodleian Hatton 102 ff. 162–184; Rome, Biblioteca
Casanat. 1473 ff. 77vb–88rb; Madrid, Escorial C.IV.2 ff. 18rb–21va. The Summa
de Vitiis has survived in MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 587, ff. 1ra–102ra; Bruges,
Stadtsbibliotheek 228; Cambridge, Pembroke 21; Cambridge, Trinity College 326
(B.14.42/531) ff. 1–235; Lisbon, Bibl. Naz. K.2.58; Luzern, unnumbered; Oxford,
Bodleian Rawl.C.241, f. 22; Oxford, Exeter 9 f. 2; Oxford, Canon. Miscell. 271;
Oxford, Laud. Miscell. 221, ff. 1–76v; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 16417 ff.
1–69; Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 984; Ravenna, Bibliotheca Classensis 1331 Salins
10 ff. 1–130; Stuttgart, Bibl. Reg. 29 (= Würtemb. Landesbibl. Cod. Asc. HB I 29,
Weingarten E 44) ff. 3ra–136va; Troyes, Bibliothèque Publique 1339 ff. 5ra–96va;
Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 4293 ff. 1ra–162rb; Rome, BAV Vat. Reginensis 1736 ff.
21ra–86va. And abridged versions of the Summa de Sacramentiis can be found in MSS
Oxford, Hatton 102 and Madrid, Escorial C.IV.2. See for more information
O. Lottin, ‘Alexandre de Halès et la ‘Summa de Vitiis’ de Jean de la Rochelle’,
RThAM 1 (1929), 240–243; I. Brady, ‘Jean de la Rochelle’, DSpir. VIII (Paris, 1974),
599–602; J.G. Bougerol, ‘La glose sur les Sentences du ms Vat. Lat. 691’, Antonianum
Many Franciscan theologians would also dwell on such issues in

their compulsory academic exercises, namely in their biblical com-
mentaries (in which many commentaries on the ten commandments,
the evangelical precepts, the Pater Noster and the angelic greetings
found their natural place),23 in their commentaries on the Sentences,
and in individual quaestiones that took place in the context of the cur-
ricular and extra-curricular training of lectorate and degree students
at the Franciscan studia generalia throughout the medieval period.24
55 (1980), 108–173; Idem, ‘Jean de la Rochelle. Les oeuvres et les manuscrits’, AFH
87 (1994), 205–215.
23
A case in point is Pietro di Giovanni Olivi’s treatise on the Pater Noster, edited
by F. Delorme in AISP 1 (1951), 179–218, which is an integral part of his com-
mentary on Matthew.
24
I am not able to give a complete overview of Franciscan school quaestiones on
the Pater Noster, the decalogue and the like. Particularly important seem to have
been some series of quaestiones by François de Meyronnes (1288–ca. 1328), such as
his Quaestiones super Pater Noster (a.o. MS Prague, University Library 450, ff. 118–126);
De Articulis Fidei (MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.AA.17 ff. 149a–155 &
XII.G.11 ff. 135–140; Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 4307 ff. 30–35; Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei
Theol. 2°, 35 ff. 274va–279rb); Quaestio de Fide (a.o. MS Rome, BAV Lat. 3026 ff.
74vb–92va); De Decem Preceptis (MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale XII.G.12 ff. 147r–;
Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 4307 ff. 11–30); De Septem Peccatis Mortalis (MS Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale V.H.220 ff. 174a–186b); the Tractatus de Articulis Fidei, which was printed
together with his Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum (Venice, 1493/Basel, 1498); and the
Explicatio Decalogi (Paris: Jodocus Badius, 1519). See also MS Munich, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek Clm 7594, which seems to contain some of François’ questions De
Contemplatione (ff. 195r–197v); De Humilitate (ff. 197v–200v); De Gratia (ff. 200v–202v);
De Misericordia (ff. 202v–203v); De Temptatione (ff. 203v–206r); De Contritione (ff. 206r–
211v); De Articulis Fidei (ff. 211v–214r); and De Virginitate (ff. 214r–215r). The same
and additional ascetical texts are found in MSS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Clm 8346 ff. 149vb–157va (De Contritione); Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm
8988 ff. 217r–225v (De Contritione); Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 8346
ff. 240vb–244 vb (Tractatus de Gratia); Brussels, Royal Library Cod. IV. 235. In addi-
tion to these texts, François composed another Explicatio Decalogi (Paris: Jodocus
Badius, 1519) and an Expositio de Summa Trinitate et Fide Catholica (a.o. MSS Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 8345 ff. 196va–224rb; Frankfurt a.M., Stadt- und
Universitätsbibliothek Praed. 93 ff. 121rb–155va), which is, in fact, a commentary
on Book I, Chapter 1 & 2 of Gregory IX’s Decretals, dealing with the confession of
faith as formulated at the Fourth Lateran Council. There are two versions of
François’ commentary: a small one, which gives a mere explanation of the text,
and a large one, which has a more theological character. The large version, which
was composed ca. 1321–1322 also encapsulates the last version of François’ Tractatus
de Articulis Fidei. For more information, see B. Roth, Franziskus von Mayronis OFM.
Sein Leben, seine Werke, seine Lehre vom Formalunterschied in Gott, Franziskanische Forschungen,
3 (Werl, 1936), 34, 72f., 74–83, 103, 184f., 190ff., 373–396, 573; H. Roßmann,
‘Die Quodlibeta und verschiedene sonstige Schriften des Franz von Meyronnes
OFM’, FrSt 54 (1972), 1–76, 45ff. It would seem that not all of these texts were
mere academic exercises but stand in the tradition established by the collaborators
238 chapter four
Alongside of such scholarly exercises, the articles of faith, the ten

commandments and related subjects came round in sermons deliv-
ered to theology students, and at the occasion of special academic
conferences. A well-known example of the latter are Bonaventura da
of Alexander of Hales of providing good quality treatises on moral theology in ser-

vice of lectorate and university students, most of whom were prospective preachers
and teachers. Also of interest are the Expositio Symboli Beati Athanasii et Lateranensis
Consilii (MS Münster i. Westf., Universitätsbibliothek 252 ff. 174rb–184vb), the expo-
sition of the Magnificat and the Pater Noster (MS Münster i. Westf., Universitätsbibliothek
252 ff. 185ra–189rb) and De XII Articulis Fidei (MS Münster i. Westf., Univiversitäts-
bibliothek 252 ff. 189va–214va) ascribed to the Franciscan lector Johannes Blumendal
von Köln (fl. 1330). Cf. O. Bonmann & B. Brodmann, ‘Joh. Blomendal von Köln
und sein literar. Nachlass’, FrSt 28 (1941), 36–52; 98–106). Slightly younger are
Giovanni Quaia di Parma’s Expositio super Patrem Nostrem, originating from his lec-
torate years at the studia of Bologna and Pisa in the 1370s and 1380s, and probably
meant for the Franciscan pupils under his care. This Expositio can for instance be
found in MSS Gratz, Universitätsbibliothek 195 ff. 87r–92v; Ravenna, Bibl. Classense
176; Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale 1302 (H.V.40); Milan, Biblioteca Universitaria D
XIII, 41; Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale 790 (an. 1441). See Sbaralea, Supplementum II,
79–80; Ubald d’Alençon, ‘Un manuscrit inédit de Jean Quaglia de Parma’, EF 11
(1904), 565–567; Pierre Péano, ‘Jean-Genès de Parme (Quaia)’, DSpir VIII, 834–5;
A. Teetaert, ‘Quaglia Jean-Genès’, DThC XIII, 1431–1436; C. Piana, Chartularium
Studii Bononiensis, AF XI (Quaracchi, 1970), 31–35. Interesting texts from the fifteenth
century are the anonymous decalogue treatise found in MS London, Gray’s Inn
15, ff. 1r–72r (cf. Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500 AD, ed.
Bloomfield et al. (Cambridge MA, 1979), no. 3266; P. Glorieux, Répertoire des maîtres
en théologie de Paris au XIII e siècle, 2 Vols (Paris, 1933–1934), no. 3510), the texts
ascribed in Manoscritti francescani della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, ed. C. Cenci,
Spicilegium bonaventurianum, VIII (Grottaferrata, 1971) II, 1098 to Paolo di Terano
(fl. 1435), namely the De Angelis Damnatis (MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.E.22
ff. 254r–278v), the De Articulis Fidei (MS Naples, BN XIII.AA.43 ff. 1r–4r), De
Iuramento (MS Naples, BN VIII.AA.31 ff. 384r–392v), De Negotiatione (MSS Naples,
BN I.A.23 ff. 262b–269b; V.H.274 ff. 150r–155r; VII.E.33 ff. 212r–217r; VIII.AA.31
ff. 376r–381r), De X Praeceptis (MS Naples, BN XIII.AA.43), the Eglogae Theoddi.
Commentarius, and other texts (MS Naples, BN VIII.AA.31), and the theological trea-
tises of Johann Kannemann (d. ca. 1470), regent master of the Erfurt studium in
the 1440s, notably his De Oratione Dominica (MSS Lüneburg, Städtische Bibliothek
Theol. Qu. 61 ff. 10r–99r; Görlitz, Milichsche Bibliothek Cod. 57 ff. 1ra–46rb), his
Super Salutationem Angelicam (MSS Lüneburg, Städtische Bibliothek Theol. Qu. 61 ff.
99v–134v; Görlitz, Milichsche Bibliothek Cod. 57 ff. 50ra–82rb), the Expositio
Symboli/Credo (MSS Lüneburg, Städtische Bibliothek Theol. Qu. 61 ff. 138r–230v;
Görlitz, Milichsche Bibliothek Cod. 57 ff. 85ra–168vb), and the De Decem
Praeceptis/Expositio Decalogi (a.o. MSS Lüneburg, Städtische Bibliothek Theol. Qu. 61
ff. 237r–319r; Görlitz, Milichsche Bibliothek Cod. 17 ff. 1ra–81ra, 206rb–207va; Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek Cod. Lat. 561 theol. qu. 41 ff. 1r–217r; Braunschweig, Städtische
Bibliothek cod. XCIX ff. 109–210). For more information, see V. Honemann,
‘Kanneman, Johannes’, VL2 IV, 983–986. For the early sixteenth century, I would
like to point out the Expositio Orationis Dominicae (MS Hildesheim, Stadtbibliothek 4)
by the Erfurt lector Johann Heimstedt (d. 1504), and Antonio da Matelica della
Marca’s mystical Expositio Orationis Dominicae, published at Parma in 1535. See
L. Meier, ‘De schola Franciscana Erfordiensi saeculi XV’, Antonianum 5 (1930),
Bagnoreggio’s Collationes de Decem Praeceptis seu Expositio Decalogi, held

at Paris during the academic year 1267–1268.25
All such materials were part of the scholarly training given within
academic settings or within the Franciscan studia network. The ultimate
goal of this training was to provide lectorate students and prospective
preachers with an adequate grounding in doctrinal and moral the-
ology. Many of such texts have an overlap with the doctrinal teach-
ing on the ten commandments, the articles of faith and related issues
in the ‘abbreviated’ Franciscan and non-Franciscan theological hand-
books that flourished throughout the later medieval period, such as
the reworked Elucidarium by the twelfth-century theologian Honorius
Augustodunensis,26 Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s Breviloquium,27 Henry
of Wodstone’s Summa de Sacramentiis,28 Hugues Ripelin (OP)’s Compendium
Theologicae Veritatis,29 and Sentences compilations such as the Breviloquium
super Libros Sententiarum by Gerardo da Prato.30
343–344, 360; Idem, Die Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt (1958), 34–35 & 57; E. Kleineidam,
Universitas Studii Erffordensis, Second Edition (Leipzig, 1992) II, 13, 281–282, 313;
M. Bihl, ‘Antoine de Matelice’, DHGE III, 788; Gustavo Parisciani, ‘Matelica (Antoine
de)’, DSpir X. 765–766.
25
Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1891) V, 505–532. They have been
translated as the Le Dix Commandments (Paris, 1992) and as the Collations on the Ten
Commandments, transl. Paul J. Spaeth, Works of Bonaventure Series, 6 (St. Bonaventure,
NY, 1995).
26
At first, this catechistic classic found its way into the religious schools in Latin.
Later, especially in fifteenth century Italy, it saw a series of vernacular adaptations,
significantly broadening its readership. Cf. M. Degli Innocenti, ‘I volgarizzamenti
italiani dell’“Elucidarium” di Onorio Augustodunense’, Itali Medievale e Umanistica 22
(1979), 239–318.
27
Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1891) V, 1199–291.
28
Henry’s Summae de Sacramentiis can be found in MS Oxford, Bodleian Laud.
Misc. 2 ff. 130–167v (a manuscript that contains several other works of pastoral
literature. The complete manuscript at one point in time (in any case prior to 1295)
was in possession of the Franciscan friar John of Stamford, probably before John
became archbishop of Dublin in 1284). Henry’s Summa, which is a total overhaul
of the Summa de Sacramentiis by Simon of Hinton OP, relies heavily on Bonaventura’s
Breviloquium and upon the fourth book of Bonaventura’s Sentences commentary. The
work of Henry has been edited as An Edition and Study of Henry Wodestone’s Summa
de Sacramentiis: a thirteenth century Franciscan Pastoral Manual, ed. Robert J. Mokry, Ph.D.
Thesis (University of London, Heythrop College, 1997).
29
Hugues Ripelin, Compendium Theologicae Veritatis (ca. 1260), found in Bonaventura,
Opera Omnia, ed. A.C. Peltier (Paris, 1866) VIII. A reworking of Hugues’ Compendium
by the Franciscan friar Jean de Combis has been edited as the Compendium Totius
Theologice Veritatis. VII Libris Digestum Accurateque cum Veteribus et Approbatis Exemplaribus
Collatum per Fratrem Joannem de Combis (Freiburg i. Br., 1880).
30
Il Breviloquium super Libros Sententiarum di Frate Gherardo da Prato dell’Ordine de’Minori,
ed. Marcellino da Civezza (Prato, 1882).
240 chapter four
It would seem that all such texts first and foremost were directed
towards the vicars and religious teachers themselves, to strengthen
their own doctrinal knowledge and to provide them with ready-cut
materials for religious instruction. The same was true, as we will see
in another chapter, for the ‘genre’ of confession manuals.31 The com-
pilation of catechetical-like works for the laity, however, was not
absent from the mind of religious instructors.32 Traditionally, scholars
31
Some scholars have assumed that, before the spread of the printing press, the
large-scale production of catechistic pieces for the laity was hampered by the cost
and labour of manuscript making: ‘. . . vor Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst, die
zuerst eine massenhafte Verbreitung von Schriften ermöglichte, konnten solche
Anleitungen überhaupt ein Gemeingut des Volkes kaum werden, mussten vielmehr
Predigten, geistliche Schauspiele, Bilder und Bildwerke in den Kirchen, Bilderbibeln
und Bilderkatechismen, sowie in den Kirchen oder an öffentliche Orten angebrachte
Tafeln mit den katechetischen hauptstücken den religiösen Unterricht in Haus und
Schule erganzen.’ Paul Bahlmann, Deutschlands katholische Katechismen bis zum Ende des
sechzehnten Jahrhunderts (Münster, 1894), 5–6.
32
As can be gathered from the existing literature on medieval and early mod-
ern catechistic instruction. See especially the work of Bahlmann mentioned in the
previous note, as well as Bernd Adam, Katechetische Vaterunserauslegungen. Texte und
Untersuchungen zu deutschsprachigen Auslegungen des 14. Und 15. Jahrhunderts, Münchener
Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 55 (Munich,
1976); Robert James Bast, Honor your Fathers. Catechisms and the Emergence of a Patriarchical
Ideology in Germany 1400–1600, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, LXIII
(Leiden-New York-Köln, 1997); Gerhard Bellinger, Der Catechismus Romanus und die
Reformation: Die katechetische Antwort des Trienter Konzils auf die Hauptkatechismen der
Reformation (Paderborn, 1970); Catherine D. Brown, Pastor and Laity in the Theology of
Jean Gerson (Cambridge, 1987); Cl. Brouillette, Érasme. le Symbolum sive Catechismus,
thèse Univ. Laval (1969); W. Brückner, ‘Bildkatechese und Seelentraining. Geistliche
Hände in der religiösen Unterweisungspraxis seit dem Spätmittelalter’, Anzeiger des
Germanischen Nationalmuseums (Nurernberg, 1978), 35–70; A.C. Cawley, ‘Middle English
Metrical versions of the Decalogue with Reference to the English Corpus Christi
Cycles’, in: Leeds Studies in English N.N. 8 (1975), 129–145; J.-C. Dhotel, Les origines
du cathéchisme moderne d’après les premiers manuels imprimés en France (Paris, 1967); Peter
Dinzelbacher, ‘Das Fegefeuer in der schriftlichen und bildlichen Katechese des
Mittelalters’, Studi medievali ser. 3, 38:1 (1998 for 1997), 1–66; F. Falk, Die deutschen
Meßauslegungen von der Mitte des 5. Jahrhunderts bis zum Jahre 1525 (Köln, 1889/Amsterdam,
1969); Idem, Die deutschen Sterbebüchlein von der ältesten Zeit des Buchdruckes bis zum Jahre
1520 (Köln, 1890/Amsterdam, 1969); Idem, ‘Der Unterricht des Volkes in den kate-
chetischen Hauptstücken am Ende des Mittelalters’, Historisch-politische-Blätter für das
katholische Deutschland 108/2 (1891), 553–560, 682–694; Idem, Drei Beichtbüchlein nach
den Zehn Geboten aus der Frühzeit der Buchdruckerkunst, Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien
und Texte, ed, J. Greving, H. 2 (Münster, 1970); M. McGatch, ‘Basic Christian
education from the decline of catechesis to the rise of catechisms’, in: Idem, Eschatology
and Christian Nurture. Themes in Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Religious Life, Variorum Collected
Studies Series, 681 (Aldershot, 2000), 79–108; J. Geffcken, Der Bildercatechismus des
funfzehnten Jahrhunderts und die catechetischen Hauptstücke in dieser Zeit bis auf Luther (Leipzig,
1855); J.R. Guerrero, ‘Catecismos de Autores Españoles de la primera mitad del
siglo XVI (1500–1559)’, in: Repertorio de Historia de las Ciencias Eclesiásticas en España
2: Siglos XIV–XVI (Salamanca, 1971), 235–260; Bertrand-Georges Guyot, ‘Quelques
place the emergence of catechisms for the laity in the later four-
teenth and early fifteenth centuries, with as major turning point the
catechistic programme unfolded by Jean Gerson (chancellor of the
University of Paris) in his letters De Reformatione Theologiae (1400), and
in his Opusculum Tripartitum de Praeceptis Decalogi, de Confessioni et de Arte
Moriendi (1408), all of which were envisaged to function in the con-
text of religious instruction to adolescents.33
A. Early Franciscan catechistic texts
However, within the Franciscan order the output of catechistic texts

for a wider audience of female religious, tertiaries and lay people
aspects de la typologie du commentaires sur le Credo et le Decalogue’, in: Les gen-

res littéraires dans les sources theologiques et philosophiques médiévales. Définition, critique et
exploition. Actes du colloque internationale de Louvain-la-Neuve, 1981, ed. R. Bultot (Louvain-
la-Neuve, 1982), 239–248; Ch. Moefang, Katholische Katechismen des 16. Jahrhunderts
in deutscher Sprache (Mainz, 1881); Dieter Harmening, ‘Bildkatechese’, LMA II (1983),
153ff; Dieter Harmening, ‘Katechismusliteratur. Grundlagen religiöser Laienbild-
ung im Spätmittelalter’, in: Wissensorganisierende und wissensvermittelnde Literatur im Mittel-
alter. Perspektiven ihrer Erforschung. Kolloquium 5.–7. Dezember 1985, ed. Norbert Richard
Wold, Wissensliteratur im Mittelalter. Schriften des Sonderforschungsbereichs 226
Würzburg/Eichstätt, Band 1 (Wiesbaden, 1987), 91–102; Jose Sanchez Herrero, ‘La
litteratura catequética en la Península Ibérica, 1236–1553’, in: La España Medieval
V (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1986) II, 1051–1115; Idem, ‘Alfabetizacion
y catequesis franciscana en America durante el siglo XVI’, in: Actas del II Congreso
Internacional sobre Los Franciscanos en el Nuevo Mundo (siglo XVI), La Rábida, 21–26 de
septiembre de 1987 (Madrid, 1988), 589–648; Luis Resines, Historia de la catequesis en
España, Collección de Estudios Catequéticos, 13 (Madrid, 1995); R. Rudolf, Ars
Moriendi. Von der Kunst des heils. Lebens und Sterbens, Forschungen zur Volkskunde, 39
(Köln-Graz, 1957); J.A. Slattery, The catechetical use of the Decalogue from the end of the
catechumenat through the late medieval period, Diss. (Washington, 1979: Univ. Microfilms
Intern.: 80/10943); Silvana Vecchio, ‘Il decalogo nella predicazione del XIII secolo’,
CrSt 10 (1989), 41–56; Egino Weidenhiller, Untersuchungen zur deutsprachigen katecheti-
schen Literatur des späten Mittelalters. Nach den Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek,
Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, 10
(München, 1965).
33
Paul Bahlmann, Deutschlands katholische Katechismen bis zum Ende des sechzehnten
Jahrhunderts (Münster, 1894), 5; Baumann, Aberglaube für Laien I, 32–33. The recep-
tion and translation of Gerson’s catechistic writings by the Strasbourg cathedral
preacher Geiler von Kaiserberg, and the links between the programme of Gerson
and that of the so-called ‘Wiener Schule’, with important (non-Franciscan) cate-
chetical authors such as Heinrich von Langenstein, Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl, Martin
von Amberg, Thomas Peutner, Stephan von Landskron, Heinrich von Friemar, and
others make Gerson’s catechistic works an almost natural starting point for schol-
ars looking for the medieval roots of late medieval Augustinian pastoral care and
its outflow into the Lutheran catechetical revolution.
242 chapter four
had an early start. The oldest Franciscan ‘commentary’ on the Pater

Noster, namely the Expositio in Pater Noster ascribed to Francesco d’Assisi
should probably not be interpreted as such. With its strong over-
tones of prayer, it recalls an older tradition of more monastic med-
itative Pater Noster paraphrases, and does not provide a straightforward
doctrinal explanation. Nevertheless, it quickly became a devotional
classic in a range of vernacular adaptations.34
More directly written with catechistic objectives in mind, although
not eschewing more meditative purposes, were the De Dominica
Oratione/Erklärung des Vaterunser and the Erklärung des Ave Maria ascribed
to the novice master and teacher David von Augsburg. These form
part of a wider group of instructive and ascetical works produced
by David and his collaborators.35 David’s German Pater Noster expla-
nation offers a to-the-point moral and theological elucidation of the
Pater Noster text, and finishes with seven reasons why we should pray
it frequently.36 His Ave Maria, in its turn, is a word for word expla-
34
Expositio in Pater Noster, in: Franciscus Assisiensis, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grotta-
ferrata, 1978), 157–161; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris,
1981), 276–281. The ascription is not fully secure. The oldest ascription to Francesco
seems to stem from Bartolomeo da Pisa’s De Conformitate, AF IV (1906), 600 & V
(1912), 256. See on the authenticity and prayer-like characteristics of the text espe-
cially Kajetan Esser, ‘Die dem hl. Franziskus von Assisi zugeschriebene Expositio
in Pater noster’, CF 40 (1970), 241–271 (reprinted in Idem, Studien zu den Opuscula
des hl. Franziskus von Assisi (Rome, 1973), 225–257) and J. Cambell, ‘Saint François
a-t-il composé une paraphrase du Pater?’, FrSt 45 (1963), 338–342. The vernacular
versions that appeared after Francesco’s death and sanctification circulated in the
Franciscan order and beyond as devotional texts. See on this for example Engelbert
Grau, ‘Zwei oberdeutsche Übersetzungen der Expositio in Pater Noster des hl.
Franziskus’, FrSt 58 (1976), 208–215; Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter,
Band II: Texte, 253–258; Giuseppe Scarpat, Il Padrenostro di San Francesco, Antichità
classica e cristiana, 33 (Brescia, 2000).
35
For a long time, German scholars were not in agreement about the authen-
ticity of these and other vernacular works ascribed to David. This disussion seems
to have been decided by S. Francis Mary Schwab, who, in her study David of
Augsburg’s ‘Paternoster’ and the Authenticity of His German Works (Munich, 1971), con-
cluded (p. 175) ‘. . . that the canon of David’s German works includes the follow-
ing: “Die sieben Vorregeln der Tugend”; “Der Spiegel der Tugend”; “Von der
Offenbarung und Erlösung des Menschengeschlechtes” (including “Kristi Leben
unser Vorbild”); “Die vier Fittiche geistlicher Betrachtung”; “Von der Erkenntnis
der Wahrheit”; “Die sieben Staffeln des Gebetes” (Version B), including the “post-
script” to Version A, probably intended for B (Version A was translated from the
Latin “Septem gradus orationis”, which, though ascribed to David and edited under
his name, appears to be unauthentic because of marked stylistic differences), the
“Paternoster”; and an “Ave Maria”.’
36
‘Daz ein ist, so wir bitten umbe das ubel, daz wir getan haben (. . .) Daz ander,
so wir biten das uns got behuete vor chunftigen sunden (. . .) Das dritte ist, daz
nation of the Latin text Ave Maria gracia plena. Dominus tecum. Benedicta
tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui.37
Not well-known are the Pater Noster and Ave Maria explanations by
Benedict d’Alignan († 11, 07, 1268) found at the end of his major
work, the De Summa Trinitate et Fide Catholica in Decretalibus38 (in MS
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 4224 ff. 436–476),39 and the cat-
echistic Doctrina ascribed to the Spanish friar Hugo Bariols (fl. ca.
1270?).40 Neither of these could vie with the success of the large
uns got erloes vor dem uebel, daz wir mit sunden verdienen (. . .) Das vierde ist,
daz uns got fuege, des wir hie notdurftich sin zesel und ze libe (. . .) Daz funfte ist,
daz uns got gebe alle zeit und an allen steten daz beste und daz wagiste zerch-
enen und zetuon nach sinem volbrahtem willen (. . .) Daz sehste ist, daz wir biten,
daz got als suezchlichen und als genadichlichen in uns und als statichlichen hie mit
uns won (. . .) Daz siebent ist, daz vor allen dingen des obristen chuniges er fur
sich sol gen, und sin name gehoehet und geert sol werden nach siner gotlichen
werdicheit im himel und uf erde, als daz zimlich und reht ist.’ Schwab, David of
Augsburg’s Paternoster, 90–106 (104–105). See aside from Schwab’s edition also MS
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek cgm 176 ff. 228r–257r (late thirteenth or early
fourteenth century). This manuscript is a veritable treasure house of German and
Latin texts by David von Augsburg, Berthold von Regensburg, and their collabo-
rators. Other manuscripts containing the Pater Noster explication are MSS Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek cgm 354 ff. 99va–107rb & cgm 7264; Heidelberg,
Universitätsbibliothek Pal. Germ 567 ff. 207va–222ra, 254r–v; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
mgq 1596. A Latin version of this text can for instance be found in MS Vienna,
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Abendl. Handschriften Series Nova 3622 ff.
167r–170r. David’s Pater Noster explication has strong parallels with his more mys-
tical Sieben Staffeln des Gebets/Septem Gradus Orationis, as well as with passages in his
novice training treatises and his Sieben Vorregeln der Tugend. See in general on late
German Pater Noster explications from the thirteenth century onwards: Weidenhiller,
Untersuchungen zur deutschsprachigen katechetischen Literatur, 214–225.
37
It has been edited in Franziskanisches Schrifttum. Band II: Texte, 283–289, and in
H. Unger, Geistlicher Herzen Baumgart (München, 1969), 280ff. See also MSS Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek cgm 176 ff. 257v–266v; Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek
Pal. Germ 567 ff. 222ra–226va.
38
De Summa Trinitate et Fide catholica (= Tractatus Fidei contra Diversos Errores, ca. 1260)
apparently has survived in 18 manuscripts. See M. Grabmann, ‘Der Franziskanerbishof
B. de Alignano († 1268) und seine Summa . . .’, in: Festschrift P. Michael OFM, ed.
I.-M. Freudenreich (Colmar, 1941), 50–64; K. Villads Jensen, ‘War against the
Muslims according to Benedict of Alignan’, AFH 89 (1996), 181–195; Alfredo Cocci,
‘Notizie su Benoît d’Alignan (d. 1268) ed il suo Tractatus Fidei contro Diversos Errores’,
in: Editori di Quaracchi, 100 anni dopo (Rome, 1997), 317–331 (with more informa-
tion on editions and studies). The Summa was given a partial edition by Kurt Villads
Jensen, AFH 89 (1996) 181–195. A full edition by Alfredo Cocci is in progress.
39
See Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliografica di Terra Santa I, 244–245.
40
Doctrina de frar Hugo Bariols del orde dels frars menors: MS Madrid, Biblioteca
Nacional 6291, ó R-280 ff. 227rb–230va. In this Doctrina, Hugo deals in a concise
fashion with the ten commandments, the articles of faith, the seven deadly sins, the
seven gifts of the souls in paradise, the seven Dotes of the glorified bodies of the
blessed, the seven sacraments, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven works
244 chapter four
Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis by Konrad Holtnicker (d. 1279), lec-

tor at Hildesheim and the compiler of several large and popular ser-
mon collections (see Chapter I). Konrad’s Speculum, which for a long
time was attributed to Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, has survived in
at least 247 manuscripts and in a significant number of early edi-
tions.41 Its popularity can partly be explained by the way in which
it combines, in a relatively accessible manner,42 a lengthy catechet-
ical explanation of the Ave Maria with a full-blown mariology, incor-
porating the bulk of existing mariological traditions. Initially, the text
predominantly circulated within Franciscan circles. Yet soon it found
its way beyond the confines of the Franciscan order, and in its ver-
nacular reworkings became an important stimulus for the prolifera-
tion of Mary devotion.43
Landmarks for the catechistic instruction of young lay pupils were
the texts produced by the Majorcan poet-philosopher and mission-
of mercy, the works of spiritual mercy, the seven parables of Christ, the seven
causes for contrition, the seven causes of humility, and prayers to the Virgin. To
Hugo sometimes are also ascribed a Llibre de vertuts, a Llibre d’amoretes, and a Manera
de contemplar en la Passio segons les VII hores (found in the same manuscript as the
Doctrina. Yet there is no proof to back this up. See García Gambín, ‘Espagne médié-
vale’, DSpir IV, 1120; J. Domínguez Bordona, Catálogo de los manuscritos de la Biblioteca
Nacional (Madrid, 1931), 57–59; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles en la
edad media’, 234 (no. 106).
41
See for instance MSS Münster i. Westf., Universitätsbibliothek 252 ff. 214va–
238va; Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek Cod. II.1.2° 53 (an. 1443) ff. 201ra–243va
(Prologus); Hamburg, S. Petruskirche Petri 36 ff. 208r–232v (15th cent.) & 40
ff. 203r–223v (15th cent.) & 48 ff. 198v–238r & 54 ff. 1r–63v; Hamburg, S. Petrus-
kirche Jacobi 14 ff. 88v–110v; Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei 2° 84 ff. 3ra–7rb; Stuttgart,
Württembergische Landesbibliothek HB I 22 ff. 109ra–157rb (15th cent.) & HB I
167 ff. 111ra–157ra (15th cent.); Frankfurt a.M., Dominikanerkloster 35 ff. 132v–165v
(ca. 1470); Colmar, Bibliothèque Publique 250 ff. 1–33v (15th cent.); London,
University Library 269 ff. 36–71v (15th cent.). It has been edited as Speculum Beatae
Virginis, ed. L. Schmitz (Quaraccchi, 1904); Speculum seu Salutatio B. Mariae Virginis
ac Sermones Mariani, ed. P. de Alcantara Martinez, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica
Medii Aevi, 11 (Rome, 1975). See also Corrado di Sassonia, Commento all’Ave Maria,
trad. Felice Accrocca, Edizioni PIEMME (Casale Monferrato, 1998). For more infor-
mation, see Girotto, Corrado di Sassona, predicatore e mariologo del secolo xiii, Biblioteca
di Studi Francescani, 3 (Firenze, 1952); Gerhard Stamm, ‘Conrad von Sachsen’,
in: VL2 V, 247–251; Emanuela Prinzivalli, ‘Il ‘Commento all’Ave Maria’ di Corrado
di Sassonia’, Ricerche Teologiche 10 (1999), 169–178.
42
As the author himself remarks, it was written in order that ‘in ipso, tanquam
in quodam obscuro speculo, simpliciores eiusdem reginae amatores qualis et quanta
ipsa sit saltem tenuiter speculentur.’ Speculum seu Salutatio B. Mariae Virginis, Prologus,
ed. P. de Alcantara Martinez, 147–140.
43
For the (German) translations of the Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis, see Ruh,
Bonaventura Deutsch, 186–191, 279ff.; H.-W. Haeller, Studien sur Ludwich Moser, Karthäuser-
Monch in Basel (Freiburg, 1967), passim.
ary Ramon Llull (d. 1316). This alleged tertiary associated with the
Franciscan order wrote an astounding number of works in various
languages on philosophy, theology, mission and crusading issues. On
top of this, he established a school for (Franciscan) missionaries at
Majorca (Miramar, which functioned until 1292), and probably died
during his third attempt at bringing the Christian faith to the Saracens
in Northern Africa. For Llull, missionary endeavours and catechis-
tic instruction went hand in hand, in line with the Franciscan mis-
sionary traditions in Africa, the Middle East and in the Asian
heartlands.44
In between his many other works of religious instruction that will
not be mentioned here,45 several have an outright catechistic import.
Cases in point are his Latin Liber de Quattuordecim Articulis Sacrosanctae
Romanae Catholicae Fidei (1283–1285?),46 the Liber Apostrophe/Liber de
Articulis Fidei (1296),47 and especially his Catalan Doctrina pueril (1274–
1282), a pedagogical work for adolescents.48 Possibly first of all directed
44
A case in point are the catechistic activities of Franciscan missionaries in China.
Hence Giovanni di Montecorvino, archbishop of Khanbaliq (Beijing) taught the
children he had bought on the market place the basics of the Latin language,
together with the Divine Office and the basics of the Christian faith, to which pur-
pose he also had his church illustrated with picturas (. . .) veteris et novi Testamenti
ad doctrinam rudium, et scripta sunt licteris latinis, tursicis et persicis, ut omnes
lingue legere valeant.’ Cf. Epistolae fr. Iohannis de Monte Corvino, III, in: Sinica Franciscana
I: Itinera et relationes fratrum Minorum saeculi XIII et XIV, ed. Anastasius Van den
Wyngaert (Ad Claras Aquas-Quaracchi, 1919), 352.
45
The most accessible (if not fully complete) overview of Llull’s many works can
be found in A. Bonner, ‘Raymond Lulle’, DSpir XIII, 176–179.
46
Edited in: Raymundi Lulli Opera Omnia, ed. I. Salzinger (Mainz, 1722/Frankfurt
a.M., 1965) II, treatise vi, pp. 421–610.
47
Edited in Raymundi Lulli Opera Omnia, ed. I. Salzinger (Mainz, 1729/Frankfurt
a.M., 1965) IV, treatise ix, pp. 505–561. See also Llibre dels articles de la fe catòlica.
Llibre què deu hom creure de Déu. Llibre contra Anticristi, Nova Edició de les Obres de
Ramon Llull, 3 (Ciutat de Mallorca, 1996).
48
This Catalan work is edited as: Ramon Llull, Doctrina Pueril, ed. Gret Schib,
Els nostres classics, 104 (Barcelona, 1972). Already at the end of the thirteenth and
during the early decades of the fourteenth centuries, several translations in other
vernaculars appeared, as well as in Latin. For some of the vernacular versions, see:
La versione occitanica della ‘Doctrina Pueril’ di Ramon Llull, ed. Maria Carla Marinoni
(Milan, 1997); Maria Carla Marinoni, ‘Per il testo della ‘Doctrina Pueril’ proven-
zale’, in: Filologia romanza e cultura medievale. Studi in onore di Elio Melli, ed. Andrea
Fassò et al. (Alessandria, 1998), 509–523. A medieval French translation has been
edited as: Raymond Lulle, Doctrine d’enfant, ed. A. Llinarès (Paris, 1969). Latin ver-
sions can for instance be found in MSS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 10548 (14th
cent.); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 10549 (c. 1400); Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale
258; Palma de Mallorca, Biblioteca Pública 1072. On the possible date of pro-
duction, see for instance S. Garciás Palou, ‘Que año escribió Ramon Lull la “Doctrina
246 chapter four
to Llull’s own son Domingo, the Doctrina soon became very popu-
lar. It contains no less than 100 chapters, of which the first 67 are
devoted to issues of catechistic religious instruction, dealing with the
14 articles (analysed in 12 chapters), the ten commandments (10
chapters), the seven sacraments (7 chapters), the seven gifts of the
Holy Spirit (7 chapters), the eight benedictions (8 chapters), the seven
joys of Mary (7 chapters), the seven virtues (8 chapters), and the
seven deadly sins (8 chapters) respectively.
This strictly catechistic part is followed by a number of more wide-
ranging teachings, such as an exposition in five chapters of the ‘three
laws’—that is the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions (comparing
them with paganism and the law of nature). Additional chapters
touch on the seven liberal arts (explaining the arts of the trivium and
the quadrivium, as well as the disciplines of theology, law, natural sci-
ence, medicine and the mechanical arts), and dwell on the various
‘conditions’ of man, namely a.) the social conditions/classes of princes,
priests, monks and missionaries, b.) the corporal conditions that rule
body and soul, life and death, temptations and the acquisition of
habits, and c.) the historical (the ages), material (the elements) and
eschatological (the antichrist, heaven and hell) conditions of mankind
and the world as a whole.49
The grammar teacher Bonvesin della Riva (d. 1315), an Italian
contemporary of Ramon Llull, and a member of the third order of
the Milanese Humiliati, also at one point in time became involved
in the Franciscan tertiary movement. Bonvesin is foremost known
for his moral and at times catechetical poems, as well as for his
classroom primers that rub shoulders with the school texts described
by Wood, Copeland and Grendler in their studies on grammar
schools and behavioural manuals,50 and at the same time come close
Pueril”?’, Estudios Lulianos 12 (1968), 33–45; E. Blanco Gómez, ‘La fecha de com-
posición de la ‘Doctrina Pueril’, Estudios Lulianos 29 (1989), 147–154.
49
For more information, see O. d’Allerit, Pensée métaphysique et orientation morale
chez Raymond Lulle d’après le livre de ‘Doctrina Pueril’, Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 2 (Berlin,
1963); P.-A. Sigal, ‘Raymond Lulle et l’éducation des enfants d’après la ‘Doctrina
Pueril’, in: Lulle et le Pays d’Oc, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 22 (Toulouse, 1987), 117–139.
50
Marjorie Curry Woods & Rita Copeland, ‘Classroom and confession’, in:
Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: CUP,
1999), 376–406, 380–385 remark that during and directly after the first grounding
in Latin grammar, many young students were exposed to a ‘graded reader’, most
often the Liber Catonis or a revamped version (especially from c. 1300 onwards the
first two parts of the ‘original’ Liber Catonis continued to be used, whereas the other
to the texts produced by John of Wales cum suis for young Franciscan
students at provincial and general studia mentioned in another setting.51
The first Franciscan catechism properly speaking (if we can believe
the explicit of the fourteenth-century manuscript in which the text
is found) is Guiral Ot’s Cathecismus Scolarium Novellorum (1338), dedi-
cated to the Duke of Calabria and future King of Naples Andrew
of Hungary. This text, which as yet has not received the scholarly
attention it deserves, seems to be a proper rhyme catechism adapted
to the religious needs and mnemonic capacities of young pupils.52
The Franciscan catechistic classics written by the Strasbourg and
Würzburg lector and later provincial minister Marquard von Lindau
(d. 1392) have not suffered such scholarly neglect. His major cate-
chistic work is the Die zehe Gebot, a decalogue treatise shaped in a
dialogue between masters and pupils. It was meant to prepare lay
people for the sacrament of penance and to help them on the road
four were frequently exchanged by texts with a more Christian character (like the
Liber Parabolarum by Alain de Lille, and Innocent III’s De Contemptu Mundi). The first
text of the Liber Catonis is the Disticha Catonis (a collection of moral proverbs). This
text aimed to polish the morals of the students. The second text is the Ecloga Theoduli,
also a standard text of proverbial wisdom. Combined with the other texts of the
Liber Catonis (and especially the late medieval ‘Christened’ format) these pieces com-
prised a ‘coherent collection focussing on behaviour and conduct.’ In England, the
most important additional work that was frequently copied with such late medieval
basic school texts, was the Liber Penitentialis or Peneatis Cito, written by William de
Montibus (d. 1213). See also P.F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy. Literacy and
Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore, 1989), 278–289.
51
On Bonvesin’s varied didactic oeuvre in Latin and Italian, see especially Bonvicini
de Ripa, De Vita Scolastica/De Discipulorum Preceptorumque Moribus/Scolastica Moralis, ed.
Ezio Franceschini (Padua, 1943); Quinque Claves Sapientiae. Incerti auctoris rudium doctrina.
Bonvicini de Ripa. Vita scolastica, ed. Anezka Vidmanová-Schmidtová (Leipzig, 1969),
37–113; G. Contini, Le opere volgari di Bonvesin da la Riva (Rome, 1941); G. Contini,
‘Saggio d’un edizione critica di Bonvesin da la Riva’, Memorie d. R. Istituto Lombardo
di scienze e lettere (classe di lettere) 24 (1935), 237–272; G. Contini, Cinque volgari di
Bonvesin da la Riva (Modena, 1937); Bonvesin da la Riva, Le cinquanta cortesie da tavola,
ed. Maria Cantella & Donatella Magrassi (Milan, 1985); I volgari di Bonvesin da la
Riva: testi del ms. berlinese, ed. Adnan Gökçen (New York, 1996); Bonvesin da la Riva,
Expositiones Catonis, ed. Carlo Beretta (Pisa, 2000); I volgari di Bonvesin da la Riva. Testi
dei mss. Trivulziano 93 (vv. 113-fine); Ambrosiano T. 10 sup., N 95 sup.; Toledano Capitolare
10–28, ed. Adnan Gökçen (New York, 2001).
52
Catechismus Scolarium Novellorum: MS Chartres, Bibl. Municipale 341 ff. 1v–21r.
For the attribution, see the study of A. Wilmart, ‘Le grand poème bonaventurien
sur les sept paroles du Christ en croix’, Revue bénédictine 47 (1935), 235–278; 250–251,
which also offers the explicit (p. 250, note 4): ‘Explicit Cathecismus editus a reve-
rendo in Christo patre fratre Geraldo Oddonis generali ministro Ordinis fratrum
Minorum, Sacre Theologie doctore, completus per ipsum in sacro loco conventus
Assisii anno Domini millesimo CCCXXXVIIIo.’
248 chapter four
to spiritual perfection through an immersion in the ten command-

ments.53 Marquard’s Die zehe Gebot is an integral part of his overall
programme of religious and mystical education (reminiscent of the
religious programme offered in the many writings of David von
Augsburg a century earlier), and offers a ‘Lebensmodell für den
religiösen Menschen, der praktisch ausgerichtete Sittlichkeit mit dem
verborgenen Leben mit Gott zu vereinen sucht.’54 Marquard’s deca-
logue explanation was probably the most widely disseminated eluci-
dation of the ten commandments throughout the late medieval period.
Its main source was the De Decem Preceptis by the Augustinian Hermit
Heinrich von Friemar, showing Marquard’s connections with the
Augustinians of the Vienna circle, who were famous for their cate-
chistic endeavours.55
Marquard’s text urges that every Christian who is mentally capa-
ble to do so should learn the ten commandments by heart. Those
who are not willing to try this are damned from the start. At the
same time, every Christian who wants to know more than s/he
should is also prone to damnation. In short, a Christian should fol-
low the rules of the Church, adhere to its commandments, believe
nothing that is counter to its teachings, and carry the articles of faith
in his or her heart without further scrutiny or doubt.
53
Die zehe Gebot has survived in seven different versions in many (at least 130)
manuscripts. See: Marquard von Lindau, Die zehe gebot. Ein katechetischer Traktat. Textausgabe,
ed. Jacobus Willem van Maren, Quellen und Forschungen zur Erbauungsliteratur
des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 14 (Amsterdam, 1980). This is a
facsimile re-issue of the 1516 edition of version C1, with the prologue of version
A1; Das Buch der zehn gebote, ed. J.W. van Maren, Quellen und Forschungen zur
Erbauungsliteratur des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 7 (Amsterdam,
1984). This is a facsimile re-issue of the 1483 Venice edition of version C3. Extracts
and early analyses appeared in J. Geffken, Der Bilderkatechismus des 15.Jahrhunderts und
die katechetischen Hauptstücke in dieser Zeit bis auf Luther (Leipzig, 1855), 42ff, 109ff.;
F. Hotzy, ‘Zu Marquards von Lindau ‘Buch der zehen gepot’, Zeitschrift für die öster-
reichischen Gymnasien 64 (1913), 407–411. More detailed manuscript information can
be found in Anton Mayr, ‘Zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung der Dekalogerklärung
Marquards von Linau’, Festschrift 100 Jahre Humanistisches Gymnasium Freising (Freising,
1928), 1–20; Nigel F. Palmer, ‘Latein, Volkssprache, Mischsprache. Zum Sprachproblem
bei Marquard von Lindau, mit einem Handschriftenverzeichniss der Dekalogerklärung
und des Auszugs’, in: Spätmittelalterliche Geistl. Literatur in der Nationalsprache, I, Analecta
Cartusiana, 106/1 (1983), 70–110; Idem, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, VL2 VI, 81–126
(esp. 86–89).
54
Kurt Ruh, ‘Geistliche Prosa’, in: Europäisches Spätmittelalter, Neues Handbuch der
Literaturwissenschaft, 8 (Wiesbaden, 1978), 565–605 (576).
55
Baumann, Aberglaube für Laien, 132–133, 137.
More modest in its manuscript dissemination is Marquard’s con-

cise and highly structured De Fide/Der Glob.56 Nowadays it can be
found in seven manuscripts and two early editions.57 It consists of
four parts: three short pieces on the properties of faith (its truth,
nobility and clarity), and a longer piece containing an explication of
the Symbolon Apostolorum.58 In his explanation of each article, Marquard
mentions in passing the heretical and erroneous ideas by which believ-
ers have been waylaid in the past, to proceed with an explanation
of the ‘correct’ meaning of the article in question (‘was lernen wir
nu bi disem artikel? Die antwúrt: Wir lernen . . .’), in accordance
with Tommaso d’Aquino’s De Articulis Fidei et Ecclesiae Sacramentis.59
Marquard’s near contemporary Francesc Eiximenis (ca. 1330–1409)
from Gerona (near Barcelona), known for his large literary projects
of religious and political reform, also wrote a catechetical text, namely
the Cercapou—under inspiration of Ludolph von Sachsen’s Vita Christi.
The Cercapou was first and foremost meant for religious self-exami-
nation.60 Although the intended public of this text was large—rang-
ing from lay people to monks, nuns, and secular priests—it makes
rather demanding reading. This might explain why it did not match
the popularity of El Crestiá, Eiximenis’ even more comprehensive but
better laid out thirteen-volume master piece (see Chapter VII).
56
De Fide/Der glob, edited in Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter, Band
II: Texte, 290–322.
57
These are listed in Kurt Ruh’s edition (see previous note). See o.a. MSS Zürich,
Zentralbibliothek cod. S. 430 ff. 6v–22v; Zürich, Zentralbibliothek cod. C. 95 ff.
196r–214v; Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Theol. 120 (Q.III.26) ff. 163ra–171vb; Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek Preuß. Kulturbesitz germ. 8° 222 ff. 102r–146v; St. Gallen, Stifts-
bibliothek cod. 967 pp. 381–404; Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire
cod. 2801 (olim L. germ. 668) ff. 1r–10vb; Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek
cod. theol. et phil. 2° ff. 106r–118v.
58
‘(. . .) Und hier umb ze sagent von der úber natúrlichen gab únsers heiligen
globen, so wil ich da von sagen oder vier puncten schriben: Ze dem ersten wie
allein ein gewar glob ist und der so kreftelich bezúget ist, ze dem andern wie gar
edel únser glob ist, ze dem dirten wie gar luter sol únser glob sin, ze dem vierden
wie vil der artikel únsers heiligen globen sind, und wie si mit under scheid von den
heiligen zwoelfbotten gemachet sind.’ Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter,
Band II: Texte, 295.
59
Niger Palmer suggests that Marquard made ample use of this authoritative
source but did not follow it slavishly. Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, 98.
60
I know the following manuscripts of the Cercapou: MS Barcelona, Bibioteca
Central 1720; MS Barcelona, Biblioteca Central 1804; MS Barcelona, Biblioteca
Universitaria 2; MS Barcelona, Bib. Universitaria 148. It has been edited as: Francesc
Eiximenis, Cercapou, ed. G.E. Sansone, 2 Vols. (Barcelona, 1957–1958).
250 chapter four
B. Franciscan catechisms in fifteenth- and

sixteenth-century Italy
The fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries no doubt constituted a

golden age of Franciscan catechistic writing.61 To an extent, this can
be ascribed to the onset of the regular Observance. In Italy, the main
thrust of the Observant catechistic concerns seems to have been
reserved for the pulpit. As we have seen elsewhere (in Chapter I),
catechistic teachings were central to many Observant sermon cycles.
Alongside of catechistic preaching, Italian Observant friars spent
much effort on texts guiding the proper confession of the Christian
flock, a subject to which I will return in Chapter V. Nevertheless,
independent catechistic pieces were produced as well, witness
Bernardino da Fossa’s concise yet successful Admonitioni of 1491,62
and the more extensive works of Bartolomeo da Colle (1421–1482)
and Marco da Montegallo (1425–1496).
The Tractatus de Fide sive Explicatio Symboli Niceni by the Dante
scholar and Observant preacher Bartolomeo da Colle dates from
around 1461. This substantial and rather bleak work is a mixture
between a theology handbook and a catechetical manual, shaped as
a series of sermon-like thematic explanations of God’s nature and
His attributes in relation to the creed, the predestination doctrine,
the condemnation of the damned, the sins by which good men can
be tempted, the spread of evil in the world, divine mercy and jus-
tice, the nature and goal of creation (replete with descriptions of
heaven, earth, the visible reality and the realm of the angels), the
fall of Lucifer, the nature of temptation in general, and the place of
61
On late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century catechistic instruction in Italy see
R. Rusconi, ‘Dal pulpito alla confessione. Modelli di comportamento religioso in
Italia tra 1470 circa e 1520 circa’, in: Strutture ecclesiastiche in Italia e in Germania prima
della Riforma, ed. Paolo Prodi & Peter Johanek (Bologna, 1984), 259–315; M. Turrini,
‘‘Riformare il mondo a vera vita christiana’: le scuole di catechismo nell’Italia del
Cinquecento”, in: Annali dell’Istituto Storico Italo-germanico in Trento 8 (1982), 407–489;
L. Guglielmini, Il sacramento della Penitenza nei catechismi dei fanciulli del secolo XVI, Ricerca
storico-teologica, Corona Lateranensia, 32 (Rome, 1983); For additional non-Franciscan
works, see also Anne Jacobson Schutte, Printed Italian Vernacular Religious Books,
1465–1550: A Finding List (Genève, 1983).
62
Admonitioni del beato Bernardino Aquilano da Fossa nell’anno 1491 composte, ed. Antonio
D’Amici (Venice: Jacomo di Vidali et compagni, 1572). This short catechism, writ-
ten in the Italian vernacular, deals with the articles of faith, the Pater Noster, the
divine and ecclesiastical precepts and a guide towards proper confession.
free will in the rational soul. It would have been suitable for teach-
ing and preaching purposes, but the organisation of the work (which
does not strictly follow the explanatory grid of the seven virtues and
vices or the commandments) would have hampered its function as
a basic text of catechetical instruction.63
Marco da Montegallo, like Bartolomeo da Colle a fervent prop-
agator of the Monte di Pietà and an important Observant preacher
in his own right, decided not to publish the key message of his
homiletic, penitentiary and catechetical insights in a set of model
sermon collections. Instead, he presented it in more systematically
organised manuals, namely the Tabula de la salute humana, the Libro
delli commandamenti di Dio, and the Libro intitulato de la divina lege de esso
omnipotente Dio.64 The first of these manuals, the Tabula de la salute
humana, corporale, temporale, spirituale et eterna, was published in 1486 and
again in 1494.65 It consists of 15 chapters, on the ten commandments,
63
Tractatus de Fide sive Explicatio Symboli Niceni/Credo (1461): MSS Rome, BAV
Vat. Lat. 7618 ff. 1r–359v (in this autograph manuscript, the text is followed by a
thematical index on ff. 360r–366r, an index of citations on ff. 366r–368v, and a
set of incipits of pericopes taken from the works of Dante and Virgil on ff. 369r);
Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.F.I ff. 17ra–44vb; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale
XII.F.40 ff. 139va–147va; Rome, BAV Urb. Lat. 626 ff. 1r [14r]-348v [361v]. In
this manuscript, Bartolomeo’ Tractatus can be found after the treatise De Veritate et
Firmitate Christiane Fidei by Bernardino da Siena (ff. 1–13; Barolomeo’s Tractatus starts
afresh with folio nr. 1). Marco Arosio, ‘Bartolomeo da Colle (1421–1484), predi-
catore dell’Osservanza francescana e dantista minore’, in: Gli Ordini mendicanti in Val
d’Elsa, Atti del convegno di studio Gli Ordini mendicanti in Val d’Elsa organizzato dalla Società
Storica della Valdelsa. Colle Val d’Elsa, Teatro dei Varii; Poggibonsi, Convento di San Lucchese;
San Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale, 6–8 giugno 1996, Biblioteca della ‘Miscellanea Storica
della Valdelsa’, 15 (Castelfiorentino, 1999 (2000)), 73–189. I would like to thank
dr. Arosio for providing me with a copy of his article.
64
See M.-P. Anglade, ‘Descriptio Codicum Franciscanorum Bibliothecae
Riccardianae Florentinae’, AFH 8 (1915), 265 for his relations with the famous Poor
Clare Camilla Battista Varani. The literature on Marco is quite extensive. I would
like to draw the attention to C. Mariotti, Il B. Marco da Montegallo (Quaracchi, 1896);
Il beato Marco da Montegallo (Ascoli Piceno, 1903); Cl. Schmitt, ‘Marco de Montegallo’,
DSpir X (Paris, 1980), 283–4; Francesco Lomastro Tognato, Legge di Dio e Monti di
Pietà. Marco da Montegallo, 1425–1496 (Vicenza, 1996); Marco da Montegallo (1425–1496).
Il tempo, la vita, le opere. Atti del convegno di Studio scoli Piceno 12 ottobre 1996 e Montegallo
23 agosto 1997, ed. Silvano Bracci, Centro Studi Antoniani, 30 (Padua, 1999); Elide
Mercatili Indelicato, Vita e opere di Marco dal Monte Santa Maria in Gallo (1425–1496),
Testi e Documenti, 6 (Ascoli Piceno, 2001). On top of the manuals described here,
Marco also published La corona de la gloriosa Vergine Madre Maria (Venice, ante 1494),
a devotional work on the life, suffering and crowning in heaven of the Virgin, with
intermittent prayers (Pater Noster, Ave Maria etc.).
65
Tabula de la salute humana, corporale, temporale, spirituale et eterna (Venice: Nicolò
Balaguer, 1486 & Florence: Antonio Miscomini, 1494). There exist several other
252 chapter four
the articles of faith, the Pater Noster and Ave Maria prayers, and the
Christian works of charity (which allowed Marco to sing the praise
of the Monte di Pietà, not eschewing anti-Semitic overtones) respec-
tively. The work included a list of necessary books for those who
wanted to live a truly Christian life.66
The Libro delli commandamenti di Dio, which is found after the Tabula
de la salute humana in its 1486 and 1494 editions,67 is a rather more
miscellaneous work, consisting of a so-called Fascicoletto, an Exempio
notabile, and three Opuscoli. The Fascicoletto consists of a bibliography
of necessary books and figure or reflections on the eternal life and
man’s destiny, elements that in one shape or another can also be
found in the Tabula de la salute humana. The Exempio is an elaborated
simile, presenting the vicissitudes of a young man (‘el figliuolo d’uno
cittadono’), and asking attention for the necessity to know and observe
the commands of God. The final three Opuscoli consist of a treatise
on the commandments of the Old Testament (Libro delli Comandamenti
di Dio del Testamento Vecchio), an exposition in ten chapters of the
evangelical precepts (Tractato delli Comandamenti et Consigli Evangelici o
Vero del Testamento Nuovo), and a treatise in three chapters on the
apostolic nature of the Church, its divinely sanctioned authority struc-
ture and the truth of the sacraments administered by its priests
(Tractato de sacri canoni ordinationi et regole o vero comandamenti della sancta
madre ecclesia christiana catholica romana).
The Libro intitulato de la divina lege de esso omnipotente Dio probably is
the most genuine catechistic text of Marco’s hand, and as such it
was highly appreciated by the early Capuchins (who incorporated it
in their libraries).68 Based on Marco’s sermons held at Venice in
old editions of later date. A modern (partial) reprint is found in L.J. Rosenwald,
The 19th Book Tesoro de Povero (Washington D.C., 1961). Cf. also P. Rossi, La tavola
della salute del beato Marco da Montegallo (Fermo, 1976).
66
For a more detailed discussion, see V. Meneghin, Bernardino da Feltre ed i Monti
di Pietà (Vicenza, 1974), 175–181 & Elide Mercatili Indelicato, ‘Marco da Montegallo:
Aspetti e problemi della vita e delle opere’, in: Marco da Montegallo (1425–1496). Il
tempo, la vita, le opere, ed. Silvano Bracci (Padua, 1998), 164–178; Zarri, ‘La vita
religiosa femminile tra devozione e chiostro’, 136.
67
Apparently, the Libro delli commandamenti also saw a separate Florentine edition
(by Antonio Miscomini, 1494).
68
A manuscript copy of this text can be found in MS Florence, Biblioteca
Riccardiana 341 ff. 165v–181r, entitled Libro intitolato de la divina lege et comandamenti
de esso omnipotente Dio, da legerse per le scuole, boteche, parochie et per qualunque altro loco a
li piccoli e grandi, et impararse inante ad ogni altra cosa et observarse in vita da ogni creatura.
It appeared in various early editions, such as: Libro intitulato de la divina lege de esso
December 1486, and intended to be read in schools, parishes and

at other teaching encounters, it presents in seven chapters an inte-
grated doctrine on the ten commandments.69 Just as in Marco’s other
works, it includes a list of the books deemed necessary for the believer’s
corporal, temporal, spiritual and eternal salvation.70
C. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century catechisms outside Italy
Works like those written by Marco da Montegallo move beyond mere

catechisms to full-blown guides for living a Christian life, a genre
that saw a quick upswing among Italian Franciscan friars during the
Quattrocento, as we will see in Chapter VII.71 More basic texts of
catechistic instruction have to be sought elsewhere. The Franciscan
provinces of the Low Countries, the German lands and the Spanish
Peninsula in particular rendered an overabundance of concise Fran-
ciscan catechistic manuals, many of which profited from the new possi-
bilities of the printing press.
A pioneer in catechistic leaf prints (Einblattdrücke) was Wilhelm von
Lenzfried, possibly a member of the Franciscan Lenzfried convent
near Kempten (Bavaria) in the later fifteenth century. Around 1496,
the Memmingen printer Albert Kunne published as a leaf print
omnipotente Dio (Venice: Nicolò Balaguer, 1486 & Siena, 1495). See also A. Lopéz,
‘Descriptio Codicum Franciscanorum Bibliothecae Riccardianae Florentinae’, AFH
2 (1909), 127.
69
1.) Di tutti li divini comandamenti del testamento vecchio la diversità o vero
diversificatione; 2.) De li diece comandamenti morali la ordinatione; 3.) De quelli
medesimi la dimostratione; 4.) De li dieci comandamenti morali la rationale assig-
natione; 5.) De li observatori di essi la certa premiatione, o vero retributione; 6.)
De li transgressori, et non observatori di quelli la infallibile et acerba punitione; 7.)
De la transgressione de essi la multiplice auctentica et approbata modificatione, cioè
in quanti modi principali se po fare contra de essi diece comandamenti di Dio.
70
Throughout Marco’s various works (and particularly in La tabula and La corona)
can be found vernacular and Latin versions of important prayers, laude, and reli-
gious formulae (such as the Ave Colonna, Ave Maria, Ave Templo, Concede nos famulos tuos,
Credo in (unum) Deum, Deus Pater omnipotens, Deus veniet largitor, Dignare me laudare, Dio
ti salvi Maria, Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, O altissima gloriosa regina, O alto et
ineffabile, Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, O signore Yesu Christo adoro te, Padrenostro, Requiem
eternam dona ei Domine, Sancta Maria domina mea, Vergine benedicta). Cf. E. Mercatili
Indelicato, Op. cit., 205–229, where a detailed analysis of the various texts and their
lineage can be found.
71
Not surprisingly, The catechistic works of Marco da Montegallo cum suis refer
to the large confession handbooks used in the order at the time, such as the Summa
de Casibus Conscientiae/Summa Angelica of Angelo Carletti da Chivasso
254 chapter four
Wilhelm’s short Ermahnung und Katechismus: O cristen mensch bis vermant

ernstlich, was hie geschriben ist lis vernünfftiglich. This catechistic pamflet
contains first of all 30 versified admonitions to live a God-fearing
life (all of which are rhyming on -lich), and follows this with a series
of paired strophes listing the 10 commandments and the seven cap-
ital sins, as well as a German prose rendering of the Pater Noster, the
Ave Maria, and the Credo.72
Shortly afterwards, the German friar Christian von Honneff (fl. ca.
1500) from Seligenthal (Landshut, Bavaria) wrote a more extensive
catechism with the lengthy title Eyn schone Christliche underrichtung über
die x gebot, die xii artikel des Christlichen geloiven, mit dem Pater noster und
der Englischer grötzen, ouch alle Artikel der gemeiner bicht, wie man ieckliche
sunden underscheiden sal. Alle punten bewyst mit der hilger schrift. This ‘beau-
tiful Christian instruction’, which Christian dedicated to Duke Wilhelm
von Cleef, Gullik und Berghen (d. 1511) touches on the Pater Noster,
the angelic greeting, the symbolon, confession, the five senses, the
works of mercy, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacra-
ments, the seven mortal sins, the eight beatitudes, the nine alien sins
( fremde Sünden), the silent sins (stumme Sünden), the outrageous sins
(Himmelschreiende Sünden), sins against the Holy Spirit, and finally the
ten commandments. For several decades, this work remained unpub-
lished. It was only in 1537 that it found its way to the printing press
of Jasper van Gennep.73 By then it might already have been too old-
fashioned to become a best-seller.
The catechetical works of Dietrich Colde von Münster (d. 1515)
had a much bigger impact. Dietrich worked for many years as an
Augustinian friar. He only transferred to the Observant Franciscans
between 1483 and 1486, to continue his activities in the Cologne
province as a preacher and as a fervent propagator of lay devotion
to the passion of Christ and to the sorrows of the Virgin Mary. The
72
This leaf print was for instance inserted in MS Hamburg, Stadtbibliothek und
Universitätsbibliothek cod. hist. 31e fol. F. 417r (a manuscript compiled by Hieronymus
Streitel OESA, prior at Regensburg) and has found a modern edition in: Formschnitte
und Einblattdrucke aus öffentlichen und privaten Bibliotheken und Sammlungen, ed. W.L.
Schreiber, Einblattdrucke des 15. Jahrhunderts, Band 18 (Berlin, 1913), 13, Facsimile
table 19. See also Konrad Kunze, ‘Wilhelm zu Lenzfried’, VL2 X, 1111–1112.
73
Eyn schone Christliche underrichtung über die x gebot, die xii artikel des Christlichen geloiven,
mit dem Pater noster und der Englischer grötzen, ouch alle Artikel der gemeiner bicht, wie man
ieckliche sunden underscheiden sal. Alle punten bewyst mit der hilger schrift (Collen: Jaspar van
Gennep, 1537). See Bahlmann, Deutschlands katholische Katechismen, 25–28.
first versions of his famous ‘Mirror for Christians’, which appeared

in Dutch as the Een scoon spieghel der simpelre menschen and in Latin as
the Manuale Simplicium, still date from his Augustinian period.74 The
surviving editions of the ‘final’ versions, entitled Der Kerstenen Spieghel
or Christenspieghel, seem to date from 1485 and thereafter, around the
time that Dietrich had chosen to join the Franciscans.75 These later
versions present to lay people in 46 to 54 chapters ‘all that should
be known for the soul’s beatitude’ (alle dat noet is te weten totter zielen
salicheit). This includes an exposition of the apostolic creed, explanations
of the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the ten commandments, a basic
introduction into Trinitarian theology, christology, and eschatology,
prayers to strengthen the faith in general, a survey of the major sins
and virtues, prayer and meditation exercises for the various times of
the day (in the morning, at the dinner table, at the minor hours, and
in the evening), specific instructions for confession and communion,
as well as guidelines for parents who want to raise their children in
a proper Christian fashion.76 In some editions the work even includes
a full-blown Ars Moriendi (which appeared separately as well).77
74
Een scoon spieghel der simpelre menschen (s.l., ca. 1477; Gouda: Geraerd Leeu, 1478;
Cologne: Arnt ab Aich, c. 1480; etc.). These first (Dutch) versions of Dietrich’s Der
Kerstenen Spiegel, consisting of 19 to 24 chapters, appeared together with his Sint
Bernards Visioen and an Oratio op den soeten Naem Jesus. The Latin version derived from
these first versions, entitled the Manuale Simplicium, saw its first imprint in 1477 at
Cologne, and repeatedly saw reworked editions thereafter.
75
The oldest surviving edition of the definitive version is Der Kerstenen Spieghel
(Antwerp: Gerard Leeu, 20 October 1485). Thereafter, editions came out that slightly
differ from each other in the number of chapters. For an overview of the many
printed editions until 1708, see Bahlmann, Deutschlands Katholische Katechismen, 18–19;
Groeteken, ‘Der älteste gedruckte deutsche Katechismus’, 53–74, 188–217, 388–410;
De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI II, no. 281–307; Idem,
Bio-Bibliografia Franciscana Neerlandica ante Saec. XVI I, 196–248; Mees, Bio-Bibliografia
Franciscana Neerlandica ante Saec. XVI, Incunabula II, 45–55 (no. 1–21) & III, 7–40; De
Troeyer, ‘Dietrich von Münster (um 1435–1515)’, FrSt 65 (1983), 156–204 (esp.
187ff.), and the appendices to the modern edition of Drees. For modern editions,
see Katholische Katechismen des 16. Jahrhunderts in deutscher Sprache, ed. Chr. Moufang
(Mainz, 1881) I, I-L (in fact a High German translation of the Dutch text); Der
Christenspiegel des Dietrich Kolde von Münster, ed. Clemens Drees, Franziskanische For-
schungen, 9 (Werl, 1954).
76
De Troeyer, ‘Dietrich von Münster (um 1435–1515)’, 186, writes: ‘Man hat
den ‘Kerstenspiegel unseren ersten Volkskatechismus genannt. Aber er ist mehr. Die
Belehrungen wechseln ab mit Gebeten und frommen Übungen, in denen das Leiden
Christi und die Marienverehrung einen bevorzugten Platz einnehmen. So ist in
diesem Katechismus, der zugleich ein Gebetbuch ist, das Didaktische mit dem
Aktiven und Affektiven verknüpft.’
77
Das Testament Eynes Waren Cristen Mynschen (Lübeck, before 1491?/Lübeck, 1492/
256 chapter four
No other late medieval Franciscan work of catechistic instruction

from the German lands and the Low Countries could compare in
popularity with the Christenspieghel by Dietrich Colde. It would seem
that the sheer success of this catechistic ‘mirror’ throughout the Low
Countries and the Rhine land area for a while put a halt to new
Franciscan initiatives. It was only after ca. 1520 that a new gener-
ation of friars from the Cologne Province and neighbouring regions,
provoked by new challenges of religious dissent, again saw the need
to take up the task of writing catechistic instruments independent
from the ongoing homiletic output.
An important figure in this regard is the Observant friar Thomas
van Herenthals (d. 1530) from Brabant, who functioned as a guardian
and lector of theology at the Franciscan convent of Ypres, and
obtained a reputation as a preacher and religious educator of the
local youth. On Sunday after New Year’s day 1519 (1520 accord-
ing to the new calendar), while preaching at the St. Martin church
in Ypres (where he might have preached regularly), Thomas warned
his audience about the dangers of Luther’s doctrines. Thus, Thomas
became one of Luther’s first public critics. To advance his own doc-
trinally safe catechistic teachings, Thomas produced shortly before
his death the Den Speghel des Kersten Levens. This new catechistic ‘mir-
ror’ consists of three texts, namely an explanation of the ten com-
mandments (Tverclaers van den X geboden, finished on 29 July, 1529),
a short elucidation of the Pater Noster (Cort verclaers op dat Pater Noster),
and an exposition on the seven sacraments (Dat verklaers vanden seven
sacramenten, finished on 10 September, 1530). Thomas had hoped to
publish these texts himself, and to have them distributed widely
among families and schools, so that heresies, ignorance and false
beliefs could be battled effectively. He died before this plan was
realised. Yet after his death the treatises were edited, bundled and
published together for him under the attractive title Den Speghel des
etc.). For a modern edition, see Der Christenspiegel des Dietrich Kolde von Münster, ed.
Clemens Drees, Franziskanische Forschungen, 9 (Werl, 1954), 367–372. This man-
ual aims to help people to prepare themselves daily for their approaching death.
Following the idea that every person should make his spiritual testament in time,
the work argues that all believers should testify by their own free will that they
wanted to die in the faith, that they were prepared to confess all sins, that they
were willing to undertake the appropriate penance, and to make peace with possi-
ble enemies.
Kersten Levens by his Observant confrere Franciscus Titelmans.78 This

posthumously published work saw ten editions between 1532 and
1569 (including a Latin edition based on a translation by care of
friar Nikolaas Zegers).79 It is a proper catechism for adults, evidently
written to provide the Christian populace at large with an antidote
to Lutheran ideas.80
78
Den Speghel des Kersten Levens. Beslutende tverclaers vanden thien gheboden gods ende van-
den .vij. sacramenten der heleger kercken, also verre alst den ghemeenen kerstenen noot est te ghelooven
ende profijt te weten om metten ghewercken te beleven, ed. Franciscus Titelmans (Antwerp:
Simon Cock, 1532).
79
Christianae Vitae Speculum F. Thomae Herentalini, Nicolao Zegero Interprete, ed. Nicholas
Tacitus Zegers (Antwerp: Simon Cock, 1549; Antwerp: Simon Cock, 1554 & Cologne:
Erven Arnold Birckmann, 1555). These Latin editions contain additional indices,
as well as short treatises on the ten commandments, sin, confession, prayer, the
Ave Maria, and the ceremonies of the Mass. The learned Observant friars Nikolaas
(Claes) Zegers (ca. 1495–1559), who between 1536/1537 and 1548 taught Sacred
Scripture as a regent master of the Franciscan Studium Theologicum at Louvain (suc-
ceeding Franciscus Titelmans in this position), and afterwards was guardian at the
convents of Mechelen (Malines), Tirlemont, Diest (1553–1554), Amsterdam (1555–1556),
Boetendaal (1557), Brussels (1557), and Louvain (1558–1559), defended the Latin
Vulgate against new translations (of Erasmus and others), and facilitated between
1548 and his death a range of editions and translations of important spiritual and
catechetical works (such as the translation of Thomas van Herenthals’ catechism, a
revised edition of the Wech des Levens by the Carthusian monk Florenius van Haarlem,
and a Dutch translation of the catechism of Petrus Canisius: Catechismus, dat is die
Somme der christelijcker onderwijsinghen (Antwerp: Pieter van Keerberghen, 1558/Antwerpen:
J. Verwithagen, 1565). Zegers was not the first translator of Canisius’ Summa Doctrinae
Christianae per Quaestiones Traditae. A first Dutch translation by Jan van Hemert
appeared in 1557). In addition, Zegers published two volumes of edifying proverbs,
namely the Proverbia Teutonica Latinitate Donata (Antwerp, 1550), and the Proverbia
Gallicana (Antwerp, 1554). See for more information Benjamin De Troeyer, ‘De
minderbroeder Nikolaas Zegers’, Franciscana 18 (1963), 8–29; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia
Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 192–203 & II, 407–422; André Derville, ‘Zegers’,
DSpir XVI (1994), 1611–1612.
80
The prologue therefore states: ‘Ende es dit selve boecxken leerende wat een
yeghelijc goet kersten mensche behoort te weten nopende de geboden gods ende
de .vij. sacramenten der heleger kercken ende hoe dat hi naar dbewijs van dyen
kerstelijc leven sal, alsoot van god ende van ons moeder de helege kercke elcker-
lijc geleert ende bevolen es . . .’ In its first edition, it contains (after a commendatio
by Franciscus Titelmans and a prologue by Thomas): Een cort onderwijs omtrent den
Gods thien geboden; Een seer cort verclaers op dat Pater noster; Een cort verclaers vanden seven
sacramenten. The first part is not as short as the title does suggest. After a rather
thorough chapter on the nature and the importance of the ten commandments
(with recourse to the biblical theme ‘si vis ad vitam ingredi, serva mandata’, Matthew
19, 17), a general chapter on the obligations imposed by the precepts of the ten
commandments (chapter two, heavily indebted to Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s
sermon De Praeceptis), a chapter on the lack of adherence to these commandments
(which is presented not simply as a danger to our soul, but also is presented as a
lack of love, a lack of thankfulness and a sin in itself ), and a chapter on the way
258 chapter four
Around the same time or shortly before Franciscus Titelmans pub-

lished the catechism of Thomas van Herenthals, an anonymous friar
from the Cologne province writing in a Brabant Dutch dialect pub-
lished in Antwerp yet another catechistic ‘mirror’: the Spieghel oft reghel
des kersten gheloofs oft der kersten eeuwe. This work, better known under
in which Christians should every day engage in prayer exercises, in order to reach
a state of grace and purgation, Thomas moves on to a treatment of the individual
commandments (always dealing with three main points: ‘Deerste puntken sal seg-
ghen wat elck ghebot es. Tweetste wat dat ghebot ons es eeschende ende water toe
dattet ons verbindt. Tderde in wat manieren van sonden wi daer teghen misdoen.’).
The Een seer cort verclaers op dat Pater noster is attached to the treatment of the tenth
commandment, and is presented as a natural extension of the commandments,
namely as Christ’s commandment to pray. The intrinsic link made by Thomas
between the Pater Noster and the ten commandments also shows in that his subse-
quent treatment of the seven sacraments is presented as the second (and not the
third) part of the work: ‘Hier volcht dat tweetste deel van dit speghel oft hant-
boecxken des kerstelijcke levens. Te weten een cort verklaers vanden seven sacra-
menten der helegher kercken.’ The sacraments are presented as the instruments of
man’s sanctification. Thomas opens with a general chapter on the nature and insti-
tution of the sacraments, which reaches back to the sacramental teachings of
Bonaventura, Scotus and Gabriel Biel. For each and every sacrament Thomas dis-
cusses its signification for our Christian life, its salutary sanctifying effects, and the
proper conditions under which it should be received. Thomas pays particular atten-
tion to the sacraments of baptism, eucharist, marriage, and (particularly) penitence
(basing himself predominantly on Biel and (to a lesser extent) on Bonaventura).
Through the sacrament of penitence, Christ forgives us our frequent lapses and acts
of ingratitude, and reconciles our souls with God. The chapter on the sacrament
of ordination (‘Tpriesterschip’) stresses the intercessory role of the priest and his
special status in this world: priests alone can offer the Eucharist and have the sacra-
mental power to absolve sins (important issues in the struggle with Protestant reform-
ers). For the third edition (Antwerp, 1533), Titelmans also added a more detailed
table of contents and included yet another work of Herentals, namely the Thien
artikelen nopende tghemeyne heylige kersten gheloove (replete with an explanatory word list
by Titelmans: Declaratie von sommige woorden in dit boecxken, which also includes a
defense of Thomas’ interpretation of the story of Moses getting water from the
rocks). This third edition makes mention of a further work by Thomas, namely the
Corte declaracie vanden thien gheboden. As Titelmans explained, this Corte declaracie had
been printed at Bruges without Thomas’ consent (‘sonder syn weten uut sinen ser-
monen gheraept te brugghe in prenten onder sinnen name uut ghegeven. Waer in
hi bevindt vele saken achter ghelaten, dier nootsakelijck an behooren, ende vele
saken anders ghestelt dant rechtvaerdelijc om simpel menschen te leeren naer ons
gheloove wel betaemt, sonderlinghe in tijden als quade valsche leeringen ende ket-
terijen op risen, als wi nu in onsen tiden sien, god betert’). This text apparently
had been in circulation after Thomas’ renowned 1519 sermons on the ten com-
mandments at Ypres (which formed the basis of the text), and amounts to a short
declaration of Catholic faith (with special emphasis on the sacraments, the role of
free will, and the importance of good works), against the positions of Luther (although
Luther’s name is not mentioned). See for more information D. van Heel, ‘De
Minderbroeder Thomas van Herentals’, BGPMN 7 (1951), 75–85; Optat de Veghel,
‘Spiritualité franciscaine: 16e–17e siècles aux Pays-Bas’, DSpir V, 1386 & Archange
its shortened title Der kersten eeuwe, is akin to the Christenspiegel by

Dietrich Kolde, in that it again holds the middle ground between a
mere catechism and a full-blown manual for living a Christian life
(more examples of which will be presented in Chapter VII). The
anonymous Der kersten eeuwe consists of 29 chapters. The first of these
contain straightforward teachings on the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria,
the ten commandments, and the articles of faith. On top of that,
the work battles supposedly common superstitions, and gives a ‘fistful’
of spiritual advice: 1.) to build a mental stock of quick and efficacious
prayers for all occasions, 2.) to engage in daily examinations of one’s
own conscience, 3.) to confess on a monthly basis, 4.) to go to com-
munion on all the four major ecclesiastical feasts of the year and to
aspire to ‘mental communion’ during every Mass, and 5.) to pre-
pare for death with a proper testament and by settling material and
immaterial debts in time. Again and again the work hammers in
Observant fashion on the importance of charity and social peace.81
The final texts from this generation that I would like to mention
are Frans van Zichem’s Pia Meditatio Quaedam in Orationem Dominicam
and the miscellaneous edificatory collections written by the Observant
polyglot Frans Vervoort. Just like the title indicates, the Pia Meditatio
by Frans van Zichem (d. 1559) is a Pater Noster meditation. It appeared
in Antwerp in 1550 and proved to be rather popular, its rather ele-
vated humanist character notwithstanding.82 More a meditative guide
than a catechism properly speaking, it catered to the needs of those
who wanted something more than just the basics. The same meditative
qualities can also be found in Frans van Zichem’s other spiritual
Houbaert, ‘Hérenthals (Thomas de)’, DSpir VII, 279; B. De Troeyer, ‘Thomas

Herentals’, Franciscana 18 (1963), 30–34; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica
Saeculi XVI I, 47–50; Adriaan Pattin, ‘Thomas de Hérenthals’, FrSt 65 (1983),
205–214.
81
Der Kersten Eeuwe (Antwerpen: W. Vorsterman, ca. 1521). For more informa-
tion, see De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 51–53.
82
Pia Meditatio Quaedam in Orationem Dominicam (Antwerp, 1550). On Frans van
Zichem and his career in the order (as the guardian of the convents of Antwerp,
Maastricht and Mechelen or Malines) and possibly outside (in the household of the
Archbishop of Bremen), see Biographie Nationale de Belgique VII (1883), 261–262 &
XXII (1914–1920), 380–381; S. Dirks, Histoire littéraire et bibliographique des Frères
Mineurs en Belgique (Antwerp, 1885), 84–85; E. Heynen, ‘Maastrichtse Drukken (1552–
1816)’, Publications de la Société Historique et Archéologique dans le Limbourg 83 (1947), 9;
Benjamin De Troeyer, ‘Fr. Zichenius’, Franciscana 19 (1964), 28–31; Idem, Bio-
Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 204–206 & II, no. 739–742; Heinz-
Meinolf Stamm, ‘Zichenius (François van Zichem)’, DSpir XVI (1994), 1640–41.
260 chapter four
writings on prospective death, the lamentable state of mankind and

the passion of Christ.83 The edificatory collections of Frans Vervoort
(ca. 1495–1555) from Mechelen (Malines) are no catechisms in the
strict sense either. As a matter of fact, they move in the direction
of the more ambitious texts of religious instruction that we will
encounter in Chapter VII, such as the works of Hendrik Herp and
Adriaan van Mechelen. A number of Vervoort’s edificatory pastiches
were published anonymously by his friends (educators such as Petrus
Godefridus, Jan van Brugghe and Aert Peeters), before and after the
death of the author, and had an immediate and enduring success
(which for some of them lasted well into the seventeenth and some-
times even into the eighteenth century).
Although straying from the catechistic format, they nearly all con-
tain a wealth of catechistic elements and adhere to the Observant
tradition of providing the Christian laity with accessible books of
religious instruction for all occasions. This is most certainly true for
Vervoort’s most popular booklets, namely the ‘Desert of the Lord’ (Die
Woestijne des Heeren),84 the ‘Bread of Angels’ (De Pane Angelorum),85 the
‘Medicine of Souls’ (Medecin der Sielen),86 the ‘Net of the Enemy’ (Des
Vijants Net,87 the ‘Garden of Souls’ (Hoofken der Sielen or Hortulus Animae),88
83
See for instance his Orationis Hieremiae, qua calamitatem nostrae tempestatis deplorat,
enarratio simplici dictione plebeioque sermone (Cologne, 1559), a lamentation of the pre-
sent state of mankind, framed on the Lamentations of Jeremiah and dedicated to
Johannes Gebhart, Archbishop of Cologne, and his Concio de Eleemosynae Efficacia et
Utilitate/Enarratio in Psalmum XL (Antwerp, 1556), an exposition of the first verses
of Psalm 40 (Beatus qui intelligit super egenum). This Concio was published together
with the Septem Verborum, que Christus ex Cruce Protulit, Brevis et Pia Explicatio pro Concione
Habita that is pointed out elsewhere in this volume.
84
Die Woestijne des Heeren (Antwerp, 1551/Antwerp, 1554/Antwerp, 1557/Louvain,
1575/Louvain, 1585/Louvain, 1586/Antwerp, 1599/Antwerp, 1612/Antwerp,
1613/Antwerp, 1650) It is a devotional manual with many ready-made prayers and
exercises.
85
De Pane Angelorum (Louvain, 1552/Antwerp, 1556/Antwerp, 1563).
86
Medecin der Sielen (Louvain, c. 1552/Antwerp, 1557/Antwerp, 1558/Antwerp,
1559/Antwerp, 1566/Antwerp, 1602). A guide teaching Christians how to die in a
pious fashion and showing how the terminally ill can be fortified spiritually.
87
Des Vijants Net (Antwerp, 1552/Antwerp, 1556/Antwerp, 1561/Antwerp, 1597/
Antwerp, 1609). A veritable catalogue of devilish tricks for which man has to be
on the look-out.
88
Hortulus Animae/Hoofken der Sielen (Louvain, 1553/Antwerp, 1556/Antwerp, 1559/
Antwerp, 1562/Antwerp, 1565/Antwerp, 1573/Antwerp, 1574/Louvain, 1574/Brussels,
1602). A French translation appeared in Douai, 1574. It is a collection of spiritual
exercises and devotional prayers, meant to be performed at home and in Church
before, during, and after the religious service, so to sanctify one’s daily life.
the ‘Cape of the Groom’ (Bruygoms Mantelken),89 The ‘Small Beguine

from Malines’ (Beghijnken van Mechelen),90 and particularly the ‘Manual
of Christian People’ (Thantboekxken der Christenen Menschen).91
The other German order provinces did not see such a spectacular
harvest of catechistic texts in the early decades of the sixteenth cen-
tury. Nevertheless, one friar should in any case be mentioned here,
namely Conrad Clinge (ca. 1483–1556) from the Thüringen custody,
who spent a number of years in Erfurt as a guardian and cathedral
preacher (from 1530 onwards). On top of his important scholarly
and polemical works (such as the Loci Communes Theologici pro Ecclesia
Catholica), Conrad composed three complementary catechetical works:
a Catechismus Catholicus, a Summa Doctrinae Christianae Catholicae, and a
Tractatus de Securitate Conscientiae. All of these were written to counter
the successes of the new Lutheran catechisms, not solely by clarify-
ing unavowedly Catholic positions, but also by carefully inserting
some rather reformist ideas on predestination and justification. Thus
Conrad hoped to defuse the more radical Lutheran message and
keep as many people as possible within the Catholic fold.92
89
Bruygoms Mantelken (Antwerp, 1554/Antwerp, 1563/Antwerp, 1607/Antwerp,
1646). A French translation appeared in Arras in 1596 (2x) and in 1621. It offers
meditative exercises to arrive at an interior imitation of the life and crucifixion of
Christ, so that the individual can aspire to live a life of Christian perfection.
90
Beghijnken van Mechelen (Antwerp, 1556/Antwerp, 1569/Louvain, 1604/Antwerp,
1618/Brussels, 1618/Antwerp, 1634). Teaching with many examples how debutants
in the faith can perfect the virtues, so to arrive at personal sanctity and purity of
the soul.
91
Thantboekxken der Christenen Menschen (Brussels, after 1558). Probably Vervoort’s
most genuine catechetical manual of Christian doctrine. On all these and a num-
ber of other published and unpublished meditative writings and prayer books by
Vervoort, see OGE 2 (1928), 361–392; OGE 35 (1961), 182–214; OGE 36 (1962),
129–164, 353–371; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Neerlandica Saec. XVI I, 238–30 &
II, 371–396; Idem, ‘Vervoort (François)’, DSpir XVI (1994), 506–509.
92
The Cathechismus Catholicus and the Summa Doctrinae Christianae Catholicae were
printed together: Catechismus Catholicus, summam christianae institutionis IIII libris succinc-
tum complectens. Item authoris ejusdem aliud insigne volumen inscriptum Summa Theologica, hoc
est Epitome seu Compendium doctrinae christianae catholicae (Cologne: Haer. Arnold.
Byremanni, 1562 & 1570). The Tractatus de Securitate Conscientiae was published sep-
arately: De Securitate Conscientiae Catholicorum (Cologne, 1563). See: J. Beumer, ‘Ein
Beispiel katholischer Zusammenarbeit während der Reformationszeit’, FrSt 49 (1967),
373–383; H. Bücker, ‘Dr. Konrad Klinge, der Führer der Erfurter Katholiken zur
Zeit der Glaubensspaltung’ FrSt 17 (1930), 273–297; Idem, ‘Der Erfurter Domprediger
Dr. Konrad Klinge und seine Stellung zur Reformation’, FrSt 10 (1923), 177–198;
Idem, ‘Jugend und Studienzeit des Franziskaners Konrad Klinge’, FrSt 15 (1928),
252–271; Meier, Die Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt, 58; H.-Ch. Rickauer, ‘Glaube und
Heilshandeln. Zur theologischen Auseinandersetzung des Erfurter Franziskaners
262 chapter four
A very important contribution to catechistic instruction was deliv-

ered by Franciscan friars from or active in the Iberian Peninsula.
An early protagonist in these matters was the Portuguese friar André
de Prado from Évora (ca. 1380–after 1450), who after his degree
studies at Paris and Bologna opted for an eremitic Observant lifestyle
far away from the order’s centres of learning.93 During his years in
the Conventual branch, André de Prado had proved himself to be
a fertile scholastic theologian. The change to the Observants put an
end to that and stimulated André to try his hands at writing more
practical works of religious instruction. One outcome of this was the
Horologium Fidei: a lengthy catechism addressed to the Portuguese
Crown Prince Don Henrique of Portugal (the well-known promoter
of Portuguese sea exploration), which covers in a dialogue between
a ‘master’ and the pupil Don Henrique the truths of faith and all
the other catechistic elements with which an educated lay Christian
aristocrat should be well-acquainted.94
Most impressive among the Spanish catechisms are the catechistic
handbooks and manuals for living the Christian life produced by the
K. Klinge mit der reformatorischen Lehre’, in: Denkender Glaube in Geschichte und
Gegenwart. Festschrift aus Anlaß der Gründung der Univ. Erfurt, ed. W. Ernst & K. Feiereis,
Erfurter theologische Studien, 63 (Leipzig, 1992), 55–70.
93
He is known to have entered the Collegio S. Clemente as a Sententiarius
(1414–1416), and probably obtained the theology licence in or before 1422. A prod-
uct from his teaching years at the Collegio S. Clemente is the Spiraculum Francisci
Mayronis seu Liber Distinctionum (found for instance in MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale
45 & Oxford, Bodleian Canon. Script.Eccl. 389). It is a theological compendium
based on the scholastic works of François de Meyronnes, Duns Scotus, and a num-
ber of Scotist theologians from the fourteenth century. See: Sbaralea, Supplementum
I, 55; A. Lopez, ‘Los estudios en España desde el desurgimiento de la Observancia
hata la Bula de Union de Leon X’, El Eco Franciscano 39 (1922), 110; C. Piana,
‘Silloge di documenti dall’archivio di S. Francesco di Bologna’, AFH 50 (1957),
35–36; Idem, Silloge di documenti delle nuove ricerche su le Universitá di Bologna e di Parma
(Quaracchi, 1966), 353; A.D. de Sousa Costa, ‘Mestre Fr. André do Prado descon-
hecido escotista português do século XV professor nas Universidades de Bolonha e
da Cúria Romana’, Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 23 (1967), 293–337.
94
The work has been edited as Horologium Fidei. Diálogo con o Infante D. Henrique,
ed. A. Augusto Nascimento (Lisboa, 1994). For more information, see the literature
mentioned in the previous notes, as well as F. Félix Lopes, ‘A volta de Fr. André
de Prado (século XV)’, Colectânea de Estudios, 2a ser. 2 (1951), 121–132; Mário
Martins, ‘O diálogo do infante D. Henrique com Fr. André do Prado’, Estudos de
Cultura Medieval (Braga, 1969), 135ff.; F. Félix Lopes, ‘Franciscanos portugueses pre-
dentinos. Escritores, mestres e leitores’, Repertorio de Historia de las Ciencias Eclesiasticas
en España 7 (Siglos III–XVI) (Salamanca, 1979), 475–476; A.A. Nascimento, ‘O diál-
ogo de André do Prado com o Infante D. Henrique: o ‘Horologium fidei’’, Mare
Liberum. Revista de história dos mares 7 (1994), 85–104.
Recollect friar Francisco de Osuna (c. 1492–1541). As we will see

in other chapters, Francisco de Osuna was a very productive author,
celebrated for his works on the Eucharist and for his multi-volume
Abecedario,95 which itself incorporates an abundance of catechistic
materials.96 Around 1529, Francisco composed a separate one-volume
text of religious formation: El Norte de los Estados, en que da regla de
vivir. This ‘Polar Star of the Estates’, which saw its first printed edi-
tion in 1531,97 is a guide book of Christian living for the young and
95
For the Abecedario, see chapter VII. His treatise on the altar sacrament Gracioso
Convite de las gracias del santo Sacramento del altar (Sevilla: Juan Cromberger, 1530/Sevilla:
Bartolomé Pérez, 1531/Sevilla: Martín Montesdoca, 1554/Burgos: Juan de Junta,
1537/Burgos: Juan de Junta, 1543/Sevilla: Juan de Robertis, 1544/Venice: J.G.
Ciotti, 1599, which is an Italian translation by G. Zanchini) was written to instill
the urge to confess and go to communion frequently, emphasising the moment of
the mystical union with Christ through partaking in the Eucharist. Francisco also
left behind several volumes of sermons, a commentary on the annunciation, and
independent meditations, most of which saw several editions: Sanctuarium Biblicum
Pars Septentrionalis & Meridionalis (Paris: Guillaume Lebret, 1533/Toulouse, 1533/
Saragossa: Pedro Bernuz, 1546/Saragossa, 1549/Medina del Campo, 1554/Saragossa:
viuda de Juan Millán, 1558/Venice, 1573/Rome, 1590), a collection of sermons
for Sun- and feast days; Expositionis super Missus est alter liber ubi agitur de hominis refor-
matione in paradiso deleciarum deformati, ac per incarnationem Filii Dei in paradiso virginea
reparati. Alter sermonum liber super Missus est ubi per omnes missiones sacrae paginae causae
accommodatas, agitur de ipso adventu Filii Dei vario, exordiens a festo beati Andreae, per singulas
ferias, dominicas et festa usque ad Epophaniam inclusive/Sermonarium pars Orientalis (Antwerp
1535/1536), a collection of sermons for the Advent period; Sermonarium pars Occidentalis
(Antwerp: Simón Cocus, 1536/Saragossa, 1546/Paris, 1546/Saragossa, 1548/Saragossa,
1549/Paris, 1550/Medina del campo, 1554/Lyon, 1560/Venice, 1572/Venice, 1583),
another collection of Lenten sermons; Trilogium Evangelicum (Antwerp: Simón Cocus,
1536/Paris, 1537), a collection of sermons on the passion for the Easter season; Ley
de amor santo (Antwerp1530/1536), a mystical work that found a modern edition in:
Misticos Franciscanos Españoles Tomo I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (Madrid, 1948),
217–700. For more information, see for instance Julio Aramendia, ‘Las oraciones
afectivas y los grandes maestros espirituales de nuestro siglo de oro’, El Monte Carmelo
39 (1935), 245–253, 291–292, 345–352; Fidel de Ros, Un maître de Sainte Thérèse. Le
père François de Osuna. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa doctrine spirituelle (Paris, 1936); Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 548–552 (with a lot of bibliographical
information, as well as additional information on editions); Melquiades Andrés
Martín, ‘Osuna’, DSpir XI, 1037–1051; Pedro Jódar Martínez, Jesucristo y la vida
espiritual en los escritos de Francisco de Osuna, Diss. (Pamplona, 1998).
96
The third Abecedarium already contains lengthy explanations of the Pater Noster
(with recourse to the Pater Noster writings of Francesco d’Assisi). Likewise, explana-
tions of the Pater Noster can be found in the Gracioso Convite and in the fifth Abecedarium.
These texts also give explanations of the Christian virtues and the works of charity.
It shows that catechistic instruction is an integral part of Osuna’s ascetical-mystical
programme.
97
El Norte de los Estados, en que da regla de vivir (Sevilla, 1531/Burgos, 1541/Burgos,
1550/Burgos, 1610). According to Melquiades Andrés Martín, ‘Osuna’, DSpir XI,
264 chapter four
the engaged, for married couples, widows, widowers and abstinents.

More than just a catechism, it moves into the direction of the more
encompassing guides that will be dealt with in Chapter VII. Neverthe-
less, Osuna’s El Norte de los Estados maintains the catechistic dialogue
format, depicting the voices of the author and of his fictive nephew
Villa Señor, who asks his ‘uncle’ for advice on the important ques-
tions of life. The catechistic elements properly speaking can be found
in the chapter on children and their upbringing (El estado del niño),
explaining to fathers how to raise their children (sons, that is) in a
Christian fashion, by teaching them the creed and the twelve arti-
cles of faith, the seven sacraments, the three theological virtues, the
decalogue, the commandments of the Church, the works of charity,
the struggle against the mortal sins, the temptations of the five senses
and the three enemies (namely the Devil, the world, and the flesh)
against which the cross offers the proper shield, and closing with the
urgent recommendation to pray at all times the Pater Noster (in the
Spanish vernacular), as this is the most efficacious medicine against
all temptations.98
Two texts from a later generation of Spanish Franciscan friars
should be mentioned here as well, namely the Expositio in Orationem
Dominicam by the preacher and spiritual writer Francisco Ortiz Yáñez
(1497–1547), and the Doctrina Christiana by the preacher Antonio de
Valenzuela. Like the Pater Noster meditation by Frans van Zichem
and the Pater Noster paraphrases found in Osuna’s Abecedario, Ortiz’
Expositio in Orationem Dominicam was heavily inspired by the Pater Noster
meditation ascribed to Francesco d’Assisi, and thus was more a med-
itative exercise than a catechistic instruction properly speaking.99 The
Doctrina Christiana para los niños y para los humildes by Antonio de
1040, this work would have had an influence on Chapter 45 of the second part of
Cervantes’ Don Quichotte.
98
A German translation and commentary of this catechetical chapter is provided
in H.J. Prien, ‘Ein spanischer Katechismus aus dem Jahre 1529 von Franziskus de
Osuna’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 83 (1972), 365–390 (367ff.).
99
Expositio in Orationem Dominicam a Sancto Francisco Notis Illustratam/Paternoster Decorado
(Alcalá, 1551/Saragossa, 1552). For more information on Francisco Ortiz Yáñez,
see my chapter on preaching and the paragraph on passion devotion in Chapter
VII. See also Angela Selke, El Santo Oficio de la Inquisicíon. El Proceso de Fr. Francisco
Ortiz (1529–1532) (Madrid, 1968); Antonio Márquez, ‘Consciencia personal o con-
sciencia social? Un franciscano frente al Santo Oficio’, Hispania Sacra 22 (1969),
447–458; Mariano Acebal Luján, ‘Ortiz Yánez’, DSpir XI, 1004–1008; Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 547–548.
Valenzuela, which was published for the first time in 1556, on the
contrary, is a far more practical text of religious instruction. It facil-
itates parents and ordinary parish priests alike with materials to
instruct children and ‘simple people’ in the articles of faith, the com-
mandments and the works of charity expected from every Christian.100
A major onset of independent Franciscan catechistic texts was con-
nected with the missionary efforts in the newly conquered New
World.101 For the Franciscans, this was a natural sequel to the cat-
echistic activities undertaken in prior missionary exploits and to the
reconquista and conversion policies in late medieval Spain, in which
the Franciscan order played an active part. At first, Franciscan mis-
sionaries took with them catechistic materials from home.102 Yet in
order to reach beyond the European settlers to the heterogeneous
populations of Mexico and neighbouring regions, with their many
different languages, customs and belief systems, the missionaries soon
realised that a combined programme of alphabetisation and cate-
chisation was called for. This resulted in a large production of lin-
guistic and catechistic tools by and for Franciscan missionaries and
school teachers in situ. Most important among these early tools were
those produced by Jean Couvreur ( Juan de Tecto), Petrus van Gent
(Petrus van der Muren/Pedro de Gante), Francisco Jiménez, Juan
de Zumárraga, Juan de Ribas, and Alonso de Molina.
The Flemish Observant friar Jean Couvreur ( Juan de Tecto), long-
time theology professor at Paris, lector at the Observant convent of
Rouen, and one-time guardian of the Observant convent ‘intra muros’
100
Doctrina Christiana para los niños y para los humildes (Salamanca: Andrea de
Portonariis, 1556/other editions in Alcalá de Henares, 1565 & 1575). Cf. Eugenio
Asensio, ‘El erasmismo y las corrientes espirituales afines. Conversos, franciscanos,
italianizantes’, Revista de Filología Española 36 (1952), 31–99; Melquiades Andrés
Martín, Historia de la Teología en España (1470–1570), I: Instituciones teológicas (Rome,
1962), 113; J.-R. Guerrero, ‘Catecismos de Autores Españoles de la primera mitad
del siglo XVI (1500–1559)’, Repertorio de Historia de las Ciencias Eclesiasticas en España
2 (Siglos IV–XVI) (Salamanca, 1971), 225–260 (253).
101
See on this phenomenon in general Jose Sanchez Herrero, ‘Alfabetizacion y
catequesis franciscana en America durante el siglo XVI’, in: Actas del II Congreso
Internacional sobre los Franciscanos en el Nuevo Mundo (siglo XVI), La Rábida, 21–26 de
septiembre de 1987 (Madrid, 1989), 589–648.
102
The impact of catechistic texts from the Old World did not fully subside after
the American output of such texts came up to speed. Hence, catechisms such as
the text written by Antonio de Valenzuela found a market in America as well, pro-
viding materials and examples for American adaptations and functioning as cate-
chistic texts properly speaking within the growing Spanish-speaking communities of
the New World.
266 chapter four
in Bruges, boarded ship in 1522 to accompany his fellow friars Jean

Glapion, Juan de Aora and Petrus van Gent on a missionary journey
to New Spain. He eventually died there during the 1525 expedition
of Herman Cortés to ‘Las Hibueras’ (Honduras). Within this rela-
tively short time span of three years, Jean obtained sufficient under-
standing of the dominant indigenous Nàhuatl language to produce
a concise Primeros Rudimentos de la Doctrina en Lengua Mejicana.103
Jean’s travel companion, the Observant friar Petrus van Gent (ca.
1480–1572) had a much longer missionary career in the Antilles and
elsewhere in the Caribbean. Petrus was an innovative missionary, in
the sense that he combined catechistic instruction with elementary
schooling of native children. Well-known for his quick proficiency in
the local languages of the native populations (about which he also
wrote specialised linguistic works),104 Petrus produced for this com-
bined programme of alphabetisation and catechesis a range of man-
uals and school books. The most successful of these were the Catecismo
de la doctrina cristiana con jeroglíficos, para la enseñanza de los indios de Méjico
and the Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana. Per signum crucis (Icamachiotl
cruz yhuicpain toya chua Xitech momaquixtili Totecuiyoc diose. Ica inmoto-
catzin. Tetatzin yhuan Tepilizin yhuan Spiritus Sancti).105 These became
103
From his teaching career at Paris and Rouen stems the Speculum Mortalium sive
Opus super Quattuor Novissimis (Antwerp: Hendrik Eckert van Homberch, 1518), a col-
lection of sermons and exempla that he apparently compiled with assistance from
Nicholas Denyse (guardian of the Rouen convent and vice-provincial of the Observant
Franciae Parisiensis province). Cf. H. Lippens, ‘Les Frères Mineurs à Gand du XIII
au XVI siècle’, LFF (1930), 1–69. For his activities and literary initiatives in New
Spain, see G. van Acker, ‘Presencia Franciscana Flamenca en los Códices y
Documentos en Lengua Nàhuatl del siglo XVI en México: Fray Pedro de Gante,
Fray Juan de Tecto, Fray Juan de Aora’, in: Códices y Documentos sobre México. Siglo
XVI y XVII, Estudios de Cultura Nàhuatl (Mexico, 1992); Idem, ‘Het christelijk human-
isme in Mexico (1) De drie Vlamingen’, Franciscana 48 (1993), 143–161.
104
See on these De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I,
75–83; G. Van Acker, ‘El humanisme cristiano en Mexico: los tres flamencos’, in:
Historia de la evangelización de América (Vatican City, 1992), 795–819; Idem, ‘Presencia
Franciscana Flamenca en los Códices y Documentos en Lengua Natl del siglo XVI
en México’, passim; Idem, ‘Fray Pedro de Gante: la importancia de su obra educa-
tiva en el encuentro de los Dos Mundos’, in: IV° Congresso Internacional sobre los
Franciscanos en el Nuevo Mundo (sigle XVIII), published in: AIA (Madrid, 1992); Idem,
‘Het christelijk humanisme in Mexico (1)’, 143–161. One of these, the Cartilla para
enseñar a leer, nuevamente enmendada y quitadas todas las abreviaturas que antes teniá (Mexico:
Pedro Ocharte, 1569), which was also edited as El primer libro de alfabetización en
América. Cartilla para enseñar a leer. Impresa por Pedro Ocharte en México, 1569, ed. Emilio
Valton (Mexico, 1947), has close parallels with some works of Alonso de Molina.
105
The Catecismo de la doctrina cristiana con jeroglíficos, which can for instance be
almost immediate best-sellers, not in the least due to Petrus’ creative

use of pictorial devices to support the doctrinal message, thus expand-
ing the late medieval tradition of ‘Bildkatechismus’ as found in late
medieval mendicant churches and in several Franciscan ‘Andachts-
bücher’ into new directions.
Less well-studied still are the linguistic and catechistic writings of
the Spanish friars Francisco Jiménez (d. ca. 1540) and Juan de Ribas
(d. 1562), who both travelled in 1524 from the Spanish Santiago
province to the New World. Jiménez compiled one of the first (and
as yet unedited?) dictionaries of Mexican languages, alongside of a
Breve doctrina cristiana en lengua mejicana and historiographical texts,
whereas Juan de Ribas according to the Franciscan historian Geronimo
de Mendieta composed in the Nàhuatl language not only a cate-
chism, Sunday sermons and a short Flos Sanctorum, but also full-length
mystery plays and extensive handbooks (in dialogue format) on liv-
ing a Christian life.106
The catechistic works of their Observant and Recollect colleague
Juan de Zumárraga (1468–1548) have drawn more scholarly attention,
no doubt because they can be studied in the context of Juan’s pas-
toral activities as the first archbishop of Tenoxtitlán (Mexico), between
1527 and 1548.107 In the course of his episcopate, Juan produced a
found in MS Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Códice 1257B (Cf. Castro,

Manoscritos franciscanos de la Biblioteca nacional de Madrid, 754), has also survived in a
plethora of old and new editions. See: Catecismo de la doctrina cristiana con jeroglíficos,
para la enseñanza de los indios de Méjico, Facs. edicion con introducción de Federico
Navarro (Madrid, 1970); J.B. Durán, Monumenta Catechetica Hispanoamericana (Siglos
XVI–XVIII), I (Buenos Aires, 1984), 114–116; Justino Cortés Castellanos, El cate-
cismo en pictogramas de Fr. Pedro de Gante (Madrid, 1987). The same is true for his
important Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana. Per signum crucis. Icamachiotl cruz yhuic-
pain toya chua Xitech momaquixtili Totecuiyoc diose. Ica inmotocatzin. Tetatzin yhuan Tepilizin
yhuan Spiritus Sancti. Amen Jesús (Antwerp & Mexico: Johannes Cromberger, 1539 &
1547/Mexico: Juan Pablos, 1553 & 1555). A facsimile edition with commentary
appeared as: Pedro de Gante, Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana. Per signum crucis,
ed. Ernesto de la Torre Villar (Mexico, 1981). For more information, see J. Cortes
Castellanos, El Catecismo en Pictogramas de Fr. Pedro de Gante (Madrid, 1987).
106
On Francisco and Juan see Geronimo de Mendieta, Historia Eclesiastica Indiana
(Mexico, 1945) II, 118, 164, 165; Lib. IV, cap. 44; Lib. V. part I cap. 24 & 25,
as well as Manuel Castro y Castro, ‘Lenguas indigenas americanas transmitidas por
los franciscanos del siglo xvi’, in: Actas del II Congreso Internacional sobre Los Franciscanos
en el Nuevo Mundo (siglo XVI), La Rábida, 21–26 de septiembre de 1987 (Madrid, 1988),
496–497; B.H. Slicher van Bath, De bezinning op het verleden in Latijns Amerika 1493–1820.
Auteurs, verhalen en lezers (Groningen, 1998), passim.
107
Juan de Zumárraga from Tavira de Durango (Bilbao) had entered the Observ-
ants in Valladolid, and initially made career at the provincial level (as provincial
268 chapter four
series of Doctrinae Christianae, both more elaborate texts for secular

and regular priests active in the field, and more concise versions for
the direct instruction of lay people in catechistic encounters and
school settings. In line with current Erasmian ideals of Christian edu-
cation, these Doctrinae by Juan de Zumárraga express the wish that
lay men and women should be allowed to read the Gospel in the
vernacular, and that the indigenous populations of New Spain should
be treated with respect, so that they could be evangelised into true
Christians on a par with the Spanish settlers.108 Juan also compiled
a more ambitious Regla cristiana breve para ordenar la vida y tiempo del
cristiano, which is not a catechism in the strict sense of the word, but
and definitor of the new La Concepción province, as guardian of the convents of

Avila and El Abrojo, and as inquisitor in Navarra and Biscaye). After his appoint-
ment to the newly created episcopal see of Tenoxtitlán, Juan embarked on an active
pastoral and inquisitorial career in America. For more biographical information, see
García Icazbalceta, Don Fray Juan de Zumárraga: Primer Obispo y Arzobispo de México,
4 Vols. (Mexico City, 1947); Fidel de J. Chauvet, Fray Juan de Zumárraga (Mexico,
1948); Alberto Ma Carreño, ‘The Books of don Fr. Juan de Zumárraga’, The Americas
5 (1948–49), 311–330; Idem, ‘Los libros de don Fr. Juan de Zumárraga’, Abside
(Mexico) 12 (1948), 427–450; Fidel de Lejarza, ‘Acotaciones críticas en torno a la
filiación religiosa de Zumárraga’, AIA 9 (1949), 5–71; A.M. Carreño, Don Fray Juan
de Zumárraga, téologo y editor, humanista e inquisidor (Mexico, 1950); Richard E. Greenleaf,
Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition, 1536–1543 (Washington, 1961); Pedro Borges,
‘Juan de Zumárraga, OFM’, Diccionario de historia eclesiástica de España (Madrid,
1972–1975) IV, 2814.
108
It is difficult to sort out the various editions and reworkings of these texts.
Based on the information derived from the available studies, I am inclined to list
them as follows: Libro de la Doctrina Cristiana, con una exposición della, que la declara muy
altamente, instituida nuevamente en Roma con autoridad apostólica, para instrucción de los niños
y mozos, juntamente con otro tratado de Doctrina Moral exterior que enseña la buena crianza
que deben tener los mozos o como se han de haber en las costumbres de sus personas y en que
manera se deben haber cerca del estado o camino que tomaren de vivir (Sevilla, 1532); Breve y
mas compendiosa Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana y Castellana, que contiene las cosas
mas necesarias de nuestra sancta fe cathólica, para aprovechamiento destos indios naturales y sal-
vación de sus animas (Mexico, 1539); Doctrina breve muy provechosa de las cosas que pertenecen
a la fe catholica y a nuestra cristianidad en estilo llano para común inteligencia (Mexico, 1543);
Doctrina breve muy provechosa de las cosas que pertenecen a la fe católica, Facsimile edition
(New York, 1928); Doctrina cristiana breve para enseñanza de los niños (Mexico: Juan
Cromberger, 1545); Doctrina cristiana: en que en suma se contiene todo lo principal y nece-
sario que el cristiano deve saber y obrar. Y es verdadero cathecismo para los adultos que se han
de baptizar: y para los nuevos baptizados necesario y saludable documento: y lo que mas con-
viene predicar y dar a entender a los indios: sin otras cosas que no tienen necesidad de saber
(Mexico, 1546). In addition to the studies on Zumárraga mentioned above, see also
William B. Jones, ‘Evangelical Catholicism in Early Colonial Mexico: An Analysis
of Bishop Juan de Zumarraga’s Doctrina Cristiana’, The Americas 23 (April, 1967),
423–432; E.F. Gil Zorrilla, Primeras ‘doctrinas’ del Nuevo Mundo. Estudio de las obras de
Fray Juan de Zumárraga (Rome, 1989); Sanchez Herrero, ‘Alfabetizacion y catequesis
franciscana en America’, passim.
a larger work of religious instruction with Erasmian humanist over-

tones, meant as a doctrinal and spiritual guide for priests, friars, and
educated lay people.109
Probably the most successful catechetical author among the early
Franciscan missionaries in New Spain was the Observant friar Alonso
de Molina (ca. 1510–1579). He travelled with his family to Mexico at
the age of nine, and soon became a near fluent speaker of the Aztek
Náthuatl language. From 1524 onwards, he accompanied Franciscan
missionaries and teachers, at first as a lay translator and language
teacher, later as a Franciscan friar. In the course of his long career he
was able to publish a set of catechisms, confessionals and linguistic
works that in some areas were used for centuries, notably his Doctrina
cristiana breve traducida en lengua mexicana, the Doctrina cristiana en lengua
mejicana muy necesaria, the Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y castellana,
and the Confessionario mayor, en lengua mexicana y castellana.110
D. Capuchin catechisms
During the period that Observant Franciscan missionaries embarked

on this large production of catechisms and school books for the newly
109
Regla cristiana breve para ordenar la vida y tiempo del cristiano que se quiere salvar y
tener su alma dispuesta (Mexico, 1547); Regla cristiana breve para ordenar la vida y tiempo
del cristiano que se quiere salvar y tener su alma dispuesta, ed. José Almoina (Mexico, 1951);
Regla Cristiana Breve, ed. I. Adeva (Pamplona, 1994). For a detailed description, see
Mira Mira, Estudio histórico-genético de la ‘Doctrina breve’, 1543–1544, de Juan de Zumárraga
(Pamplona, 1989) and M. Acebal Luján, ‘Jean de Zumárraga’, DSpir XVI (1994),
1661–1665 (1664–1665).
110
See: Doctrina cristiana breve traducida en lengua mexicana (. . .) por mandado del Rmo.
S.D. Fr. Juan de Zumárraga, obispo de la dicha ciudad, el cual la hizo imprimir en el año de
1546, a 20 de junio (Méjico, 1546/Méjico: Vidua de Bernardo Caldéron, 1675/Méjico:
Francisco de Rivera, 1718/Méjico: Vidua de Francisco de Rivera Caldéron, 1732/
Méjico: Vidua de Francisco de Rivera Caldéron, 1735/ Méjico: Vidua de Francisco
de Rivera Caldéron, 1744/Méjico, 1889). The work has also has been edited in
more recent times: Doctrina cristiana breve traducida en lengua mexicana, ed. J. García
Icazbalceta, in: Códice franciscano (Méjico, 1941), 30–53, 275–282; Doctrina cristiana en
lengua mejicana muy necesaria en la cual se contienen todos los principales misterios de nuestra
santa fe católica (Méjico: Pedro Ocharte, 1578/Sevilla: Francisco Pérez, 1584/Méjico,
1606). Modern edition: Doctrina cristiana en lengua mejicana, ed. J.G. Durán, Monumenta
catechetica hispano-americana, siglos XVI–XVIII Vol. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1984),
387–427; Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y castellana (Mexico: Antonio Espinosa,
1565); Confessionario mayor, en lengua mexicana y castellana (Mexico: Antonio Espinosa,
1566). Cf. Castro, ‘Lengueas Indigenas Americanas transmitidas por los Franciscanos
del siglo XVI’, 498–501.
270 chapter four
converted and not yet converted peoples in New Spain, a develop-

ment that would not slacken pace in the second half of the sixteenth
century,111 the early Capuchins began to make their mark in the
field of catechesis in Italy.
It has been said that early Capuchin preaching, like its Observant
counterpart a century earlier, stood out for its catechistic emphasis.
A herald figure in this respect was Matteo da Bascio, one of the
first itinerant Capuchin preachers. According to later Capuchin chron-
iclers he did not satisfy himself with preaching from the pulpit. Before
and after his sermons he engaged in edificatory conversations with
people in their homes. Moreover, during his apostolate in Forlí and
Venice, he showed a special interest in the catechistic instruction of
children, instilling in them a strong fear of hell and damnation, teach-
ing them to sing laudatory verses to God, and instructing them in
the basic catechistic elements (the Pater Noster, the angelic greeting,
the symbolon and the decalogue).112 Matteo’s example was followed
by other early Capuchin preachers, such as Bernardino da Montolmo.
From there, it was but a small step for these early Capuchins to
establish by the late 1530s a series of Scuole della dottrina cristiana, fre-
quently in collaboration with secular priests and other monastics
involved in comparable initiatives.113 These first made their appear-
111
That period falls outside the scope of this book. Nevertheless, I would like to
point to the Itinerarium Catholicum Profiscentium ad Infideles Convertendos by Jean Focher
(ca. 1532–1572), which was edited and completed by his fellow friar Juan Valadez
and published as the Itinerarium Catholicum Profiscentium ad Infideles Convertendos (Sevilla,
1574). It saw a modern edition and translation as the Itinerario del Misionero en América,
ed. & tr. Antonio Eguiluz, Col. de libros y documentos referentes a la historia de
America, 22 (Madrid, 1960). It can be seen as the first true missiological treatise.
On these and other missiological and catechistic works by Focher and Valadez, see
L. Campos, De Johanne Focher, O.F.M., Mexici Missionario et Missionologo saec. XVI
(Rome, 1935); Esteban J. Palomera, Fray Diego Valadez, OFM. Evangelizador humanista
de la nueva España, su obra (Mexico City, 1962); Pedro Carrasco, ‘Parentesco y reg-
ulacion del matrimonio entre los indios del antiguo Michoacan, Mexico’, Revista
Espanola de Antropologia Americana, Trabajos y Conferencias 4 (1969), 219–222; A.
Eguiluz, ‘La Declaratio Litterarum Apostolicarum de Fr. Juan Focher, OFM’,
Missionalia Hispaniaca 20:59 (1963), 177–209; Idem, ‘El “enchiridon” y el “tractatus
de baptismo et matrimonio” de Fr. Juan Focher, OFM’, Missionalia Hispanica 19:57
(1962), 331–370; AIA 2nd Ser. 48 (1988), 328–331, 409–416, 512–513, 558, 612–
613, 845.
112
Cf. the remarks of the Capuchin chronicler Paolo da Foligno, Origo et Progressus
Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum, MHOC VII (Rome, 1955), 74, 87ff., 117, 125.
113
It might well be that comparable initiatives had evolved up to fifty years ear-
lier in Castile. There, several ‘catequesis-escuela’ apparently already existed in the
last quarter of the fifteenth century. In these ‘escuela’ children were taught the rudi-
ance in the major urban centres of Northern Italy, initially in orphan-

ages, and subsequently were introduced into the regular, city-spon-
sored, urban school network. One of the first Capuchin friars engaged
in the establishment of these catechistic Scuole della dottrina cristiana
was Giuseppe Piantanida da Fermo (who has earned additional
renown for his promotion of so-called Quarantore prayer marathons
among Italian confraternities, for which I can refer the reader to
Chapter VIII). It became customary in these Scuole della dottrina cris-
tiana to provide oral catechistic teaching under the guidance of a
master or a repetitor, who taught the children the articles of faith
and other catechistic pieces, as well as basic religious poems and
songs containing core-elements of religious instruction. All of this
went hand in hand with a basic training in letters, in accordance
with already established catechistic and pedagogical traditions.114
Soon, the first Capuchin catechisms began to appear. For the
period before the Council of Trent, we can point to the so-called
Piccolo catechismo by Giovanni da Fano, the Tabula per la religione cris-
tiana by Girolamo da Molfetta, the catechism ascribed to Antonio
da Pinerolo, the I divini precetti by Giacomo Paniscotti da Molfetta
(d. 1561) and the anonymous Breve modo di confessarsi.
Giovanni Pili da Fano (1469–1539), the former Observant critic
of the Capuchins turned Capuchin by 1534, distilled from his quares-
imal teachings a Piccolo catechismo, a work that he eventually included
in the 1536 edition of his Ars Unionis.115 Giovanni’s rather rudimentary
catechetical text contains a basic set of teachings on the command-
ments, the precepts of the Church, the creed, the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, the sins against the Holy Spirit, the sins of the corporal senses,
the practice of penitence through the works of mercy, the seven
sacraments and the evangelical beatitudes. All these teachings were
complemented with a list of basic prayers that each Christian had
ments of grammar and Christian doctrine side by side. Cf. Sanchez Herrero,
‘Alfabetizacion y catequesis franciscana en America durante el siglo XVI’, 597. Such
existing institutions might have inspired the Spanish and Flemish missionaries in
New Spain to develop their own mission schools for the American natives.
114
M. Turrini, ‘Riformare il mondo a vera vita christiana: le scuole di cate-
chismo nell’Italia del Cinquecento’, Annali dell’Istituto Storico Italo-germanico in Trento 8
(1982), 407–489.
115
Ars Unionis: Operetta devotissima chiamata Arte de la Unione, la quale insegna unire lan-
ima con Dio, utilissima non solo a li regulari, ma ancora a li seculari spirituali et devoti (Brescia:
Damiano & Jacomo Philippo fratelli, 1536), ff. 96r–98v. A modern edition can be
found in I fratri cappuccini III/2, 3222–3225.
272 chapter four
to master, so that they could become ‘good Christians’ (‘per essere

bon cristiano’).
The spiritual author and editor Girolamo da Molfetta (fl. early
16th cent.), who was one of the driving forces behind the propaga-
tion of the devotion towards the Corona del Nome di Gesú among the
Italian population,116 likewise included a small catechism in the pub-
lished versions of his larger spiritual works. This catechism, known
as the Tavola Cristiana/Tabula per la religione cristiana, di tutte quelle cose
che ciascuno è tenuto di sapere, apparently was used in the diocese of
Verona, together with comparable texts ascribed to Tullio Crispoldi
da Rieti. Girolamo’s Tavola again surfaces as a formative text among
Capuchin preachers involved in the North-Italian Scuole della dottrina
cristiana.117
A rather successful catechism, once ascribed to Bernardino Ochino,
was Antonio Pavia da Pinerolo’s Dialogo del maestro e del discepolo. The
first version of this dialogue reached the printing press by 1538.118
It places the responsibility of catechistic instruction of children squarely
in the hands of the parents (the father!) and of comparable author-
ity figures (such as the rettori di scuola). These educators should teach
and interrogate the children at least two times each week. This points
towards the catechistic grid gradually put in place in large parts of
116
This was a main subject of his Alcune regule de la oratione mentale con la contem-
platione de la Corona del nome di Iesu, predicate da Fra Hieronymo da Melfetta (Milan:
Francesco Cantalupo, 1539). For a partial edition, see also I fratri cappuccini III,
429–445.
117
Tavola Cristiana/Tabula per la religione cristiana, di tutte quelle cose che ciascuno è tenuto
di apere can be found as an appendix to Alcune regule de la oratione mentale con la con-
templatione de la Corona del nome di Iesu, predicate da Fra Hieronymo da Melfetta (Milan:
Francesco Cantalupo, 1539), and also at the end of Molfetta’s edition of Bartolomeo
Cordoni’s Dyalogo de la unione spirituale de Dio con l’anima (Milan: Francesco Cantalupo
& Innocentio da Cigognera, 1539). The work was also edited in a collection of
works compiled by the (non-Franciscan) catechistic author Tullio Crispoldi da Rieti,
namely the Simplici erudimenti over ammaestramenti della fede nostra christiana, raccolti per
Tullio Crispoldo da Rieti (Venice: Stefano da Sabbio, April 1540).
118
There exist three different printed versions of the Dialogo. It first appeared as
the Instruttione del vivere christiano secondo le Sagre Scritture e i Santi Padri (Genoa, 1538/1539).
Subsequently, it was reworked into the Dialogo del Maestro e Discepolo. Molto utile alli
Padri di fameglia et alli Maestri di scuola. De uno devoto servo di Christo del Ordine de’ frati
Cappucini (Asti, 1540), and into the Dyalogo del Maestro e del Discepolo, del devoto servo
di Christo Frate Antonio da Pinarolo, dell’Ordine de’Frati Minori detti Cappuccini (Florence,
1543). On the ascription to Bernardino Ochino, see Ugo Rozzo, ‘Antonio da Pinerolo
e Bernardino Ochino’, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 19 (1982), 341–364. See
also Felice da Mareto, ‘Il ‘Dialogo del maestro e del discepolo’ di Antonio da
Pinerolo, cappuccino predicatore del primo Cinquecento’, IF 50 (1975), 54–68.
Europe after the Council of Trent. Throughout this catechism a

master voice asks the appropriate questions, enticing a humble dis-
ciple to give the doctrinally safe or correct answer. After the first
question (‘Che persona è il cristiano?’), the master asks for instance
what a Christian has to do and to evade according to the ten com-
mandments, and what is required of him in relation to the love of
God and the obligations of Christian charity. It is made absolutely
clear that perseverance in the Christian life is totally dependent upon
continual prayer (enabling the master to ask after the Pater Noster as
the cornerstone of the Christian life of prayer), proper penitence,
confession, and communion through the Eucharist, described as the
most direct route towards Christian perfection and spiritual union
with the Divine.
Another set of early Capuchin works of religious instruction in
dialogue format, a well-favoured ‘genre’ among the early Capuchins,
is formed by the catechisms written by Giacomo Paniscotti da Molfetta
(Giacomo Biancolini, 1489–1561): the Opus de S. Fidei Articulis Dialogo
and the I Divini Precetti dall’Angelo a Moisè Divinamente Dati e per il Verbo
Incarnato Giesú Figliuolo di Dio apertissimamente dichiarati, e dalla Chiesa
santa catholica approvati e confirmati.119 During his lengthy preaching tours
through the Italian peninsula, Giacomo Paniscotti came up for social
justice and called out for doctrinal purity. As a sermonist he was as
uncompromising and aggressive as some of his fifteenth-century
Observant predecessors. He came down heavily on ‘Jewish’ money
lending practices and on the ‘erroneous’ religion of the Italian Jews,
whom he hoped to convert to Christianity. Giacomo’s catechistic
works would seem to be part of this programme of conversion. Hence,
his Opus de S. Fidei Articulis Dialogo, a normative dialogue between an
119
Giacomo Biancolini-Pancotto, Opus de S. Fidei Articulis Dialogo (Venice: Aedibus
Aurelii Pincii, 1535); Giacomo da Molfetta, I Divini Precetti dall’Angelo a Moisè Divinamente
Dati e per il Verbo Incarnato Giesú Figliuolo di Dio apertissimamente dichiarati, e dalla Chiesa
santa catholica approvati e confirmati, per il V.P. Frate Giacopo di Melfitto dell’ordine di Cappuccini
di san Francesco (Venice, 1543/1548/1562/1570/1575). The parts connected with
the first and the fifth Commandments are printed in I Frati Cappuccini III/2, 3301–
3333. On Giacomo, see: P. Filioli, Notizie sulla vita e sulle opere del P. Giacomo da
Malfetta (Naples, 1836); A. de Valencia, Bibliotheca Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum
Provinciae Neapolitanae (Rome-Naples, 1886), 14, 113–115; Salvatore da Valenzano, I
cappuccini nelle Puglie (Bari, 1926), 38–62, 280, 330, 403; P. Cioca, ‘Il ven. P. Giacomo
Paniscotti’, IF 2 (1927), 262–285; F. Samarelli, Padre Giacomo Paniscotti ed i conventi
dei Minori cappuccini in Molfetta (Bari, 1942); Lex.Cap. (Rome, 1951), 786–787; Arsenio
d’Ascoli, La predicazione dei cappuccini nel Cinquecento in Italia (Loretta, 1956), 328–337,
389–399; Felice da Mareto, ‘Jacques de Molfetta’, DSpir VIII, 49–50.
274 chapter four
apostle and a philosopher on the principal truths of religion and the

errors of mankind, aims to convince the Jews to accept the truth of
the Christian mysteries. The I Divini Precetti dall’Angelo a Moisè Divinamente
Dati, which is but a thorough reworking of the previous work, explains
in its turn that the evangelical law, the law of Moses and the law
of nature coincide. Hence the observance of natural law and the
law of Moses consists in following the evangelical precepts, which
therefore is a debitum for everybody ( Jews included). However, the
world is full of sins, showing that many people do not adhere to
these precepts in the way they should. To mend this, the author
presents in the I Divini Precetti in catechistic fashion the precepts—
40 in all—taught by the Old and the New Law as approved and
confirmed by the Catholic Church.120
Contrary to what its title suggests, the short anonymous Breve modo
di confessarsi, the last work I would like to draw attention to in this
section, is more than just a confession manual. It was published
together with a comparable text (by the regular canon Serafino da
Fermo), as an appendix to a longer catechistic work by Castellino
da Castello that was in use by the North-Italian Scuole della dottrina
cristiana, namely the Interrogatorio del Maestro al discipulo per istruir i fan-
ciulli, e quelli che non sanno, nella via di Dio. Novamente ridutto alla rifformatione
christiana (Venice, 1552). The works by our anonymous Capuchin
friar and by the regular canon Serafino da Fermo are attached to
this latter work as the Doi brevi modi di confessarsi, uno del reverendo Padre
Don Serafino da Fermo, Canonico Regolare, l’altro d’uno Predicatore Evangelico
dell’Ordine dei Capuzzini.121 The Capuchin Breve modo di confessarsi deals
with all aspects of the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist:
moving from contrition to confession and satisfaction through penance
(by means of prayer, charity and fasting). In that sense, it is a con-
fession manual rather than a catechism. However, contrition starts
120
‘Gli prelati, padri spirituali, padri e madre carnali, maestri, compari e comari
sono obligati insegnare alli suoi figliuoli gli precetti della legge, gli articoli della fede
e segnarsi del segno della croce e il Padre nostro.’ Cited from I Frati Cappuccini
III/2, 3206. Another, related work of Giacomo is the Opus in Expositione Psalmi
‘Domine quis habitat’ (Venice: Aedibus Aurelii Pincii, 1535). This ‘catechism’ deliber-
ately builds on the Old Law alone and seems to be directed to an audience of
Jews. It makes a point of deriving in a fictive dialogue between David and Salomon
from Old Testament ‘evidence’ the Catholic doctrines regarding the immaculate
conception, (original) sin, the Divine law, the condemnation of ‘Jewish usury’ etc.
121
This Capuchin text has also been printed in I Frati Cappuccini III/2, 3335–3346.
with a proper examination of one’s conscience. To this purpose our

author calls in the help of the appropriate catechistic teachings on
the ten commandments, the creed, the works of mercy, the capital
sins and the cardinal virtues.
E. Religious poetry as a medium for catechistic

instruction: Italy
The medieval Franciscans created a very strong tradition of shaping

the message of religious instruction and religious praise in poetic
form. Francesco d’Assisi set the tone with his song to the nightin-
gale reported by friar Leo d’Assisi,122 with his laudatory Cantico delle
creature of 1225,123 which possibly is the earliest surviving lyric in the
Umbrian vernacular throughout, his Salutatio Virtutum,124 his prayer-
ful Salutatio Beatae Mariae Virginis,125 his liturgical Laudes ad Omnes Horas
Dicendae,126 and his Canto di esortazione (Udite, poverelle),127 phrasing his
122
Francesco would have sung this reported Canto con la Filomena between ca.
1215 and 1219. Lorenzo Di Fonzo, ‘Lodi e Canto di S. Francesco al “Bon Signore”
per la fraternità e nella vita’, MF 102 (2002), 473–491 (480–482, 487, 489). Di
Fonzo mentions various older editions of this account of Francesco’s duet with the
nightingale, but gives his own transcription of the text based on MS Biblioteca
Comunale di Sarnano E.60 f. 26rv.
123
Canticum Fratris Solis vel Laudes Creaturarum, Franciscus Assisiensis, Opuscula, ed.
285 (Paris, 1981), 342–345. There is a host of old and new editions and studies,
more or less starting with A.-F. Ozanam, Les poètes franciscains en Italie au treizième
siècle (Paris, 1852), 87–91. See for instance C. Paolazzi, Il Cantico di frate Sole (Genua,
1992); G. Pozzi, ‘Il Cantico di Frate Sole di san Francesco’, in: Letteratura italiana.
Le Opere, t. I: Dalle Origini al Cinquecento (Torino, 1992), 3–26; V. Branca, Il ‘Cantico
di Frate Sole’. Studio delle fonti e testo critico (Florence, fourth edition 1994). It is a song
of praise, first composed during Francesco’s sickbed at St. Damien (April-May 1225),
with some later additions.
124
Salutatio Virtutum, Franciscus Assisiensis, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata,
1978), 301–305; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981),
270–273.
125
Franciscus Assisiensis, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 299–301;
François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 274–275.
126
Franciscus Assisiensis, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 183–187;
François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 282–285. These
liturgical laude, which end with a prayer, were meant to be sung at all liturgical
hours: ‘Incipiunt laudes quas ordinavit beatissimus pater noster Franciscus et dice-
bat ipsas ad omnes horas diei et noctis et ante officium beatae Mariae Virginis sic
incipiens: Sanctissime pater noster qui es in caelis etc. cum Gloria. Deinde dicantur laudes:
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus omnipotens . . .’
127
The Canto di esortazione di san Francesco is not included in the 1978 edition of
276 chapter four
joyful veneration of and devotion to God, His creation, and the work
of redemption, with a strong emotional attachment to the suffering
of Christ and the special role of the Virgin Mary.128
In his poetic expression, Francesco incorporated his own acquain-
tance with provençal love poetry,129 mixing it with his religious expe-
riences and the manifold examples provided by the penitential groups
(such as the Waldensian and Humiliati) that had started to exploit
penitential songs and adhortations around 1200. Moreover, to bring
home their penitential message of conversion and reform to the peo-
ple at large, Francesco and his companions soon realised the impor-
tance of adapting existing popular forms of lyrical and dramatic
expression to their own purposes, thus to become ‘God’s minstrels’
( joculatores Dei), as Francesco supposedly called his friars.130
That the term ‘God’s minstrels’ for some friars should be taken
quite literally can be illustrated with the example of friar Pacifico
da Ascoli (Guglielmo da Lisciano?), poet laureate at the court of
Emperor Frederick II before his entrance into the Franciscan order.
Soon recognised for his poetic and musical gifts, he was asked to
find some friars who could sing aloud Francesco’s recently finished
Cantico del Sole to the Umbrian populace. Pacifico later apparently
Esser. This text, which already was alluded to in the Legenda Perusina and in the
Speculum Perfectionis, probably was written after Francesco wrote his Cantico delle
Creature/Cantico del Sole. In its surviving fourteenth-century manuscript, it is written
in an Umbrian dialect. It has been edited in G. Boccali, ‘Canto di esortazione di
san Francesco per le poverelle di San Damiano’, CF 48 (1978), 5–29, and also has
been included in François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981),
346–347.
128
See in general also C. Paolazzi, ‘Francesco d’Assisi. La “lode”, il “Cantico”
e la letteratura volgare’, in: Il francescanesimo e il teatro medievale, Atti del Convegno
Nazionale di Studi, San Miniato, 1982 (Castelfiorentino, 1984), 71–120; Rodolfi Doni,
Francesco d’Assisi. Il santo dell’amore e della poesia (Milan, 2001).
129
See Ozanam, Les poètes franciscains en Italie, 62ff.
130
When, in the early decades of the thirteenth century, many Waldensian groups,
the Humiliati (temporarily) and other ‘heretical’ groups were suppressed, many of
their members attached themselves to the Franciscans, either by joining the first
order, or by getting involved in the penitential and tertiary communities that even-
tually evolved into the third order. Many such postulants would have brought with
them their own traditions of lyrical penitential exhortation. Jeffrey, The Early English
Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 1975), 25f.; J.V. Fleming, ‘The friars and medieval
English literature’, in: The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. D. Wallace
(Cambridge, CUP, 1999), 349–375 (351).
accompanied Francesco on the zither when the latter performed the

song in Rieti before and after penitential exhortations. After Francesco’s
death, Pacifico left for France. There, during his apostolate and his
charges as a provincial minister, he may have been the instigator of
a set of religious lyrics in the northern French vernacular.131
Within Francesco’s immediate circle also originated the Franciscan
Cantico dell’amore, a long meditative poem that once was ascribed to
Francesco himself. It ponders how nature expresses on the one hand
the creative power and love of God, and on the other hand strik-
ingly illustrates its own nothingness in comparison with the absolute
being of Christ and the absolute quality of divine love.132
Building on this powerful experience, a large corpus of Franciscan
religious poetry came into being, especially in Italy and the British
Isles. The bulk of this poetry is very didactic in nature, aiming for
religious instruction of fellow friars and the laity at large, either
through teaching them basic religious truths and the importance of
penitence by denouncing transgressions of the commandments and
the Christian virtues, or through evocative praise of Christ, the
Virgin133 and God’s creation, so to provoke the audience into a strong
emotional response of empathy, compassion, and submission.134
131
Cf. Speculum Perfectionis, ed. Paul Sabatier (Paris, 1898), 197–198 (cf. the trans-
lation in St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies: English Omnibus, ed.
Marion A. Habig, 4th Revised Edition (Chicago, 1983), 1236; Ozanam, Les poètes
franciscains en Italie, 115–117; Umberto Cosmo, ‘Frate Pacifico: Rex Versuum’, Giornate
storico della letteratura italiana 38 (Turin, 1909); Liuzzi, I musicisti italiani in Francia
(Rome, 1946), 37ff.; Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 122, 157
(note 24); Ozanam, Les poètes franciscains, 85; J.B. Auberger, ‘Le bienheureux frère
Pacifique, Rex versuum et compagnon de Saint François’, AFH 92,1–2 (1999).
132
This poem has been edited in Le Monnier, Nuova istoria (Assisi, 1895), 433–434.
Cf. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 152.
133
On the mariology developed in Franciscan lyrical poetry, see especially Kathryn
J. Ready, ‘The Marian Lyrics of Jacopone da Todi and Friar William Herebert:
the life and the letter’, FS 55 (1998), 221–238, who states (p. 221): ‘It is not until
the thirteenth century, largely under the influence of Franciscan spirituality, that the
Middle Ages first saw the development of a rich tradition of Marian poetry. Indirectly,
this tradition marks the culmination of centuries of patristic writing on Mary, begin-
ning with the early Christian controversy over the exact nature of the Virgin birth.’
134
Benito d’Angelo, ‘English Franciscan Poetry Before Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–
1400)’, FS 43 (1983), 218–260 (224–225).
278 chapter four
Still well known today are the Latin hymns Stabat Mater,135 the
Laudismus de Sancta Cruce,136 the De Contemptu Mundi137 and the Dies
Irae,138 the attribution of which to acknowledged Franciscan poets
and authors such as Tommaso da Celano, Jacopone da Todi and
Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio continues to be disputed. Yet these and
other popular Latin hymns—early and very successful examples of
Franciscan Latin sequentia and para-liturgical songs139—are just a very
small tip of a ‘mostly vernacular iceberg’ of lyrical poetry.140 Many
specimen of such lyrical poetry can still be found in Franciscan
homiletic handbooks, such as MS Assisi, Biblioteca Communale 656,
which next to extracts from the Fathers, sermons, meditations, and
other miscellaneous materials contains prayers and religious lyrics in
Latin and the Italian vernacular.141 Several Franciscan chronicles also
135
The Stabat Mater Dolorosa, which by some is ascribed to Jacopone da Todi,
saw its first modern editions in AHMA, ed. Guido Maria Dreves, 55 Vols. (Leipzig,
1886–1922), LIV, 312–318 and (a slightly different version) in Guido Maria Dreves,
Ein Jahrtausend lateinischer Hymnendichtung, 2 Vols. (Leipzig, 1909) II, 390–392. See
also F.J.E. Raby, A History of Christian-Latin Poetry from the Beginnings to the Close of the
Middle Ages, Second Edition (Oxford, 1953), 440 (with an analysis on pp. 436–440).
The Stabat Mater had an immense popularity during the closing centuries of the
Middle Ages and thereafter. It also appeared in vernacular versions. For an overview
of the manuscript versions surviving in French (replete with an edition), see Richard
O’Gorman, ‘The Stabat Mater in Middle French Verse: An Edition of Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 24865’, FS 52 (1992), 191–201. A short recent discus-
sion of the authorship question can be found in V. Louise Katainen, ‘Who Wrote
the Stabat Mater?’, The Cord 51,2 (2001), 83–90. Ozanam, Les poètes franciscains en
Italie, 212–215 also listed and edited as one of Jacopone da Todi’s works a Stabat
Mater Speciosa, as it were a joyful Christmas pendant to the Stabat Mater Dolorosa sit-
uated at Calvary.
136
Edited in AHMA, ed. Guido Maria Dreves, 55 Vols. (Leipzig, 1886–1922) I,
571; Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 667–669. A first analysis is
given in Raby, A History of Christian-Latin Poetry, 422–424
137
For a description of this hymn see Ibidem, 434ff.
138
Ibidem, 443–451 (with a presentation of the text on p. 448).
139
Other such texts have come down to us in Latin Franciscan Latin rhyme
offices, such as those found among the works of Julian von Speyer, Bonaventura
da Bagnoreggio, and John Pecham.
140
Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 30; Angelo, ‘English
Franciscan Poetry Before Geoffrey Chaucer’, 1983.
141
Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 150: ‘There are numer-
ous other such Italian Franciscan codices (. . .) Most of them contain sermon notes,
exempla, poems on the Seven Deadly Sins, moral verses, versified Ten Commandments
and other mendicant preachers’ tools.’ Cf. Arnaldo Fortini, La Lauda in Assisi e le
origini del teatro italiano (Assisi, 1961), 165ff.; Paolo Guerrini, ‘Due codici Francescani
bresciani’, AFH 30 (1937), 229–234. See in this context also MS London, British
Library Addit. 22557, described and partially edited by J. Ulrich in Romania 13
(1884), 29–59.
contain a surprising number of lyrics meant to function within

homiletic and catechistic encounters. A good example is the famous
chronicle of Salimbene, which includes a plethora of anonymous
Franciscan lyrics, proverbs and didactic rhymes and riddles, and
emphasises the importance of singing and performance in relation
to popular preaching, to attract the crowds and to get them into
the right receptive and participatory mood before the start of the
actual sermon.142
Yet Salimbene da Parma also gives us several names of early
Franciscan poets, who at times used melodies and themes of secular
vernacular lyrics to produce Latin and vernacular religious lyrics,
both for (para)liturgical purposes and for edification in a homiletic
context. One of these poets mentioned by Salimbene is friar Enrico
da Pisa who, according to our chronicler composed the Latin hymn
Christe Deus Christe Meus, Christe Rex et Domine after hearing in a Pisan
church a maidservant singing out loud a love song (‘E s’tu no cure
de me, E non curaro de te’).143
It is particularly in the context of Italian confraternities and allied
penitential movements that from the 1230s onwards a whole sub-
genre of devotional, penitential and celebratory lyrical poetry began
to make its appearance, commonly denominated as the laudario-
tradition. In various Italian towns, such as Siena, Assisi, Cortona,
Orvieto, Florence, Gubbio, Perugia and Prato, brotherhoods of laudesi
and (esp. after 1260) disciplinati sprang up, testifying to the flowering
of lay religious life and the felt need for dramatic forms of repen-
tance. In and for such brotherhoods a large number of laude were
composed and transmitted orally from generation to generation, for
procession purposes and for penitential gatherings, as well as for
moments of communal worship and private devotion: lyrical poetry
with strong dramatic elements focussing particularly on the sorrows
142
The most encompassing analysis of these matters can be found in Ludovico
Gatto, ‘Poesia e poeti nella scrittura storica di Salimbene’, in: Storiografia e poesia nella
cultura medievale, Nuovi studi storici 35 (Rome, 1999), 223–261. Salimbene repeatedly
identifies good singers with good preachers.
143
Cf. Salimbene, Cronica fratris Salimbene de Adam Ordinis Minorum, ed. Oswald
Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores XXXII (Hanover, 1905–1912), 181–182. Other
Franciscan poets, song composers and performers mentioned there are Vita Lucchese,
Giovanni da Parma, Giacomino Olle da Parma, Bonagiunto da Fabriano, Guidolino
da Parma, and Guglielmo Piemontese. Vita Lucchese even sang before bishops,
cardinals and the pope.
280 chapter four
and qualities of the Virgin Mary, the pivotal events in the life of
Christ, the need for repentance, the beauty of God’s creation and
the joys of Paradise.144
A surprising number of laude have survived in more than two hun-
dred manuscripts. In some cases, we are dealing with almost com-
plete cycles for all seasons of the ecclesiastical year. Increasingly,
certainly in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, they became
either the nucleus or the adorning ingredients of veritable dramatic
performances (a subject that lies outside the scope of this volume).145
Not all of these surviving laude can be traced to Franciscan origins.
Brotherhoods of laudesi and disciplinati could have connections with
different religious orders and drew their poetic inspiration from a
variety of sources. Yet the Franciscans did have a substantial impact.
They were most certainly involved in the creation of many laude now
surviving in the so-called Codex Illuminati of the San Stefano confra-
ternity at Assisi,146 and with the laude found in the famous Laudario
144
O. Griffoni, Saggio di poesie et canti popolari religiosi di alcuni poesi Umbri, 2nd
Edition (Foligno, 1911), 79 and passim; Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan
Spirituality, 120, 127f.; Idem, ‘Franciscan Spirituality and the Growth of Vernacular
Culture’, in: By Things Seen: Reference and Recognition in Medieval Thought, ed. David L.
Jeffrey (Ottawa, 1979), 143–160 (146); Raby, A History of Christian-Latin Poetry, 430.
145
The Franciscan influence on the emergence of medieval vernacular drama,
both in the context of Franciscan preaching and as an outflow of the Franciscan
production of drammatic laude for associated confraternities (which also were involved
in the performance of such plays), has been central in: Vincenzo de Bartholomaeis,
Le Origini della poesia drammatica italiana (Bologna, 1924); Lawrence Craddock, ‘Franciscan
Influences on Early English Drama’, FS 10 (1950), 383–417; Angela Maria Terruggia,
‘Lo sviluppo del dramma sacro vista attraverso i codici di Assisi’, Annuario dell’Academia
Etrusca di Cortona 11 (1960); Arnaldo Fortini, La Lauda in Assisi e le origini del teatro
italiano (Assisi, 1961); Filip Kalan, ‘Le Jeu de la Passion a Skofja Loka’, Le Livre
Slovene 3 (1966), 24–34; David L. Jeffrey, ‘Bosch’s ‘Haywain’: Communion, Community,
and the Theatre of the World’, Viator 4 (1973), 311–331; Idem, ‘English Saints’
Plays’, in: Medieval Drama, Stratford-upon-Avon Studies, 16 (London, 1973), 69–90;
Kathleen Falvey, Scriptural Plays from Perugia, Diss. (State University of New York at
Stony Brook, 1974); Idem, ‘The First Perugian Passion Plays: Aspects of Structure’,
Comparative Drama 11 (1974), 127–138; David L. Jeffrey, ‘Franciscan Spirituality and
Early English Drama’, Mosaic 9 (1975), 7–46; Idem, ‘Franciscan Spirituality and the
Growth of Vernacular Culture’, 157–158; Idem, ‘St. Francis and Medieval Theatre’,
FS 43 (1983), 323–345; Doglio, ‘Il Francescanesimo e il teatro medioevale’, 9–19.
146
The San Stefano confraternity originated in May 1324 and received its Latin
statutes in August 1327. From the outset it was under the tutelage of the Franciscans.
The Codex Illuminati, now MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 705, was the oldest laudesi
manuscript of the San Stefano confraternity, containing fourteen laude. Five other
laudesi manuscripts can still be traced back to the San Stefano confraternity. See
Michele Catalano, ‘Laudari dei disciplinati assisiati’, Annuario Istituto Magistrale, Assisi
7 (1928–1931), 29–33.
di Cortona (MS Cortona 91).147 The Cortona manuscript, which prob-

ably dates from the later thirteenth century (and which is the cul-
mination of an oral tradition of singing and performance that in
some of its elements may go back to the 1230s) is one of the few
cycles of laude that have come down to us with musical annotation
for many of them.148
A large portion of this lyrical poetry in the laudesi tradition is
anonymous. Still, quite a few of such texts can be traced back to
individual Franciscan poets. To the Umbrian friar Jacopone da Todi
(ca. 1228–1306) alone, whose Latin prose works and letters have
been mentioned in another context, can be assigned 92 to 102 ver-
nacular laude spirituali. These deal with all kinds of moral, spiritual
and mystical issues, as well as with matters pertaining to Franciscan
poverty and discipline.149 Some of these poems, notably Jacopone’s
147
The to my knowledge most convincing account on the Franciscan origin of
the Cortona laude collection and its possible connection with the activities of the
deposed minister general Elias and his circle is given in Cyrilla Barr, The Monophonic
Lauda and the Lay Religious Confraternities of Tuscany and Umbria in the Late Middle Ages,
Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 10 (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1988),
67ff. Among the friars faithful to the deposed minister general was a friar known
as Giovanni delle Laude. See on him for instance the Chronica XXIV Generalium, AF
X, 619 and Salimbene, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores XXXII
(Hanover-Leipzig, 1905–1913), 158.
148
In all, MS Cortona 91 comprises 171 folios divided in two or three distinc-
tive sections. The first of these (ff. 1r–120v) contains 45 laude with musical notation
(with the exception of the fifth song). Two additional laude with musical annotation
can be found on ff. 123–132. Another series of laude on a variety of subjects with-
out musical annotation follows on ff. 136r–170v. Over the years, the laude from the
Cortona manuscript have been the object of various studies and (diplomatical) edi-
tions. Still worth using are Gilberto Brunacci, ‘Le laude del laudario cortonese sec-
ondo la trascrizione dell’acc. Can. Don Nicolo Garzi’, Secondo annuario accademica
etrusca di Cortona (1935), 13–84; Quarantadue laudi francescane del laudario Cortonesi XIII
secolo, ed. A. Canuto & N. Praglia (Rome, 1957); Clemente Terni, ‘Per un edizione
critica del Laudario di Cortona’, Chigiana n.s. 21 (1964), 111–129; Agostino Ziino,
Strutture strofiche nel laudario di Cortona (Palermo, 1968). The most recent diplomatic
edition of the Cortona manuscript is Il laudario di Cortona: versione ritmica delle melodie,
ed. Luigi Lucchi (Vicenza, 1987). The other major Italian laude manuscript with
musical annotation is MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Magliabechiano
II I 122 (Banco Rari 18) and goes back to the Compagnia di Santa Maria delle
Laude, which was connected with the Florentine Augustinian church of Santo Spirito.
This collection has been edited as The Florence Laudario: an edition of Florence Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale, Banco Rari 18, ed. Blake Wilson & Nello Barbieri (Madison, 1995).
149
Thus far, I have come accros the following editions: Laude di Fra Jacopone da
Todi, ed. Francesco Bonaccorsi (Florence, 1490); Le laude, secondo la stampa fiorentina
del 1490, ed. G. Ferri (Bari, 1915); Laudi, trattato e detti, ed. Franca Ageno (Florence,
1953); Laude, ed. F. Mancini, Scrittori d’Italia, 257 (Rome-Bari, 1974); Jacopone da
Todi, ‘‘Chants de pauvreté’’, ed. St. & I. Mangano (Paris, 1994); Les ‘Laudi’, ed. &
282 chapter four
at times very allegorical laude on the seven deadly sins, on the Lord’s
Prayer, on the cardinal virtues, on the incarnation, and on the sacra-
ments of confession and Eucharist, fit perfectly in the Franciscan
programme of doctrinal religious instruction for the laity. A significant
number aimed at instilling a proper devotional attitude towards
Christ’s passion and the sorrows of the Virgin, who is hailed through-
out as a privileged mediatrix between man and God, and as a priv-
ileged ‘text’ in whom the living Word is inscribed (such as in the
lauda Donna de Paradiso).150 Others, such as Guarda che non caggi, amico,
guarda, is a poetic exhortation (or almost a rhymed sermon in the
style of those ascribed to the Anglo-Norman friar Nicholas Bozon)
trans. Lucienne Portier, Sagesses chrétiennes (Paris, 1996); Jacopone da Todi, Laude,
ed. Gianni Mussini, L’anima del mondo, 29 (Casale Monferrato, 1999). A partial
Italian translation by Francesco Costa of the Laude (together with parts of Jacopone’s
Tractatus and Verba) can be found in: Mistici Francescani. Secolo XIV, II (Assisi-Bologna,
1997), 33–170. The scholarly literature on Jacopone’s Laude is considerable. The
starting point of the modern scholarly discussions is Ozanam, Les poètes franciscains
au xiii e siècle, 164–272. An overview of the scholarship between that study and the
scholarly contributions of the 1960s can be found in Giacomo Sabatelli, ‘Jacopone
da Todi’, DSpir VIII, 20–26. More recent contributions are F. Mancini, Il codice
oliveriano 4 a l’antica tradizione manoscritta delle Laude Iacoponiche (Pesaro, 1967); Mário
Martins, ‘Laudes de Frei Jacopone a S. Francisco’, Itinerarium 22 (1976), 311–322;
T. Peck Gregory, The Fool of God. Jacopone da Todi (Alabama, 1980); E. Menestò,
‘Le Laude drammatiche di Iacopone da Todi. Fonti e struttura’, in: Atti del V
Convegno di Studio, Maggio 1980 (Viterbo, 1981), 103–140; Silvestro Nessi, ‘Lo stato
attuale della critica Iacoponica’, in: Atti del convegno storico Iacoponico in occasione del
750° annoversario della nascità di Iacopone da Todi, Todi 29–30 novembre 1980, ed. E.
Menestò, Quaderni del Centro per il collegamento degli studi medievali e umanis-
tica nell’università di Perugia, 8 (Florence, 1981); A. Gebr, The Role of the Franciscans
in the Development of Early Sacred and Secular Music (University of Southern California,
1983); W. Kennison, ‘Jacopone da Todi: the Aesthetics of Imprisonment’, FrSt 72
(1990), 248–256; Alvaro Cacciotti, ‘The Cross: where, according to Jacopone da
Todi, God and humanity are deified’, Studies in Spirituality 2 (Pittsburg, 1992), 59–98;
Idem, Amor sacro e amor profano in Jacopone da Todi (Rome, 1989); P. Canettieri, ‘Laude
di Jacopone da Todi’, in: Letteratura italiana. Le opere, I: dalle origine al cinquecento, ed.
A. Asor Rosa (Torino, 1992), 121–153; V. Louise Katainen, ‘Jacopone da Todi,
poet and mystic: A review of the history of the criticism’, Mystics Quarterly 22 (1996),
56–57 & Greyfriars Review 12 (1998), 99–113; Enrico Menestò, ‘Iacopone da Todi’,
in: Il grande libro dei Santi II, 1079–1083; Iacopone da Todi: un francescano scomodo ma
attuale, XV edizione delle ‘Giornate dell’Osservanza’, 13–14 maggio 1996, ed. M. Poli,
Quaderni della Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna (Bologna, 1997);
R. Aubert, ‘Jacopone da Todi’, DHGE XXVI, 589–590; G. Jori, ‘‘Sentenze mer-
avigliose e dolci affetti’ Jacopone tra Cinque e Seicento’, Lettere Italiane 50 (1998),
no. 4; Ready, ‘The Marian Lyrics of Jacopone da Todi and Friar William Herebert’,
221–238; Franco Suitner, Jacopone da Todi. Poesia, mistica, rivolta nell’Italia del medioevo,
Universale, 29 (Rome, 1999).
150
See on this the 1998 study of Kathryn Ready mentioned in the previous note.
to keep watch over the senses, so that they do not lead to tempta-
tion and worldly endeavours. The suitability of these laude within the
context of homiletic instruction is born out by their use in the late
medieval period by preachers such as Bernardino da Siena.151
Among Jacopone’s near contemporaries two other composers of
laudario-type lyrics stand out, namely Guittone d’Arezzo (c. 1230–1294)
and Ugo Panziera da Prato (d. ca. 1330). The former, a lay member
of the confraternity of the Cavalieri Gaudenti della Vergine (a con-
fraternity for which a friar minor from Bologna had drawn up the
constitutions), who like Francesco d’Assisi and Pacifico da Ascoli had
dabbled in courtly love poetry before his conversion to the religious
life, left behind an influential corpus of laudario-type lyrical religious
poetry. As a matter of fact, his religious poetry was so sought-after,
that many tried to emulate his style (the poets of the so-called scuola
guittoniana).152 The latter of these two, Ugo Panziera da Prato, a
Franciscan lay friar active in the Prato Confraternità della Croce/del
Ceppo, wrote for his fellow confraternity members at least 25 Laude
that are very akin to those ascribed to Jacopone da Todi and Guittone
d’Arezzo.153
151
Cf. D. Pacetti, ‘La predicazione di S. Bernardino da Siena a Perugia e ad
Assisi’, CF 9 (1939), 519f.
152
Le rime di Guittone d’Arezzo, ed. Fr. Egidi, Scrittori d’Italia, 175 (Bari, 1940);
Cl. Margueron, Recherches sur Guittone d’Arezzo: sa vie, son époque et sa culture (Paris,
1966); Idem, ‘Guittone d’Arezzo hagiographe: la canzone XXXVII sur S. Dominique’,
Romania 102 (1981), 75–109. On his epistolary works, see Le lettere di Frate Guittone
d’Arezzo, ed. Fr. Meriano (Bologna, 1923). When Guittone left the world in 1265,
he also left behind his wife and children. For more information, see: V. Moleta,
The Early Poetry of Guittone de Arezzo (London, 1976); M.-H. Vicaire, ‘Guittone
d’Arezzo’, DHGE XXII, 1137–1138.
153
For editions of these songs, see Ugo Panziera, Laudi/Canti spirituali (Florence,
1578); Ugo Panziera O. Min., Le Laudi, ed. Virgilio Di Benedetto (Rome, 1962).
The critical apparatus of this edition is published separately: Virgilio Di Benedetto,
‘Nota filologica alla nuova edizione (1962) delle laudi del B. Ugo Panziera, O. Min.
(d. c. 1330)’, MF 62 (1962), 414–444 (cf. the review of Giacomo Sabatelli, in AFH
58 (1965), 558–560). See for older editions and initial studies also R. Zessos, ‘Il
beato Ugo Panziera e la poesia dei ‘Giullari di Dio’’, Frate Francesco 3 (1930),
129–134; M. Sticco, ‘Panziera, Ugo, francescano, scrittore’, Enciclopedia Cattolica IX
(1952), 695–696; G. Petrocchi, ‘L’esperienza ascetica di Ugo da Prato’, in: Medioevo
e Rinascimento. Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi (Florence, 1955) II, 525–540; V. Di
Benedetto, ‘Per un’edizione delle laudi del B. Ugo Panziera, O.Min.’, MF 56 (1956),
262–281; G. Petrocchi, ‘Poesia di Ugo da Prato’, in: Ascesi e mistica trecentesca (Florence,
1957), 23–40; D. Pacetti, ‘Studi e ricerche intorno a frate Ugo Panziera (ca.
1260–1330)’, SF 57 (1960), 215–253. Around 1307, Hugo left Italy and travelled
to the vicariate of Tartaria orientalis, where he finished his prose Trattati Spirituali
mentioned elsewhere.
284 chapter four
Alongside of these types of lyrical poetry, a more elaborate form

of didactic poetry made its appearance. In later thirteenth- and early
fourteenth-century Italy, this latter type of Franciscan didactic poetry
is predominantly connected with the names of Giacomino da Verona
(fl. ca. 1280), Bonvesin della Riva (d. ca. 1310), and the more obscure
Miro da Colle (fl. ca. 1330?), one of Dante Alighieri’s early teachers.154
Giacomino, a north-Italian friar active in the second half of the
thirteenth century, wrote a set of vernacular didactic poems that
have survived with Latin titles, namely the De Ierusalem Celesti and
the De Babilonia Civitate Infernali. Both poems consists of quatrains
with rhyming endwords, with heaven and hell as their subject.155 The
Latin and Italian writings of Bonvesin della Riva, possibly a Franciscan
tertiary lay friar from Milan, are strikingly similar to those of Giaco-
mino. This is true in particular for Bonvesin’s most important Italian
composition: the Libro delle tre scritture, consisting of a ‘black’ book on
hell, a ‘red’ book on the suffering of Christ, and a ‘golden’ book on
heavenly beatitude.156
A full inventory of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italian Franciscan
religious poetry still has to be made. Due to these lacunae in exist-
ing scholarship, our knowledge of later fourteenth and early fifteenth
century Franciscan poetic initiatives is still relatively scant, although
there are no reasons to assume that the conditions that caused the
154
Jeffrey, ‘Franciscan Spirituality and the Growth of Vernacular Culture’, 155,
tells us that Dante’s initial interest in the pursuit of vernacular language, which
found expression in his De Vulgari Eloquentia, was triggered by his Franciscan edu-
cation: ‘. . . he was in fact taught writing at one time by a Franciscan, the minor
poet Miro da Colle (. . .) though he was to criticize the vernacular extravagance of
some Franciscans, such as the popular preacher Remigio Girolani, his first invita-
tion to vernacular usage came from this quarter.’ Another interesting text from this
circle is the anonymous mid-fourteenth-century vernacular Pugna Virtutum et Vitiorum.
See: MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale XIII.C.98, ff. 13v–16v. Cf. Manoscritti frances-
cani della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, ed. C. Cenci, Spicilegium bonaventurianum,
VIII (Grottaferrata, 1971) II, 957–9). For an edition, see Percopo, ‘La giostra delle
virtù e dei vizi, poemetto marchigiano del sec. XIV’, Il Propugnatore 20,ii (1887),
3–63. Cf. V. de Bartholomaeis, Studi Medievali 15 (1962), 91–206.
155
Giacomo da Verona, Paradiso e Inferno, ed. Luigi Malagoli (Pisa, 1951). See:
Ozanam, Les poètes franciscains en Italie, 133ff.; Esther Isopel May, The ‘De Jerusalem
celesti’ and the ‘De Babionia infernali’ of Fra Giacomino da Verona, Diss. (Florence, 1939).
156
H. Nolthenius, Duecento. Zwerftocht door Italë’s late middeleeuwen (Utrecht, 1955);
G. Contini, Letteratura italiana delle origini (Florence, 1970); Les poètes mineurs italiens des
xiii e et xiv e siècles, ed. & trans. Henry R. Chazel (Paris, 1926); Bonvesin da la Riva,
Volgari scelti/Select poems, trans. Patrick S. Diehl & Ruggero Sefanini (New York,
1987).
emergence of Latin and vernacular religious poetry in earlier periods

changed much afterwards. What had changed, of course, was the
accessibility of a by now rather large poetic archive ready for use (both
Franciscan works and the formidable poetic legacy of Dante Alighieri
that also lent itself perfectly for teaching issues of moral and doc-
trinal theology).157 This may have put a brake on new poetic endeav-
ours.158 Nevertheless, Italian Observant friars did produce new lyrical
writings. Most significant in this regard are the rather humanistic
lyrics of friar Luigi della Genga (Lodovico de L’Aquila, c. 1390–1452),
and the early sixteenth-century Latin poetry of Lorenzo Massorilli.
Luigi della Genga was a disciple of Giovanni da Capistrano and
two-time provincial vicar of the Observant Abruzzi province in the
1440s. Among his poetic output, two pieces stand out in particular,
namely an elaborate Carmen de S. Cruce and a hagiographical Carmen
de Miraculis S. Bernardini Senensis. This latter eulogy on the first impor-
tant saint of the Italian regular Observance relates no less than 30
miracles that took place in Siena in the first 52 days after Bernardino’s
death.159
The lector and Porziuncola guardian Lorenzo Massorili (1490–
after 1553) is the author of a very large number of Latin hymns.
Some of these exploit the poetic forms and language made popular
through the Franciscan Stabat Mater tradition, whereas others adopt
157
On the use of Dante in Franciscan teachings of moral theology, see Felice da
Mareto, Bibliografia dantesco-francescana (Parma, 1972); H. Rheinfelder, ‘Dante, il suo
pensiero, il suo tempo, nella predicazione di san Bernardino’, in: Dante nel pensiero
e nella esegesi dei secoli XIV e XV. Atti del Convegno realizzato dal comune di Melfi (Florence,
1975), 93–113; Alberto Casalboni, ‘Dante e i francescani’, CF 70 (2000), 391–411.
158
Italian Observants such as Bernardino da Siena were well-acquainted with
both Dante’s Comedia and the wealth of existing Franciscan religious poetry, and
did not hesitate to use the vernacular lyrics of Jacopone da Todi and Ugo Panziera
da Prato to embellish and dramatise their own sermons. See the work of Rheinfelder
mentioned in the previous note, as well as Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan
Spirituality, 128–129, 136.
159
The Carmen de S. Cruce has been edited in Anicetto Chiappini, ‘P. Ludovico
della Genga umanista Aquilano del sec. XV o’, AFH 60 (1967), 321–323. The work
on Bernardino, which was dedicated to cardinal Giovanni de Tagliacozzo, appeared
several times in print: Carmen de Miraculis S. Bernardini Senensis (Venice, 1572); Bullettino
della Deputazione Abruzzese di Storia Patria (L’Aquila, 1944), 121–132. Cf. also Acta
Sanctorum Maii V, 284–287; Mariano da Firenze, Compendium Chronicarum, AFH 4
(1911), 130; A. Chiappini, Reliquie letterarie Capestranesi (L’Aquila, 1927), 47–48 (no.
62–64). Several other ‘pillars of the Observance’, such as Giacomo della Marca
received poetic commemorations as well. See on this Aurelio Simmaco de Jacobiti,
Poema inedito in ottava rima su S. Giacomo della Marca (1393/4–1476), ed. P. Girolamo
Mascia (Naples, 1970).
286 chapter four
a more classical and humanist vocabulary and shape themselves after

the poetry of Virgil, Ovid, Martial, and Lucretius. Whatever the
chosen form, nearly all of Lorenzo’s hymns deal with elementary
issues of religious instruction. They comprise complete para-liturgical
cycles illustrating the life and suffering of Christ from Nativity to
Ascension and Pentecost, the suffering and coronation of the Virgin,
and the exemplary life and death of important saints (for use in the
liturgy and for the celebration on particular saints’ days). Others are
laudatory hymns on the Holy Land, on the earthly and heavenly
Jerusalem, on the Eucharist, on the commandments, on the last
things, and on the virtues of religious asceticism.160
Among the early sixteenth-century Capuchins the esteem for reli-
gious poetry was at best ambivalent. On the one hand, these early
Capuchins had a deep mistrust for frivolity and worldliness, and they
were adamant in renouncing play and poetic adornment. On the
other hand, they felt heir to the Franciscan tradition as it was handed
down by the hagiographical collections associated with the spiritual
wing of the order, and in these texts Francesco d’Assisi very much
was the joculator Dei.
Whether inspired by this Franciscan tradition or induced by the
realities of catechistic instruction, the Capuchins soon found out how
to use religious lyrical poetry and proverbs to their advantage as a
powerful mnemonic tool in the conversion and catechesis of adoles-
cents. Hence the lay Capuchin friar Felice da Cantalice taught chil-
dren (and their mothers) how to sing appropriate religious songs
during their daily occupations, so that they would abstain from las-
civious and overtly secular lyrics, and would internalise the spiritual
truths of Christianity through modes and means commensurate with
the popular culture in which they had been raised.161
Whereas this kind of catechistic poetry still could be reconciled
with the Capuchin call for simplicity, this was more difficult to do
160
Lorenzo’s hymns have been collected in the Aureum Sacrorum Hymnorum Opus,
4 Vols. (Foligno, 1547). For more information, see Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 167–168;
Giuseppe Cremascoli, ‘Sull’opera poetica di Lorenzo Massorilli’, in: Francescanesimo
e società cittadine. L’essempio di Perugia, ed. U. Nicolini (Perugia, 1979), 163–214.
161
See Processus Sixtinus fratris Felicis a Cantalice cum selectis de eiusdem vita vetustissimis
testimoniis, ed. Mariano D’Alatri (Rome, 1964), 387–389, as well as the remarks of
Stanislao da Campagnola, in “Un cinquecento francescano che contesta ‘novelle,
poesie, historie e li prurienti canti”, in: San Francesco e il Francescanesimo nella letter-
atura italiana dal rinascimento al romanticismo. Atti del Convegno Nazionale (Assisi, 18–20
maggio 1989), ed. Silvio Pasquazi (Rome, 1990), 81.
with the aesthetic poetic oeuvre of the former Augustinian turned

Capuchin Mario Fabiani da Mercato Saraceno (fl. 1540). This order
historian, preacher and religious poet composed a multitude of care-
fully crafted lyrics (canti) and poems—most impressive of which is a
beautiful sonnet on Mary Magdalen162—that was quite at odds with
the Capuchin scorn of poetic embellishment.
F. Religious poetry as a medium for catechistic instruction:

the British Isles
Thus far, I have only spoken about the Franciscan poetic catechis-
tic legacy in the Italian peninsula. However, as the studies of Jeffrey
and others have shown, the Franciscan contribution to religious lyrics
was particularly impressive in the British Isles. There, no less than
in the Italian provinces, this was closely connected with the Franciscan
pastoral initiatives and with the friars’ attempts at sanctifying daily
culture through an exploitation and transformation of popular modes
of poetic expression found among the laity. The English Franciscans
also produced a substantial amount of Latin liturgical, para-liturgi-
cal and meditative poetry for use within the order. To this later cat-
egory belongs perhaps the earliest extant poem written by an English
friar, namely Henry of Burford’s penitential meditation on the minorite
vocation, which found its way into the Eccleston chronicle.163 Henry
162
This sonnet starts with ‘Una donna vidi io, anzi una stella/più lucente che
’l sole, in trecce d’oro,/a piè del legno a noi largo tesoro/mostrarsi a un più bel
sol fervente ancella (. . .)’, and ends: ‘O Maddalena ogn’hor ben grata a Dio,/deh! Fa
s’o t’ami ch’io ti veggia in cielo/e teco goda il Signor tuo e mio!’ Cited from the
text found in Stanislao da Campagnola, “Un cinquecento francescano che contesta
‘novelle, poesie, historie e li prurienti canti’’, in: San Francesco e il Francescanesimo nella
letteratura italiana dal rinascimento al romanticismo. Atti del Convegno Nazionale (Assisi, 18–20
maggio 1989), ed. Silvio Pasquazi (Rome, 1990), 80. For an edition of his poems,
see Poemetti, ed. Melchior da Pobladura & Sisto da Pisa, IF 12 (1937), 315–325,
409–414 & 13 (1938), 27–32, 418–423. Cf. also N. Mancini, ‘Un poemetto mari-
ano di p. Mario Fabiani?’, IF 9 (1934), 195–208, 309; Melchior da Pobladura, ‘De
vita et scriptis p. Marii Fabiani a Foro Sarsinio’, CF 6 (1936), 580–589 and the
work of Stanislao da Campagnola mentioned earlier.
163
Henry’s poem ‘Qui minor es’ can be found in Thomas Eccleston, Tractatus de
Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, ed. A.G. Little (Manchester, 1951), 31. Cf.
Fleming, ‘The friars and medieval English literature’, 354. Henry of Burford, a friar
of English descent, had been ‘cantor fratrum Parisius’ before he came accross the
channel with the first group of Franciscan friars.
288 chapter four
of Burford’s example was followed by many others, resulting in a

massive body of Latin hymns and meditative poems. Most important
among these were the manifold compositions by Walter Winbourne
(d. after 1266)164 and the rhyme-offices,165 hymns166 and meditative
poems written by John Pecham (d. 1299). Among the poetic pro-
164
Walter Wilbourne, lector at the Cambridge Franciscan studium between 1233
and 1266, not only wrote a series of hymns and meditative laudations on the Holy
Family, but also composed poems on the varous sins (such as vanity and simony).
A variety of Walter’s hymns have been edited by G.M. Drèves in subsequent
issues of the AHMA, and in The Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, ed.
T. Wright, Camden Society, 16 (London, 1841). A full overview of Walter’s poetic
legacy, replete with editions of the most important texts (Ave Virgo, Mariae Carmina,
De Mundi Vanitate, De Mundi Scelere, De Palpone, De Simonia) is found in A.G. Rigg, The
Poems of Walter of Wimborne (Toronto, 1978). Walter also wrote an intruiging Tractatus
Moralis super Quatuor Elementa: MS Cambridge, University Library Ii.2.27 (14th cen-
tury, of Norwich provenance) ff. 4r–103r. Cf. Rigg, The Poems, 316–325; A. Kirkwood,
‘The Tractatus Moralis super Quatuor Elementa of Walter of Wimborne’, Journal
of Medieval Latin 3 (1993), 64–77. For more information, see A Handlist of the Latin
Writers of Great Britain and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard Sharpe, Publications of
The Journal of Medieval Latin, 1 (Turnhout, 1997), 743; A.G. Rigg, A History of
Anglo-Latin Literature, 1066–1422 (Cambridge, 1999), 215–222, 372–374 (nos. 190–206).
165
Two of Pecham’s rhyme offices, the Officium SS. Trinitatis and the Psalterium
Beatae Mariae Virginis had a considerable success. The Officium has been edited in
Willibrord Lampen, ‘Jean Pecham et son office de la Sainte Trinité’, LFF 11 (1928),
211–229. It also can be found in various early modern breviaries and more recent
hymn collections. Cf. Drèves, AHMA 5 (1889), 19–21, 23 (1896), 5–6 & 50 (1907),
593–597. In 1530, the Franciscan friar Franciscus Titelmans published an edition
and commentary of this office, followed by a biography of Pecham: Liber de Sacrosancta
et Superbenedicta Trinitate, in quo Ecclesiasticum Officium, quod in illius solemnitate legit romana
ecclesia, clare lucideque explanatur (Antwerp, 1530). The Psalterium Beatae Mariae Virginis
can be found in MSS Cambridge, University Library Dd.XV, 21 ff. 1–15; Cambridge,
University Library Ff.VI, 14 ff. 8–22; Cambridge, University Library Mm.V, 36;
Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College Cod. 36. The work was edited under the name
of Stephan of Canterbury by G.M. Drèves, AHMA 35 (1897).
166
Among the hyms, I could mention the Versus de Sacramento Altaris (inc.: ‘Hostia
viva, vale, fidei fons gloria matris’), MS Oxford, Bodleian Rawlinson C. 558 f. 157;
the Meditatio de Sacramento Altaris seu Rythmus de Corpore Christi (inc.: ‘Ave Vivens
Hostia’), a.o. MS Darmstadt, Hessische Landesbibliothek Lat. 521 ff. 73; and De
Deliciis Virginis Gloriosae (inc.: ‘Salve Sancta Mater Dei’). On the composition and
the intended audience of these and other hymns, see: Antoine de Sérent, ‘Livres
d’heures franciscaines’, RHF 6 (1929), 19–20. The Hymn Versus de Sacramento Altaris
has been printed in Registrum Epistolarum fr. Johannis Peckham, ed. Ch.-T. Martin, III,
p. cxviii and in G.M. Drèves, AHMA 50 (1907), 598. The hymn Meditatio de Sacramento
Altaris/Rythmus de Corpore Christi has been published in Registrum Epistolarum fr. Johannis
Peckham, ed. Ch.-T. Martin, III, p. cxiv–cxvii and in Drèves, AHMA 50 (1907),
597–598, as well as in Fr. J. Pecham Tractatus Tres de Paupertate, 8–9. The hymn De
Deliciis Virginis Gloriosae has been published in Drèves, AHMA 50 (1907), 598–601.
See also AHMA 31 (1898), 111–114 and E. Peeters, ‘Vier Prosen des Johannes
Pecham O.F.M.’, FrSt 4 (1917), 355–367.
ductions of the latter, two poems in particular stand out, namely the
Philomena—a pious canticle of 360 verses in which a nightingale (the
pious soul) in search of redemption and heaven utters her medita-
tive plea for the passion and death of Christ through the various
liturgical hours167—and the Canticum Pauperis pro Dilecto, which amounts
to an explanation, a defence and a recommendation of the Franciscan
way of life, aiming to guide the soul in its search for true evangel-
ical happiness and wisdom.168
More impressive still, is the English Friars’ output of both Latin
and vernacular lyrical poetry, which on the whole was didactic and
catechistic in nature and just like its Italian counterpart can roughly
167
Philomena: a.o. MSS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 3307 ff. 89v–92v (14th
cent.); Darmstadt, Hessische Landesbibliothek Lat. 2273 ff. 3r–5 (15th cent.);
Darmstadt, Hessische Landesbibliothek Lat. 80 ff. 128r–135v. In the late Middle
Ages, this work frequently was translated as a ‘Bonaventurian’ work. Hence it can
be found in MS Brussel, Bibliothèque Royale 3005–3008 (Nr. 1993) ff. 245v–251v
(from 1552): ‘Dit es een schoon leere van den Nachtegael. Dje heilighe leeraer
bonaventura leert ons iiij poenten, Daer wij ons in (246r) oefenen selen Ende daer
wy ons in selen verbliden (. . .) Dese heilighe leeraer heeft een cleyn boecksken ghe-
maect vanden nachtegael, Hoe dat hi tot iiij tyden des daechs singht . . .’ It still
was seen as a Bonaventurian work by the Quaracchi editors, hence its inclusion in
Bonaventura, Opera Omnia VIII (Quaracchi, 1895), 669–674 (with a lengthy overview
of the manuscripts on pp. cv–cvi). It also was edited by G.M. Dreves, AHMA 50
(1907), 602–616. Raby, A History of Christian-Latin Poetry, 426 remarks: ‘The nightin-
gale is the type of the pious soul, which longs for the heavenly country, and, long-
ing, beguiles itself with song. So it lives, as it were, through a mystical day, the
hours of which correspond to the stages of its redemption. Dawn is the stage of
man’s creation; Prime the season of the incarnation of Christ; Tierce is the period
of His life on earth. Sext represents the hour of His betrayal, scourging, and
crucifixion, None of His death, and Vespers of His burial. Stage by stage the soul
follows in meditation, and out of its meditation fashions a song.’ For more infor-
mation, see F.J.E. Raby, ‘Philomena Praevia Temporis Amoeni’, in: Mélanges J. de
Ghellinck (Gembloux, 1951), II, 435–448; Maximiliaan van Moerdijk, ‘Philomena
van John Pecham’, Neophilologus 38 (1954), 206–217; Maximilianus van Moerdijk,
‘Nog eens ‘Philomena’ (. . .)’, Franciscaans Leven 30 (1956), 174–181; Maximiliaan van
Moerdijk, ‘La ‘Philomena’ de Jean de Peckham’, in: Miscellanea Melchior de Pobladura
I (Rome, 1964), 197–214.
168
Throughout the Canticum (which Pecham probably wrote during his regency
at Oxford) an old teacher guides a spiritual novice, helping him to overcome the
obstacles to leading the life of wisdom and virtue, and to withstand the criticism
of enemies (such as seccular clerics who denounce the mendicant way of life). The
first modern edition (together with the Stimulus Amoris ascribed to Jacopo da Milano)
appeared as: Stimulus Amoris Fr. Jacobi Mediolanensis. Canticum Pauperis Fr. Johannis
Pecham sec. codices mss. edita, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 4 (Quaracchi,
1905), 133–205. A later edition followed in 1949: Canticum Pauperis pro Dilecto, ed.
F. Delorme, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 4 (Quaracchi, 19492). The
last part of the Canticum is sometimes found separately as the Forma Vitae Fratrum
Minorum, a.o. in MS Rome, St.-Isidoro Cod. 1/73.
290 chapter four
be divided into ‘laudario-type’ poems (such as carols and other songs

of praise and penitence), and lyrics of religious instruction connected
with the preaching of the friars. Both categories are represented with
significant overlap in a large number of miscellaneous manuscripts,
showing the fecundity of Franciscan initiatives in these matters.169 As
a matter of fact, an ‘astonishing’ four-fifth of the extant manuscripts
containing English lyric poetry from 1225 to 1350 would have been
of Franciscan provenance.170
169
In the course of their works, Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan
Spirituality and Angelo, ‘English Franciscan Poetry Before Geoffrey Chaucer’ men-
tion for instance ‘laudario-type’ collections in MSS London, British Library Egerton
3307 (15th cent. See also: Gwyn S. McPeek, The British Museum Manuscript Egerton
3307 (London & Chapel Hill, 1963) & John Edgar Stevens, Medieval Carols (London,
1952). This manuscript actually resembles MS Cortona 91 in its overall structure);
London, British Library, Sloane 2593; Oxford, Bodleian 29734; Cambridge, St.
John’s College 259; London, British Library Egerton 274 (which contains more ver-
nacular than Latin pieces and seems to have been put together by friar Enrico da
Pisa, the poet-friend of Salimbene); Worcester Cathedral F. 126 f. 28; Oxford,
Bodleian 26 (which contains the carols ‘Honnd by Honnd we schulle ous take’, and
‘My doghter, my darlynnge.’). Jeffrey and Angelo also list preachers handbooks and
booklets that include the second type of lyrics, some of which with musical scores,
such as MSS London, British Library Royal 12.E.i (this manuscript, which con-
cludes with a ‘narratio Roberti Grosseteste, episcopi Lincolniensis pro collectione
elemosine’, is the source of several thirteenth-century Middle English lyrics, includ-
ing the well-known stabat mater poem ‘Stond wel, moder, under rode’, which here
is set to music.); British Library, Arundel 248; Cambridge, Trinity College 43; British
Library, Harley 5396 ff. 273b & 280b; Harley 275 f. 146b; Harley 322 f. 74b;
Rawl. C. 534 f. 7ff.; Oxford, Bodleian 26; Oxford, Bodleian 1871; Oxford, Balliol
149 ff. 31b–38b; Oxford, Magdalen College 93 ff. 136ff.; Dublin, Trinity College
277 (a Franciscan book from the fifteenth century).
Most importantly, Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 205ff.
and Angelo, ‘English Franciscan Poetry Before Geoffrey Chaucer’, 218–260 iden-
tify several large miscellanies with a large number of both ‘laudario-type’ poems
and lyrics connected with catechistic homiletic instruction as products of Franciscan
poetic initiative. On top of miscellanies commonly accepted as being of Franciscan
provenance, such as MS Digby 2 (which contains for instance the poem ‘No more
ne willi wiked be’, edited and studied in D. Anderson, ‘‘No more ne willi wiked
be’: religious poetry in Franciscan manuscript (Digby 2)’, in: Literature and Religion
in the Later Middle Ages. Studies in Honor of Siegfried Wenzel, ed. R.G. Neuhauser
& John A. Alford. (New York, 1995)); MS Oxford, Jesus College 29; and MS
London, British Library, Harley 913, Jeffrey also maintains that MSS Digby 86
and Cambridge, Trinity College 323, which in the past have been attributed to the
Dominicans, are of Franciscan provenance. Moreover, Jeffrey is inclined to con-
clude that many poems/songs found in MS British Library, Harley 2253, which in
the past was thought to have been compiled by the monks of Leominster, either
originated from the Franciscans or were largely based on their influence. Several
of the Franciscan poems found in the various Harley manuscripts have been edited
in in G.L. Brook, The Harley Lyrics (Manchester, 1964). Others can be found in the
carol anthologies mentioned in the next note.
170
Jeffrey, ‘Franciscan Spirituality and the Growth of Vernacular Culture’, 155;
Although a large number of these religious lyrics could be or were

modelled on existing secular poems and songs, which the English
friars, like their Italian confreres, were willing to exploit for their
own purposes, it is clear that more than just a few of these lyrics
were composed after liturgical models or models with apparent litur-
gical value.171 This does not necessarily imply that all such lyrics
were written for (para-)liturgical performance. It rather suggests that
many of the composers were clerical friars well-acquainted with the
liturgy and its hymns, sequences and responses,172 who would not
hesitate to exploit the special significance attached to the hours of
the divine office in their poems of religious instruction.173
An overwhelming number of English religious lyrics has an out-
right didactical catechistic message. This catechistic message com-
prises poetic explanations of basic theological doctrines on original
sin, the act of redemption, the tenets of faith and the acts of char-
ity. Such teachings were found in poems on the ten commandment,
the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria prayers, but also in more elabo-
rate poetic frameworks that represent the friars and other ‘true
Christians’ as the knights of Christ, and that display nature as a ‘sec-
ond book’ (with natural beauty as a signifier of heavenly beauty, and
the four seasons as an allegory of salvation history or of the soul’s
spiritual ‘Werdegang’).174 Insofar as these poems move beyond mere
Angelo, ‘English Franciscan Poetry Before Geoffrey Chaucer’, 227f. With regard to
the surviving English carols alone, earlier scholars like Carleton Brown and R.H.
Robbins have come to comparable conclusions. See especially R.H. Robbins, ‘The
Earliest Carols and the Franciscans’, MLN 53 (1938), 244–245; Idem, ‘The Authors
of the Middle English Religious Lyrics’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
39/2 (1940), 230–238. Cf. also Richard Leighton Greene, The Early English Carols
(Oxford, 1935).
171
Sarah Appleton Weber, Theology and Poetry in the Middle English Lyric: A Study
of Sacred History and Aesthetic (Columbus, 1969).
172
Sometimes, friars would be involved both with the composition of such ver-
nacular lyrics and with the production of Latin hymns. Cf. Jeffrey, The Early English
Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 5.
173
Cf. Ibidem, 233. Franciscan poems like Pecham’s Latin Philomena, some car-
ols by John Grimestone (see below) and one of the laude on the hours by Jacopone
da Todi take advantage of the fact that each of the liturgical hours represent an
aspect of God’s creation and/or of Christ’s work of redemption. Hence, Matins
represent the nine orders of angels and Lauds the different ages of church history.
Prime stands for Christ’s trial before the high priest, Terce for His condemnation
by Pilate, Sext for His crucifixion, the Nones for His death and Vespers for His
burial. See Douie, Archbishop Pecham, 41–42.
174
Cf. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 150ff., where he
discusses this Franciscan interest in nature, which is seen to be an expression of
292 chapter four
catechistic instruction, they single out the sufferings of Christ at the

cross, the role of Mary as co-sufferer and mediatrix, the approach of
the end of time, the necessity of proper contrition, and the call for
a deeply affective response to the narrative of suffering and divine
love in the work of redemption.175
Many compositions found in the collections listed by Jeffrey and
other scholars have remained anonymous. Nevertheless, quite a few
English Franciscan lyrical poets are known by name. An early can-
didate is Thomas of Hales from Worcestershire, who went up for
his lectorate course at Paris and by 1240 was a well-known preacher
in Normandy and England.176 Thomas held positions at the Francis-
can convent at London, which had close ties with the English court
of Henry III. For an audience of aristocratic female religious (at
Northampton monastery?), Thomas composed the Luue Ron: a song
on the love of/for God and on the vanities of the world.177 The
God’s creative love, and a channel to the ‘redemptive, recreative, and consummate
experience of the Love of Christ.’
175
Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 186 & 231ff.
176
Thomas’ name is mentioned in two letters by Adam Marsh. Cf. the edition
of J.S. Brewer, in Monumenta Franciscana (London, 1858), 181–185 (n. 75) and 394–396
(n. 227). More informaction can be found in Lucas Wadding, Scriptores, 216; Sbaralea,
Supplementum III, 129–130; Cl. Schmitt, ‘Halès (Thomas de)’, DHGE XXIII, 135–136;
Idem, ‘Thomas de Halès’, DSpir XV, 816–817; Victorin Doucet, ‘Maitres francis-
cains de Paris: Supplément au Répertoire de P. Glorieux’, AFH 27 (1934), 536–537;
Angelo, ‘Poesia francescana inglese prima di Geoffrey Chaucer’, passim; S.M. Horrall,
‘Thomas of Hales. His Life and Works’, Traditio 42 (1986), 286–298; A Handlist of
the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard Sharpe, Publications
of The Journal of Medieval Latin, 1 (Turnhout, 1997), 659.
177
Luue-Ron (Love Song, composed between 1252–1272): MS Oxford, Jesus College
29. The text has been edited three times, namely as The Luue-Ron, ed. R. Morris,
in: Old English Miscellany (Oxford, 1872), 93–99, as Luue Ron, in English Lyrics of the
Thirteenth Century, ed. Carleton Brown (Oxford, 1932), 68–74 (no. 43), and as The
Luue-Ron, in Early Middle English Texts, ed. B. Dickens & R.H. Wilson (Cambridge,
1952), 104–109. He also is mentioned as the author of a Vita Beatae Virginis (which
was translated into Middle English as The Lyf of Oure Lady). In addition, Thomas
would have compiled several rather meditative sermons. Only one of these, an
Anglo-Norman text, seems to have survived. Vita Beatae Virginis/The Lyf of Oure Lady:
MSS Cologne, Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, G.B. Fol. 86; Madrid, Biblioteca
Nacional 8769; Oxford, Bodleian Hatton 102; Oxford, Bodleian Rawlinson D. 1236;
Schägl 158 [454.a]67; Oxford, Bodleian Bodley 655; Oxford, Bodleian Add. A. 268;
Basel, Universitätsbibliothek B. VIII 1; Basel, Universitätsbibliothek N VI 13;
Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek Cod. M.ch. f. 109; Vienna, Österreichische National-
bibliothek Vind. Pal. 4670; Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College 437; Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 18324; Mainz, Stadtbibliothek I 343 f. 109r; Graz,
Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Gracensis 241; London, Gray’s Inn 12. The work has
survived in no less than 16 manuscripts. Two others have been lost. The English
song hails Christ the saviour as the model of authentic and perfect
love. It contrasts the love of Christ with the famous fatal passions
of mythological figures, such as Paris and Helena and Tristan and
Isolde (figures with whom an aristocratic audience would have been
well-acquainted). The earthy love of the latter is vain and precari-
ous (and depicted with an ubi sunt approach known from medieval
death poetry), and all these lovers have turned into the clay from
which they had been formed. Christ, on the other hand, is the model
of authentic love that will not fade.178
Thomas still wrote a considerable part of his works in Anglo-
Norman. He had this in common with Nicholas Bozon (d. 1320),
whose Contes Moralisés and versified sermons have been dealt with in
my chapter on Franciscan preaching as religious instruction.179 On
top of these versified sermons, which by its editor have been con-
nected with the Northern French ‘homiletic’ poetry tradition exemplified
by Hélinant de Froidmont’s Vers de la Mort, Raoul de Houdenc’s
Songe d’Enfer and Huon de Méry’s Tournoiement d’Antécrist,180 Nicholas
wrote a large number of additional lyrical pieces. Some of these
lyrics found their way into his Contes, whereas others survived sepa-
rately. Among these can be singled out an intricate Gospel poem
on the love of God, several passion allegories and poems on the
translation and the Latin text have been edited by Sarah M. Horrall, in: Idem, The
Lyf of Oure Lady: The ME Translation of Thomas of Hales’ Vita Sancte Marie, Middle
English Texts, 17 (Heidelberg, 1985). Horrall (296) suggests that ‘Thomas is in fact
writing almost exactly the same kind of work as the slightly later and enormously
influential Meditationes vitae Christi . . .’, combining an encyclopaedic scope with a very
strong emotional appeal. Thomas’ only surviving Anglo Norman meditative sermon,
found in MS Oxford, St. John’s College 190, has been edited by M. Dominica
Legge, ‘The Anglo-Norman Sermon of Thomas of Hales’, Modern Language Review
30 (1935), 212–218.
178
‘Mayde, if thu wilnest after leofmon/ich techne enne treowe king./A swete,
if thu inowe/ the gode thewes of thisse childe,/ he is feyr & bryht on hoewe,/ of
glese chere, of mode mydle,/ of lufsum lost, of truste treowe,/freo of teorte, of wis-
dom wilde,/ ne thurhte the neuer rewe,/mythestu do the in his ylde.’ vv. 87–96
(Maiden, if you long for a lover/ Teach you of one who is a true king/Ah, sweet,
if you but knew/ the good strengths of this Lord/ He is fair and bright of hue/
of gladsome cheer, of manner mild/ he is pleasing in love and worthy of trust/
noble of heart and full of wisdom./Never will you have to rue/ if you put your-
self under his protection). Fleming, ‘The friars and medieval English literature’,
349–375, 363.
179
On the phenomenon of Anglo-Norman poetry in general, see D.L. Jeffrey &
B.J. Levy, The Anglo-Norman Lyric: an anthology (Toronto, 1990).
180
Cf. Nine Verse Sermons by Nicholas Bozon, ed. & comm. Brian J. Levy, Medium
Aevum Monographs New Series, XI (Oxford, 1981), 13–14.
294 chapter four
Virgin (a versified supplication prayer, two Ave Maria’s, an annunci-

ation poem and a Plainte Nostre-Dame),181 eleven poetic saints’ lives (the
materials of which are predominantly drawn from the Legenda Aurea),182
several allegorical works (a.o. the Debat de l’Yver et de l’Esté (attrib-
uted) and the Desputeyson du cors et de l’alme),183 two poems on the sin
of pride (Le Char d’Orgueil; La Lettre de l’Empereur Orgueil ),184 and a
series of poems on moral, behavioural, and educational issues, notably
the Plainte d’Amour on the lamentable state of Church and State, the
Proverbes de bon enseignement,185 the Les femmes de la pie (an anti-feminist
satire),186 the De la bounté des femmes (extolling the virtue of women),187
and the Tretis de denaturesse, a poem on ‘un-natural’ behaviour.188
181
For Bozon’s passion poems, gospel poems and poems on the Virgin see: MSS
London, British Library Additonal 46919 (= Phillips MS 8336) ff. 38–40; London,
British Library Cotton Jul.A.V; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 405; Oxford,
Bodleian, Rawlinson Poetry 241; Dublin, Trinity College D.4.18; London, Cotton
Dominitian IX. See also the remarks in Les contes moralisés de Nicole Bozon, frère mineur,
ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith & Paul Meyer, Société des Anciens Textes Français (Paris,
1889), xli–xliv. Several of Bozon’s poetic pieces are reminiscent of exempla/sermon
elements by Gui d’Evreux OP (Paris, BN Lat. 15966 f. 46v) and Albert de Metz
OFM (Paris, BN Lat. 14952 f. 68), both of whom were active around 1300. For
editions, see: Seven More Poems by Nicholas Bozon, ed. M.A. Klenke (New York, 1951);
M.A. Klenke, ‘An Anglo-Norman Gospel Poem by Nicholas Bozon (?)’, Studies in
Philology 48 (1951), 250–266; Nouveau recueil, ed. Jubinal II, 309.
182
For editions, see: Nicholas Bozon: Three Saints’ Lives, ed. M.A. Klenke (New
York, 1947); Ludwig Karl, ‘Vie de sainte Elisabeth de Hongrie, par Nicole Bozon’,
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 34 (1910), 295–314. The beginning of the versified
saints’ life of Agnes has been published in Les contes moralisés de Nicole Bozon, frère
mineur, ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith & Paul Meyer, Société des Anciens Textes Français
(Paris, 1889), xlviii–lii.
183
MS London, British Library Additonal 46919 (= Phillips MS 8336); British
Library, Arundel 288 f. 247.
184
Le Char d’Orgueil is an allegorical poem of 500 alexandrine verses divided into
quatrains. It deals with Orgueil, a female figure and supposedly a daughter of
Lucifer, who rides a chariot: MS Cambridge, University Library Gg 6.28 ff. 1–8;
London, British Library Additonal 46919 (= Phillips MS 8336) ff. 66–74; London,
British Library Old Royal 8.E.XVII f. 108v; Oxford, Bodleian Bodley 425 f. 94.
Le Char d’Orgueil and La Lettre de l’Empereur Orgueil are edited in: Johan Vising, Deux
Poèmes de Nicholas Bozon (Goteborg, 1919).
185
A.o. MS Oxford, Bodleian 425. In all, this poem would have survived in nine
manuscripts.
186
La femme comparée à la pie: MS London, British Library Additonal 46919 (= Phillips
MS 8336) f. 75; London, British Library Harley 2253 f. 112. It has been edited in
Nouveau recueil, ed. Jubinal II, 326 & Specimen of lyric poetry, ed. Th. Wright no. xxxviii.
187
De la bonté des femmes: MS London, British Library Additonal 46919 (= Phillips
MS 8336) ff. 93r–95v. De la bonté des femmes is edited in Les contes moralisés de Nicole
Bozon, frère mineur, ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith & Paul Meyer, Société des Anciens
Textes Français (Paris, 1889), xxxiii–xli.
188
MS London, British Library Additonal 46919 (= Phillips MS 8336) ff. f. 49v.
The English Franciscan poetic output continued to flourish through-

out the fourteenth century. Major Franciscan poets from this period—
on top of Lawrence Briton, John Brackley and John Lathbury, to
each of whom a small number of poems or carols can be assigned189—
are Michael of Kildare (Southern Ireland, fl. c. 1320), the learned
theologian William Herebert (d. 1333), the redoubtable Franciscan
bishop Richard Ledrede from Surrey (1275–c. 1361), and friar John
Grimestone (fl. c. 1372).
Friar Michael wrote in the 1320s at Kildare (south-east Ireland)
a manuscript compilation or ‘commonplace book’. This subsequently
became known under a variety of names, such as The Book of Wexford
(or Waterford), The Book of Kildare, or The Book of Ross. In this com-
pilation can be found selected sayings of Francesco d’Assisi, a list of
Franciscan provinces, religious reflections, as well as poems (in all
31 Latin pieces, 3 French pieces, and 17 Middle English texts).190
These poems can be divided into 1.) straightforward lyrics on the
love of Christ, the importance of grace, the ten commandments and
‘Denaturesse’ is the absence of charity and love for one’s neighbour. Bozon espe-
cially criticises lack of charity within families.
189
Lawrence Briton was lector at Oxford around 1340. One of his sermons with
English and Latin verses eventualy found its way into Bishop Sheppey’s fourteenth-
century sermon anthology (MS Oxford, Merton College, 248 ff. 131–132b). A small
collection of carols for three voices or plain song, written by John Brackley (active
in the Norwich area), can be found in MS London, British Library Add. 5666 ff.
22–83. Cf. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 173, 221, note
65. The English friar John Lathbury (d. 1362) wrote Latin verses in the context of
his commentary on Lamentations (ca. 1350). Beryl Smalley, ‘John Lathbury’, in:
Idem, English Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1960), 220–239
informs us that (pp. 228–229): ‘An anthology of Latin religious verse could be
assembled from his commentary. Versification interested him so much that he gave
a short lesson on the subject in connection with the metre of Lamentations. The
gist of it comes from Jerome and Isidore, but he illustrates their argument by quot-
ing his own examples. He makes lists of biblical and classical heroes to explain the
subject matter of heroic poetry and he compares Lamentations to a Latin poem
about Edward the Confessor. Needless to say, he puts classical and medieval poetry
on the same level, choosing his examples mainly from medieval.’
190
MS British Library Harley 913 (Cf. E.B. Fitzmaurice & A.G. Little, Materials
for the History of the Franciscan provinces in Ireland, A.D. 1230–1450 (Manchester, 1920),
121ff.). For an edition of the poems, see: Die Kildare-Gedichte: die ältesten mittelenglis-
chen Denkmaler in Anglo-Irischer Überlieferung, ed. W. Heuser (Bonn, 1904; Reprint
Darmstadt, 1964); ‘The Poem of Friar Michael’, in The New Oxford Book of Irish
Verse, ed. Th. Kinsella (Oxford, 1986), 117–121. See M. Benskin, ‘The Style and
Authorship of the Kildare Poems . . .’, in: In Other Words. Transcultural Studies in
Philology, Translation and Lexicography, Presented to Hans Heinrich Meier, ed. J.L. MacKenzie
& R. Todd (Dordrecht, 1989), 57–75.
296 chapter four
the seven capital sins;191 2.) lyrics with a strong moral import on the
state of the world, man’s inescapable suffering, the unhappiness of
earthy love, and the frailty of life;192 and 3.) satirical poems on the
land of Cokeyne, the faults of the old monastic orders, and the ridicu-
lous claims of philosophy and learning.193
The poems of William Herebert are found in a comparable com-
monplace book, which our poet apparently compiled and kept together
with other manuscripts during his tenure as a lector at Hereford
(after ca. 1300) and as a regent lector of the Franciscan Oxford
studium (ca. 1320).194 Not all of the rather elegant Latin sermons and
twenty-three identified English poems gathered by William were his
original creations in the modern sense of the word.195 He was a ded-
icated, if not always totally successful translator of Latin hymns ‘of
the genre that were increasingly being adopted for communal use
in the lay confraternities and guilds under mendicant sponsorship.’196
These translations include English renderings of by then well-known
pieces, such as Veni Creator Spiritus, Conditor Alme Siderum, Ave Maris
191
‘Swet Jhesus, hend ad fre’, ‘The grace of godde and holi chirche’, ‘The grace
of ihsu fulle of might’, ‘Behold to thi Lord, whare he hangith on rode’, ‘The grace
of God full of might’, ‘Now ihsu for thi derworth blode’, which is an instruction
on the ten commandments, and ‘The king of heuen mid us be’, which might be
regarded as an incomplete rhymed sermon à la Nicholas Bozon on the seven cap-
ital sins.
192
‘Bissop lorless’, the lullaby ‘Lollai, lollai, litil child, whi wepistou so sore?’,
‘Elde makith me geld’, ‘Love havith me broght in lithir ghoght’, ‘Whan erth hath
erth iwonne with wow’, ‘Whose thenchith up this carful life’, ‘Sith Gabriel gan
grete’.
193
‘Fur in see bi west spaygne’, ‘Hail, seint Michel with the lange sper’, ‘Hit nis
both trewth, I wend, and afte’.
194
In all, seven manuscripts once were in his possession. These are corrected
and annotated in his own hand: MSS London, British Library Royal 7.A.iv; London,
British Library Royal 7.F.vii; London, British Library Royal 7.F.viii; London, British
Library Cotton Nero A.ix; London, British Library Egerton 3133; Oxford, Bodleian
Rawlinson C.308; Hereford, Cathedral Library O.iv.
195
All these (six sermons, three sermon outlines and 23 English poems) have
been edited as The Works of William Herebert, OFM., ed. Stephen R. Reimer, Studies
and Texts, 81 (Toronto, 1987). For more information, see Paul Meyer, ‘Notice et
extraits du MS 8336 de la Bibliothèque de Sir Thomas Phillips à Cheltenham’,
Romania 13 (1884), 497–541; B. Schofield, ‘The manuscript of a fourteenth-century
Oxford franciscan’, British Museum Quarterly 16 (1951), 36–37; R.H. Robbins, ‘Friar
Herebert and the Carol’, Anglia. Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 73 (1957), 194–198;
Handlist, ed. Sharpe, 774; Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality,
passim; Ready, ‘The Marian Lyrics of Jacopone da Todi and Friar William Herebert’,
221–238.
196
Fleming, ‘The friars and medieval English literature’.
Stella and Alma Redemptoris Mater. On top of that, William reworked

several Anglo-Norman poems ascribed to Nicholas Bozon, with whose
Contes Moralisés he was well-acquainted.197
Richard Ledrede, like friar Michael of Kildare made his career
in the Irish province. Originally from Surrey, he took his theology
lectorate courses most likely at the Franciscan non-degree studium
generale in Avignon, where he came to the attention of John XXII.
In 1317, Pope John assigned him to the episcopal see of Ossory in
Ireland (1317). During his episcopate, Richard ran into a series of
conflicts, predominantly with Anglo-Irish settlers. Moreover, he became
entangled in the succession struggles surrounding the English crown.
This cost Richard the favour of the new King Edward III, forcing
him to spend a range of years on the continent and in England,
away from his Irish diocese (between 1329 and 1349). Richard’s
mixed reputation among present-day scholars is predominantly based
on his zeal in persecuting alleged heretics. Most infamous is Richard’s
role (during the early years of his episcopate) in the witchcraft per-
secution of Dame Alice Kyteler and her acquaintances. Alice, a
wealthy Kilkenny woman whose affluence according to the accusa-
tions was obtained with the help of the dark arts, was able to escape
to England. But at least one other person belonging to this ‘diabol-
ical nest of heretics’ (to use Ledrede’s own words as recorded in sur-
viving case accounts), namely Alice’s servant Petronella de Midia
(Petronilla of Meath), after having confessed under torture, was burned
at the stake in Kilkenny on November 3, 1324.198
197
Hence, MS London, British Library Additonal 46919 (= Phillips MS 8336),
William’s partly autograph commonplace book, contains on ff. 120–153 the Contes
Moralisés. To these William added other texts from other preachers, as well as var-
ious materials that can be ascribed to his own literary endeavours. On ff. 157v–158
we find some of William’s sermon notes; on ff. 159r–179v we find five of his ser-
mons and two sermon outlines; on ff. 18v–184v we come across another sermon;
folio 204v contains the poem ‘quomodo se habet homo’ and yet another sermon
outline, and on ff. 205r–211v can be found nineteen poems in Middle English, var-
ious of which go back to Nicholas Bozon.
198
According to the Franciscan chronicler John Clyn, this was the first execu-
tion for heresy in Ireland. Another Franciscan bishop, Roger Cradock, bishop of
Waterford (1350–61) brought several Irish people to trial in Killaloe (where he did
not have official jurisdiction). These people were burned in 1355. Richard contin-
ued his ‘inquisitorial’ activities throughout the active years of his episcopate. This
brought him several enemies inside and outside his diocese (as can be seen from
1351 accusations that Ledrede was trumping up charges of heresy against simple
people in order to extort money from them). See: Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler
298 chapter four
Aside from such rather ruthless dealings, Richard is foremost known

for the Latin religious songs that he collected in the so-called Red
Book of Ossory.199 These Latin songs had to be sung on popular
melodies, as can be deduced from the clichés or timbres that furnish
twelve of Richard’s compositions, indicating which melodies of pop-
(1324), ed. T. Wright, Camden Society Publications 24 (1843); J. Cotter, The Friars Minor
in Ireland from their Arrival to 1400, Franciscan Institute Publications, History Series,
7 (St. Bonaventure NY, 1994); Norman Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons (New York,
1975), 198–205; Anne Neary, ‘The Origins and Character of the Kilkenny Witch-
Craft Case of 1324’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Sec. C, 83, n. 13 (1983),
330–50; James Brennan, ‘Richard Ledrede, bishop of Ossory—towards a new assess-
ment’, Old Kilkenny Review 50 (1998), 10–19.
199
The Red Book of Ossory (c. 1360): MS Kilkenny, Episcopal Library (unnum-
bered). This manuscript is an archival collection of diocesan documents, collected
by Richard Ledrede and his sucessors. On ff. 6–10 we find Ledrede’s synodal
decrees, and on ff. 70r–77r are found his sixty Latin poems or songs, some of which
follow the melodies of vernacular songs (cf. numbers 8, 11, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 28,
30, 34, 40, and 41). The raison d’être of these songs in the manuscript is given on
f. 70r: ‘Attende, lector, quod Episcopus Ossoriensis fecit istas cantilenas pro vicariis
ecclesiae cathedralis, sacerdotibus et clericis suis ad cantandum in magnis festis et
solatiis ne guttera eorum et ora deo sanctificata pulluantur cantilenis teatralibus,
turpibus et secularibus, et cum sint cantatores, provideant sibi de notis conventi-
entibus secundum quod dictamina requirunt.’ Thirteen songs deal with Christmas
(numbers 1 to 5, 10, 41, 47–49, 56–58), ten are for Epiphany (numbers 8, 11, 13,
15, 33, 35, 38, 39, 51, 59), and ten for Easter (numbers 19 to 28). The titles of
the poems are: (1, f. 70a) Cantilena de nativitate domini (Verbo caro factum est);
(2, f. 70a) Alia cantilena de eodem festo (Natus est de virgine); (3, f. 70b) De eodem
Festo (Vale mater Christi, virgo regia, in te mea spes); (4, f. 70b) De eodem Festo
(Nato Marie filio); (5, f. 70c) Lingua manu opere; (6, f. 70c) Fons salutis nostre
plene; (7, f. 70d) En christi fit memoria; (8, f. 70d) Have mercy of me frere-Laus
Christo regi nato; (9, f. 70d) Da da nobis nunc; (10, f. 71a) De radice virginis; (11,
f. 71a) Mayde yn the moore lay-peperit virgo, virgo regia; (12, f. 71a–b) Christi
parentele-laus domini; (13, f. 71b) Jubila rutila mater ecclesia; (14, f. 71b) Vale virgo
christifera; (115, f. 71c) Cum Christus nascitur de matre virgine; (16, f. 71c) Amoris
vinculo nos dei filius attraxit dulciter; (17 f. 71c–d) Alas hou sholdy synge-Succure
mater Christi; (18, f. 71d) Harrow ieo su trahy Par fol amour de mal amy-Jhesu
lux vera seculi; (19, f. 71d–72a) Have mercie on me frere barfote that ygo-Jam
Christo moriente luxit ecclesia; (20, f. 72a) Resurexit dominus; (21, f. 72a–b) Dire
mortis datus pene; (22, f. 72b) Do do nightyngale synges ful myrie-Dies ista gaudij;
(23, f. 72b–c) En christi fit memoria, Plangentis Christi wlnera; (24, f. 72c–d) Have
god day my lemmon et cetera-Resurgenti cum gloria gaudeat ecclesia; (25, f. 72d)
Assunt festa paschalia gaudet mater ecclesia; (26, f 72d–73a) Resurexit a mortuis;
(27, f. 73a) Dies venit dies tua; (28, f. 73b) Have merci of me frere-Maria noli flere
sepulcro domini; (29, f. 73b) Languenti morbo funeris; (30, f. 73c) Gayneth me no
garlond of greene bot hit ben of wythoues ywroght-Verum est quod legi satis plene
codice sacro volumine; (31, f. 73c) Parens partum peperisti Jhesum dei filium; (32,
f. 73c–d) Luca qua letatur mater ecclesia; (33, f. 73d) Rutilat ecclesia jubilat in mente;
(34, f. 74a) Do do nyetyngale synges wel mury-Regem adoremus superne curie; (35,
f. 74a–b) Gaude virgo mater christi; (36, f. 74b) Christe redemptor omnium; (37,
f. 74b–c) Miserans miserans parce redemptis; (38, f. 74c) Jhesu lux vera mencium;
ular secular songs should be put to use. Richard’s Latin songs and
hymns, many of which contain direct or indirect references to hymns
and antiphons found in the Franciscan breviary and in other litur-
gical books, provide both laudatory and explicit catechetical mes-
sages for the clerics in Richard’s cathedral church. These clerics were
supposed to perform these songs and hymns publicly during special
feast days, and in private at moments of leisure, so that they would
not be tempted to besmirch the church by singing scandalous and
lewd words in their free time. The editor of the 1974 Toronto edi-
tion of these texts suggests that Ledrede’s poems betray a religious
sentimentality akin to that found in the Meditationes Vitae Christi.
Yet another preacher’s commonplace book was compiled in 1372
by the English Franciscan preacher John Grimestone. This booklet
contains a miscellaneous, alphabetically organised (mainly Latin)
exempla collection, covering 143 topics. In between are scattered such
a large number of English rhymes and poems that, among Anglicists,
John Grimestone is reckoned among the most important compilers
of religious lyrics in the fourteenth century. It would seem that only
twenty-two lyrics of Grimestone’s collection have been published thus
(39, f. 74c–d) Novum lumen apparuit; (40, f. 74d) Heu alas paramour-Vale mater
virgo pura; (41, f. 74d–75a) Hey how the chavaldoures woke al nyght-En parit virgo
regia en parit virgo regia; (42, f. 75a) Jhesu bone Jhesu pie; (43, f. 75a–b) Summe
deus clemencie; (44, f. 75b) Scandenti supra sidera; (45, f. 75–b–c) O deus sancte
spiritus; (46, f. 75c) Spiritus sanctus gracia in quo clarescunt omnia; (47, f. 75d)
Canite canite wltu iocundo; (48, f. 75d) De solo rutilo sol alter oritur; (49, f. 76a)
Verbum virgineum in venter properat; (50, f. 76a) Verbum virgineum inpregnans
uterum; (51, f. 76b) Magi repatriant post data munera; (52, f. 76a–b) Maria deco-
quit panem salvificum; (53, f. 76b–c) Stupens intueor ventrem christifere; (54, f. 76d)
O dei genitrix cui nulla similis; (55, f. 76d) Consendit Salamon ventrale ferculum;
(56, f. 76d–77a) Maria virgo genuit manentem supra sidera; (57, f. 77a) Laudet cor
deo deditum divinum natalicium; (58, f. 77a) O verbum dei filius deus origine; (59,
f. 77a–b) Caritate nimia letemur hodie nos deo diligente; (60, f. 77b) Videbitis qualis
et quantis Error in illecebris mundi sit. For modern editions, see The latin Poems of
Richard Ledrede, O.F.M. Bishop of Ossory, 1317–1360, ed. Edmund Colledge, PIMS
Studies and Texts, 30 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1974); The Latin Hymns of Richard Ledrede,
ed. T. Stemmler (Mannheim, 1975). Ledrede’s synodal decrees from the same man-
uscript are edited by David Wilkins, in: Concilia (London, 1737) II, 501–506, and
by Aubrey Osborn Gwynn, in Idem, ‘Provincial and Diocesan Decrees of the Diocese
of Dublin during the Anglo-Norman Period’, Archivum Hibernicum 11 (1944), 31–117
(on pp. 58–71). See also Katherine Mary Lanigan, ‘Richard de Ledrede’, The Old
Kilkenny Review. Journal of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society 15 (1963), 23–29; R.L.
Greene, The Lyrics of the Red Book of Ossory (Oxford, 1974); A.G. Rigg, ‘The Red
Book of Ossory’, Medium Aevum 46 (1977), 269–278 (a lucid commentary on and
comparison of the editions).
300 chapter four
far. One of these lyrics is a devotional poem that relives the pas-
sion of Christ in a very evocative manner, following the liturgical
hours (not unlike the Latin Philomena by Pecham and some laude by
Jacopone da Todi). Yet another carol-like poem evolves into a
Christmas day lullaby-dialogue between the Virgin and her child,
anticipating the passion and the sorrow to come. Comparable car-
ols comprise a nativity song evoking the mystery of Christmas, a
song dealing with Mary’s miraculous pregnancy and how Joseph
overcomes his doubts about the child’s paternity, further lullabies to
the Christ child (one of which is an adaptation of a poem found in
the Kildare collection), a song in which the Christ child weeps from
the cradle for the sins of man, etc.200
The British tradition to incorporate poems and tag-rhymes in com-
monplace books and comparable sermon booklets continued well into
the fifteenth century, as is exemplified by the sermon booklets com-
piled by the itinerant preacher Nicholas Philip (fl. c. 1433) from the
Cambridge custody, which intersperse Latin and English sermon out-
lines and sermons of famous practitioners (such as William of Middle-
town) with English verses and miscellaneous macaronic passages.201
200
The other poems of Grimestone include an appeal of Mary to the Jews (a
planctus, asking the Jews to stop the torture of Christ, very much in line with late-
medieval anti-Judaic diatribes present in Franciscan texts of passsion devotion); a
song of mercy (asking God to show mercy on man’s sins); a rhymed version of
Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane; a poem representing Jesus as the champion of man;
a Lamentatio Dolorosa depicting Mary at the foot of the cross; Christ’s love song to
man (which enticed Him to leave heaven and to suffer for mankind); a poetic dia-
logue between the crucified Jesus and Mary (passion meditation dialogue); Ecce sto
ad Hostium et Pulso (Christ’s poetic invitation to man to open the door to Him, the
heavenly spouse, out of free will); a poem on Christ’s tears; Homo, vide quid pro te
patior (a lament by the suffering Christ); a poem exploiting the idea of hiding within
Christ’s side wound, to entice the reader/hearer into contemplating Christ’s phys-
ical suffering); Mi folke, nou answere me (an elaboration of the Good Friday liturgical
pasage ‘popule meus, quid feci tibi’, comparable with a poem by William Herebert);
a song on the love of Christ for man’s soul; O vos omes qui transitis per viam (a planc-
tus inspired by a responsory from the Good Friday Office: ‘O vos omnes qui tran-
sitis per viam, attendite et videte si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus.’); a lullaby
on the Christ child shivering with cold; a lyric singing the love of Christ for man
and Christ’s redemptive suffering); a song in which the dying Christ entrusts Mary
to John the apostle. ed. Carleton Brown, Religious Lyrics, 69–92. Cf. Robbins, ‘The
Earliest Carols and the Franciscans’, 243–244; Angelo, ‘English Franciscan Poetry
before Chaucer’, esp. 255–260.
201
Cf. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 175. The booklets
with the poems are contained in MS Oxford, Bodleian Library Lat.th.d.1 (ad
1430–1436) ff. 5r–177v. For an exhaustive description, see Fletcher, ‘The Sermon
Booklets of Friar Nicholas Philip’, 188–202 (reprinted in: Idem, Preaching, Politics and
Poetry in Late-Medieval England (Four Courts Press, 1998), 41–57).
The same continuity holds for the Franciscan tradition of carol writ-
ing, which in Jacob Ryman from Canterbury (d. 1492) found one
of its most productive authors, good for no less than 119 carols of
his own.202
G. Franciscan religious poetry in the

German and Spanish provinces
The large and relatively well-studied Franciscan poetic activities in

Italy and the English Isles should not lead us to overlook poetic ini-
tiatives from other regions. After all, the first Franciscan versified
hagiographical accounts of the life of Francesco d’Assisi and Antonio
di Padova were from the hand of the German friar Julian von Speyer
( Julianus Teutonicus), one-time master of the French royal chapel
and for years choir master at the Franciscan convent at Paris.203 In
southern Germany itself Franciscan experiments with religious poetry
started quite early as well. The cleric Lamprecht or Lambert von
Regensburg, an admirer of the Franciscans who soon was to join
the order, vocalised his veneration for the Friars Minor and their
founder in his versified Sanct Francisken Leben (c. 1238). This work,
predominantly based on the Vita Prima of Tommaso da Celano, is
the oldest German vernacular Franciscan saints’ life in existence and
at the same time a didactic poem (of 5049 lines) of religious instruc-
tion. The narrator presents a narrative subject, namely a young man,
who has begun to realise the folly of his frivolous life in the world
(which will lead to damnation), and expresses the wish to live the
202
Ryman’s poems can be found in MS Cambridge, University Library Hs.
Ee.I.12. They were edited by Julius Zupitza in his article ‘Die Gedichte des
Franziskaners Jacob Ryman’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literatur
89 (1892), 166–338.
203
Die Choräle Julians von Speyer zu den Reimoffizien des Franziskus- und Antoniusfestes,
ed. J.E. Weis, Veröffentlichungen des kirchenhistorisches Seminars München, 6
(Munich, 1901); Die liturgischen Reimofficien auf die Heiligen Franziskus und Antonius gedichtet
und componiert durch Frater Julian von Speyer, ed. H. Felder (Fribourg, 1901); S. Francisci
et S. Anthonii patavini officia rhythmica auctore Fr. Juliano a Spira, ed. H. Dausend, in:
Opuscula et textus historiam Ecclesiae eiusque vitam atque doctrinam illustrantia. Series liturgica,
V (1934), 12–33; AF X (1926–1941), 372–382 (Officium S. Francisci). See also J.M.
Miskuly, ‘Julian of Speyer. Life of St. Francis’, FS 49 (1989), 93–174 (with an
English translation of the text); J.M. Miskuly & M. Bienentreu, Julian von Speyer
(Werl, 1989). The first versified vita of Francesco was not of Franciscan provenance
but stems from the secular cleric Henry d’Avranche. See Teofilo Domenichelli, ‘La
leggenda versificata, o il più antico poema di San Francesco’, AFH 1 (1908), 209–216.
302 chapter four
apostolic life along the lines of the Friars Minor. In the course of
the poem, Francesco d’Assisi is hailed as the perfect example of a
man who has turned to God.204
Considering the fact that Lamprecht shortly thereafter was to join
the order, this versification can be read as a testimony of personal
conversion. After Lamprecht’s entrance in the order, his provincial
minister asked him to write another poem on finding God. The
result was Diu Tohter Syon/Tochter Syon (c. 1248), a poem of 4312
strophes, around themes taken from the Song of Songs 3, 2 & 5, 6
(‘Quaesivi illum et non inveni’) and Jesaiah 6, 1 & 62, 11 (on the
daughters of Sion). It gives an allegorical representation of the spir-
itual marriage or mystical union between the soul (the daughter of
Sion) and the heavenly groom (Christ). It would seem that Lamprecht’s
work was a versified vernacular reworking of a Cistercian daughter
of Sion treatise (De Languore Animae Amantis/Liber Amoris), to which
Lamprecht might have been given access by his provincial minister,
friar Gerard (mentioned in lines 46ff. and 140ff.).205 Considering the
204
Sanct Franciscken Leben: MS Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek Mp. theol. 6. 17a
ff. 11v–118r (13th cent.) The work, one of the oldest surviving pieces of German
Franciscan literature, did not have a large reception. For a modern edition, see:
Lamprecht von Regensburgs Sanct Francisken Leben und Tochter Syon, ed. Karl Weinhold
(Basel, 1880), 43–260. See also Norbert Richard Wolf, ‘Beobachtungen zum ‘Fran-
ziskusleben’ Lamprechts von Regensburg’, FrSt 60 (1978), 155–167, who remarks
(165): ‘. . . Sein [i.e. Lamprecht’s] Text hat die (rhetorische) Absicht, persuasiv beim
Publikum eine ‘Verhaltens—bzw. Einstellungsbestätigung oder—veränderung zu
bewirken. Der prolog basiert im wesentlichen auf dem Kontrast zweier Isotopieebenen,
wobei diese in funktionaler Opposition, in einem polaren Verhältnis zueinander ste-
hen. Es ist eindeutig, für welchen Pol sich das Publikum, das immer wieder durch
Sentenzen bzw. sentenzhafte Formulierungen motiviert wird, entscheiden soll.
Lamprecht arbeitet (. . .) von Anfang an auf ein Einverständnis mit seinem Publikum
hin. So gesehen, wird das Leben des Heiligen in erster Linie zu einem wichtigen
Glied in der Argumentationskette . . .’.
205
Tochter Syon: MSS Nürnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum cod. 42563/64
(second half 13th cent.; fragments); Prague, Národní Muzeum cod. XJ 13 ff. Ira-
XXXIvb (second half 13th cent.); Berlin, Staatbibliothek mgo 403 (olim Lobris/
Schlesien, Gräfliche Nostitzische Bibliothek) ff. 19r–59v (anno 1314); Gießen, Univer-
sitätsbibliothek cod. 102 ff. 1r–99v (second half 14th cent.). Lamprecht’s Tochter Syon
has been edited in: Lamprecht von Regensburgs Sanct Franciscken Leben und Tochter Syon,
ed. K. Weinhold (Basel, 1880), 261–544. W. Wichgraf, ‘Der Traktat von der Tochter
von Syon und seine Bearbeitung’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur
46 (1922), 173–231 (includes an edition of a late medieval prose adaptation found
in MS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 29 pp. 177–181 (15th cent.)); Kurt Ruh,
‘Fragmente der Tochter von Syon Lamprechts von Regensburg’, Zeitschrift für deutsches
Altertum 100 (1971), 346–349 has published a fragment of the work that according
to him represents the oldest witness of the text. For editions of medieval Dutch
versions, see: Van der Dochtere van Syon (Antwerp, 1492), facsimile reprint appeared
number of surviving copies and subsequent adaptations, Lamprecht’s

reworking was relatively well-received in Franciscan and non-Franciscan
male and female religious communities.206
Whereas Lamprecht conceived his poems for meditative reading
purposes within mendicant and monastic settings, several German
Franciscan preachers stimulated the composition and the use of lyri-
cal poetry with different aims in mind. Just like their Italian and
English confreres, these German preachers were keen to tap into the
poetics of popular culture, and to transform popular lyrics into vehi-
cles of religious instructions at homiletic and catechistic encounters.
Evidence for such initiatives is first of all found in the edited sermons
of Berthold von Regensburg, which encourage preachers to compose
religious songs for use in the pulpit and to borrow the poetic tech-
niques of heretics in order to fight them with their own means.207 If
this evidence is anything to go by, there must have been a significant
Franciscan output of didactic lyrical poetry in the German lands.
Fragments of this output might still be hidden in sermon manuscripts,
albeit that the Franciscan provenance of such lyrics will not always
be easy to ascertain. The relative lack of proper studies in these
matters, certainly compared with the attention given to Franciscan
as Van der Dochtere van Syon, introd. J. van Mierlo (Antwerp, 1941). Cf. Gesamtkatalog
der Wiegendrucke (Leipzig, 1938) VII, no. 8589; Van der Dochtere van Syon, ed. J.-M.
Willeumier-Schaly, in: Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche Taal- en Letterkunde 67 (1949), 1–23.
Cf. CF Bibliographia Franciscana 11 (1954–1957), 256, n. 986. This edition is based
on an older text. For more information, see L. Reypens, ‘Het latijnsche Origineel
der Allegorie van der Dochtere van Syon’, OGE 17/2 (1943), 174–178; J. Morson
& H. Costello, ‘‘Liber Amoris’. Was it written by Guerric of Igny?’, Cîteaux 16
(1965), 125–135; Margo Schmidt, ‘Einflüsse der ‘Regio dissimilitudinis’ auf der
deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters’, Revue des études augustiniennes 17 (1971), 299–313
(310–313); M. Schmidt, ‘Lambert (Lamprecht) de Ratisbonne’, DSpir IX (1976),
142–143; M. Schierling, ‘Lamprecht von Regensburg’, Neue deutsche Biographie 13
(Bonn, 1982), 466; J. Heinzle, ‘Lamprecht von Regensburg’, VL2 V, 521–524.
206
Lamprecht alludes to contemporary female mystics in Brabant and Bavaria,
possible signs that such women were considered to be part of the Franciscan reli-
gious network. Steer, ‘David von Augsburg und Berthold von Regensburg: Schöpfer
der volkssprachigen franziskanischen Traktat- und Predigtliteratur’, 99 remarks that
Lamprecht was still using versified means to bring his religious message, whereas
David von Augsburg and Berthold von Regensburg, Franciscan authors of the ‘next
generation’, would have opted for the medium of prose. Considering the fact that
many preachers, Berthold von Regensburg included, made an avid use of rhymes,
songs and poetry in general to drive their religious message home, this conclusion
seems unwarranted.
207
Berthold von Regensburg, Vollständige Ausgabe seiner Predigten, ed. Franz Pfeiffer
(Berlin, 1862–1880), I, 405–406. Cf. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan
Spirituality, 130–131.
304 chapter four
religious lyrics from the British isles makes it difficult to provide a

preliminary inventory.208
This being said, I know of several friars active in the German
lands, Bohemia and in the Polish vicariate, who interspersed their
sermon booklets and rapiaria with didactic and outright catechistic
poems. The oldest example known to me is Johann Sintram from
Würzburg (1380–1450), who after an international student career
distinguished himself as a lector both in the Cologne and in the
Bavaria province. In 1444, he handed over no less than 61 manu-
scripts to the Franciscan convent of Würzburg (as has been noticed
in Chapter I).209
Some of these manuscripts contain Sintram’s own sermons or
homiletic materials, as well as exempla compiled from other sources,
such as the Franciscan Fasciculus Morum and the Moralitates by the
Dominican friar Robert Holcot. At several junctures, Sintram inter-
spersed such materials with ‘Predigtverse’ (sermon poems) and German
translations of Latin hymns. This is for instance the case in MS
London, British Library MS Add. 44055,210 MS New York, Pierpont
Morgan Library cod. M. 298,211 MS Würzburg, Franziskanerkloster
208
This is even more true for the lyrical poetry produced in the convents of
Poor Clares. One example of the latter is the late fifteenth-century poetry from the
Villingen convent. See: Alemania Franciscana Antiqua XVII, 213–215; Kurt Ruh, ‘Unser
frouwen fischli und fogeli. Nonnenverse aus dem Klarissenkloster Villingen’, VL X2,
89f.
209
I have derived most information on these manuscripts from Nigel F. Palmer,
‘Sintram, Johannes OFM’, VL2 VIII, 1284–1287 and Cl. Schmitt, ‘Jean Sintram’,
DHGE XXVII, 633. Nigel Palmer (p. 1284) remarks: ‘Seine Bedeutung für die
Literatur- und Ordensgeschichte besteht darin, daß er im Laufe seines Studiums
und während seiner Tätigkeit als Lektor und Prediger eine große Sammlung von
handschriftlichen Predigtmaterialen anlegte, die er zu einem nicht geringen Teil sel-
ber geschrieben hatte und deren Glossen, Marginalien und Ergänzungen einen
Einblick in die Arbeitsweise eines engagierten Minoritenpredigers vermitteln.’ The
manuscripts copied by Sintram himself show the copiist’s familarity with the abbre-
viation system used in the legal writings of his day. This familiarity also shows in
his own quotations.
210
This manuscript contains a collection of 14 Latin exempla and 66 German
‘Verseinlagen,’ or German verses written in the margin. Most of these are transla-
tions of Latin verses from Holcot’s Moralitates, although some German verses seem
to be independent. See on these also F. Wormald, British Museum Quarterly 10
(1935–1936), 99–100.
211
This manuscript, compiled at Oxford in 1412, contains Sermones ad Statum
Mundi for various professional and trade confraternities, as well as a copy of the
Fasciculus Morum (ff. 2r–98v). In this copy, Sintram exchanged the English and Latin
‘Predigtverse’ for German ones.
cod. I 85, and MS Leeds, University Library Brotherton Collection

102. This latter manuscript contains Sintram’s own sermon poems
and a translation of the Latin hymn Gaude Virgo Maris Stella (placed
alongside of a sermon depicting Mary as a pious book of virtue and
faith).212 Another translation by Sintram of the same hymn is found
in MS Princeton, University Library Garret 90.213 The poems in
these and other manuscripts vary from laudatory poems on the Virgin
to more catechistic verses on the virtues, the vices and the ten com-
mandments. A fine example of the latter is a poem in 44 verses on
the 10 commandments and the plagues of Egypt found in MS
Würzburg, Franziskanerkloster cod. I 86 f. 39v. This poem proba-
bly was made by Sintram himself in 1405 during a sojourn at the
Franciscan convent of Ulm.214
In the autograph rapiarium or miscellany manuscript compiled by
the Bohemian or Czech friar Nikolaus von Kosel (d. after 1433) can
be found a large number of wisdom sayings and proverbs, combined
with 52 Latin and Czech songs, hymns and sequences, alongside of
school texts, historical notes and outright catechistic materials.215
212
MS Leeds, University Library, Brotherton Collection 102 is a sermon collec-
tion with a range of Johannes Sintram’s own sermons, such as a sermon he held
at Oxford in 1412 (f. 125r–126r). German ‘Predigtverse’ are found on ff. 32v–33r,
34v, 39v, 50v, 110v. On ff. 109v–119r is found Sintram’s translation of the hymn
Gaude Virgo Maris Stella.
213
This manuscript combines sermon reworkings with a range of Johannes
Sintram’s own sermons, such as a sacraments day sermon held at Reutlingen in
1415. Sintram’s translation of the Latin hymn Gaude Virgo Maris Stella is found in
MS Princeton NJ, University Library MS Garret 90 ff. 176v–177r. The Latin exam-
ple (present in the manuscript on f. 177r and transcribed by T.C. Petersen, ‘Johann
Sintram de herbipoli in two of his manuscripts’, Speculum 20 (1945), 83f.), from
which he made his translation, is substantially the same as the Latin hymn pub-
lished in F.K. Mone, Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters 2 (1854), 160–161. For an
edition of Sintram’s German translation, see Petersen, Ibidem, 81–82. On f. 201r–202v
of the manuscript is found Sintram’s Latin translation of Marquard von Lindau’s
German sermon on angels. On f. 221v we find Sintram’s Latin translation of a
German Fünf-Meister Traktat. On f. 156r can be found a Sermo de Exaltacione Crucis
by Konrad von Sachsen, replete with verses by Sintram. On f. 263r–264v is writ-
ten a sermon on Mary Magdalen, also with Sintram’s own verses. Petersen, Ibidem,
76: ‘Nearly all the sermons of the Princeton Ms., whether composed by Sintram
himself or borrowed from the works of others, were copied as outlines rather than
as finished sermons; and ample directions were given in these outlines as to how
the materials presented could be rearranged and complemented with materials
obtained elsewhere.’
214
This poem was edited by H. Haupt under the Latin title Nota Vulgariter de X
Preceptis et X Plagis Egypti in Alemannia 13 (1885), 146.
215
The surviving autograph manuscript of Nikolaus, MS Breslau (Wroclaw) I.Q.
306 chapter four
Nikolaus had entered the order in 1414, and his ministry in the
Bohemian and Czech lands coincides with the early period of the
Hussite uprising (during which Nikolaus supported the anti-Hussite
cause). It is not altogether clear to what extent Nikolaus can be con-
sidered the author of the poems in his rapiarium. It might well be
that a considerable number of them, like the other catechistic and
educational materials collected by Nikolaus, were compilations and
condensations rather than original compositions. Whatever their ori-
gin, many of the verses found in this autograph manuscript, the
Czech religious songs in particular, have good mnemonic qualities,
making them very well-suited for purposes of catechistic and devo-
tional instruction.216
As I have remarked in Chapter I, the Polish Observant friar
Ladislaus von Gielniov (c. 1440–1505), guardian of the Cracow con-
vent before 1487 and two-times vicar of the Polish Observant vic-
ariate between 1487–1490 and 1496–1499, composed a substantial
number of sermons for Sun- and feast days. Many of these sermons
address the passion of Christ, the sorrows of the Virgin and the
moral and eschatological implications of Christ’s sacrifice. Ladislaus
accompanied these sermons with a series of religious songs, which
he apparently intended to be sung or recited during and after the
religious service. Several of these songs, notably Judasz Jesusa sprzedal
( Judas has sold Christ) and some songs on the Virgin Mary became
466 started out as a letter copy book, and subsequently was used to collect for
Nikolaus’ own preaching and teaching purposes a load of (Latin, German and
Czech) theological texts, songs, hymns, sequences, smaller notices, word lists, church
songs, Bible pericopes, and a Hebrew alphabet. See Ludwig Denecke, ‘Nikolaus
von Kosel’, VL2 VI, 1089–1093.
216
Many of the Latin and Czech poems and songs have been published in
H. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, ‘Nikolaus von Kosel, ein böhmischer und deutscher
Dichter vom Jahre 1417’, Monatschrift von und für Schlesien 2 (1829), 738–751;
J. Feifalik, ‘Studien zur Geschichte der altböhmischen Literatur’, WSB 36 (1861),
211–246; Idem, ‘Untersuchungen über altböhmische Vers- und Reimkunst’, WSB
39 (1862), 281–344; J. Klapper, ‘Kirchliches Leben in Oberschlesien vor 500 Jahren.
Bruder Nikolaus von Kosel’, Aus Oberschlesiens vergangenheit und Gegenwart 2 (1922),
3–20; Idem, ‘Mal. Wandererzählungen in Oberschlesien’, MSGV 23 (1924), 85–94;
Idem, ‘Das Volksgebet im Schlesischen Mittelalter’, MSGV 33 (1934), 85–116; Idem,
‘Nicolaus von Kosel (. . .)’, MSGV 36 (1937), 1–106 (with several partial editions of
the catechetical texts etc.); Idem, ‘Die ostmd. Evangelien-Perikopen des Nikolaus
von Kosel’, Festschrift H. Vollmer (1941), 249–303; J. Janota, Studien zu Funktion und
Typus des deutschen geistlichen Liedes im Mittelalter, MTU, 23 (Munich, 1968), passim.
very popular, helping to bolster Polish devotion to the Virgin as well

as fuelling Polish anti-Semitism for generations to come.217
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, something akin to the
English carol tradition and the Italian laude can be charted in the
Low Countries as well. There, famous homiletic Observant practi-
tioners from the Franciscan Cologne province, such as Johannes
Brugman (ca. 1400–1473) and Dietrich Colde (1435–1515) wrote
devotional and catechistic songs for the religious instruction of the
laity. Many of Brugman’s songs, which are written in Dutch and
again frequently adopt melodies of popular tunes, sing the praise of
the Virgin Mary and hail the joys of a true evangelical life, free
from the sins of the world. No doubt due to Brugman’s wide acclaim
as an itinerant preacher, his songs found their way in various suc-
cessful early sixteenth-century Dutch song books, such as the Dit is
een suverlijc boecxken (an anthology of popular religious songs printed
in 1508) and later collections.218
Among the religious songs written by Dietrich Colde, one in par-
ticular became very popular, namely the Liedeken van devocien: Och edel
ziele mercke. This, like several of Brugman’s versifications, found its
217
On Ladislaus’ devotional exercises for the time period after Vespers (consist-
ing of eight Pater Noster and 72 Ave Maria recitations, interspersed with meditations
on the joys and sorrows of the Virgin) and his penitential manual Taxate Poenitencie
Metrice, Excerpte et Compilate per Fratrem Ladislaum Predicatorem Ordinis Minores, que Respiciunt
quoscumque Penitentes (MS Warschaw, Univ. Lat. O I 90 ff. 26–28), see Wadding,
Annales Minorum XV (Quaracchi, 1933) 349–351 (an. 1505, no. 25–30); Sbaralea,
Supplementum II, 163; J. Komoroswski, ‘Memoriale Ordinis Fratrum Minorum (. . .)
Specialiter de Provincia Poloniae’, Monumenta Poloniae Historica 5 (Lwow, 1888),
256–258, 266, 291–293. On his sermons and poems, see Kantak, ‘Les données his-
toriques sur les bienheureux Bernardins (Observants) polonais’, 444–451; Clément
Schmitt, ‘Ladislaus de Gielniow’, DSpir IX, 60. Ladislaus’ provincial constitutions
are mentioned in Chapter II.
218
See Dit is een suverlijc boecxken. Het oudste gedrukte geestelijke liedboek in de Nederlanden
naar het enig bekende exemplaar van de Antwerpse druk van 1508 in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek
te ’s-Gravenhage in facsimile uitgegeven, ed. J.J. Mak (Amsterdam-Antwerpen, 1957), pas-
sim; Het oude Nederlandsche Lied, ed. Fl. van Duyse (Den Haag, 1907) III, 2279–2282,
2405–2409. Several of Brugman’s songs have also been included in De Nederlandse
Poëzie van de 12de tot en met de 16de eeuw in 1000 en enige bladzijden, ed. Gerrit Komrij
(Amsterdam, 1994), 399–404, namely ‘Ick hebbe ghejaecht mijn leven lanc/Al om
een joncfrou schone’ (on the melody of ‘Och die daer jaecht’) and ‘Met vruechden
willen wi singen/Ende loven die Triniteyt’ (on the melody of ‘Cleve Hoorne en
Batenborch’). See also W. Moll, Jan Brugman en het godsdienstig leven onzer vaderen in de
vijftiende eeuw, 2 Vols. (Amsterdam, 1854) II, 205–217, 38–39. For Brugman’s Canticum
de Extremo Iudicio, see Hombergh, Leven en werk van Jan Brugman, 84.
308 chapter four
way in the 1508 anthology just mentioned and in various subsequent

song collections. Colde’s Liedeken is a sung dialogue of 21 strophes,
in which Christ, the suffering groom, sometimes with a complaining
and sometimes even with a teasing voice, calls upon the loving soul
to imitate Him and to reciprocate His love. In the end, the soul
gives in, announcing to be prepared to take on the cross, after which
Christ invites the soul, His new-found bride, to kiss Him. The pop-
ularity of Colde’s Liedeken might well be traced back to this lively
dialogue format, which gives the message a theatrical character with
different performance possibilities.219
At least one of the early sixteenth-century anthologies in which
the songs of Brugman and Colde can be found alongside of many
other Dutch religious songs from that period was produced within
Franciscan Observant circles. I am speaking of an anthology from
1539, collected and made ready for press by an as-yet unknown
Observant friar from the Mechelen (Malines) convent or from a
neighbouring Franciscan community. Under the title Een devoot ende
profitelijck boecxken, inhoudende veel gheestelijcke liedekens ende leysenen, this
anthology presents no less than 259 religious lyrics, with an empha-
sis on Christmas songs, songs on and for the Virgin Mary, and spir-
itual love songs in which the soul yearns for the love of God and
the suffering Christ. As such, it is one of the most important Dutch
anthologies of late medieval religious songs in existence. Within the
collection, many lyrics are grouped around the melodies they share.
Sometimes, the profane provenance of some of the melodies is men-
tioned, now substituting their not so honourable worldly message
(‘ontamelike, oneersame weerlike liedekens ende refereynen’) for wor-
thy texts suited to the religious instruction of all, whether they be
lay people, religious people or ‘beguines’ (‘leecke lieden, religiosen
ende baghinen’).220
219
See De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliografia Franciscana Neerlandica, Saeculi XVI II, 302–304
(no. 20). A modern edition of the text can be found in Der Christenspiegel des Dietrich
Kolde von Münster, ed. Clemens Drees, Franziskanische Forschungen, 9 (Werl, 1954),
332–337. See also: B. De Boer, ‘Dirk Koelde en het Liedboek: Dit is een suverlijc
Boecxken’, BGPMN 10 (1959), 387–406.
220
See: Een devoot ende profitelijck boecxken inhoudende veel gheestelijcke liedekens ende ley-
senen (Antwerp: Simon Cock, 1539); Een devoot ende profitelyck boecxken. Geestelijk liedboek
met melodieën van 1539. Opnieuw uitgegeven en van een inleiding, registers en aanteekeningen
voorzien, ed. D.F. Scheurleer (’s Gravenhage, 1889). For more information, see J.G.R.
Acquoy, ‘Het geestelijk lied in de Nederlanden voor de Hervorming’, Archief voor
Apart from these songs and poems that have much in common
with the English carols and the Italian laude, Franciscan friars in the
various German provinces also produced more extensive meditative,
hagiographical and penitential poetry, building so to speak on the
tradition started by Lamprecht von Regensburg in the 1240s. Hence,
friar Heinrich von Burgeis from Tirol, who is known to have been
present in the Franciscan Bolzano (Bozen) convent around 1310,
wrote between 1301 and 1304 a long allegorical penitential poem,
entitled Der Seele Rat.
In this poem, the human soul, wounded by sin, is healed with the
help of four personified virtues that double as mental states, namely
Dame Contrition, Dame Confession, Dame Penitence, and Dame
Fear of God. The poem ends with a trial of Satan. The allegorical
representation of the soul and its handmaidens is not fundamentally
different from that found in Giacomino da Verona’s poems De Babilonia
Infernali and De Jerusalem Celesti, and in the poetry of Heinrich’s con-
temporary Bonvesin della Riva. Heinrich’s allegorical representation
is also reminiscent of Berthold von Regensburg’s homiletic imagery,
although a direct indebtedness cannot be charted. In the course of
his poem, Heinrich advises penitents to seek out a wise soul coun-
sellor (‘einen weisen Seelenrat’, v. 887), no doubt implying that such
a person should be found among the mendicant friars. Nevertheless,
in accordance with the confessional rules set out in the bull Super
Cathedram of Boniface VIII, the authorial voice does mention the
obligation of the penitent to confess once a year to his or her parish
priest.221
Half a century later, we come across the poetic endeavours of
Gerard van St. Trond and Konrad Spitzer. The first of these, a
member of the Franciscan convent at Mielen, wrote extensive versified
medieval Dutch vitae about St. Lutgard of Tongeren and St. Christina
the Admirable (each of which followed closely the Latin originals
Nederlandsche Kerkgeschiedenis 2 (1887), 1–112 (esp. 18–20); J.A.N. Knuttel, Het geestelijk
Lied in de Nederlanden voor de Kerkhervorming (Rotterdam, 1906), 70–73; David de Kok,
‘Les études franciscaines en Hollande depuis 1894’, AFH 5 (1912), 448–458, esp.
454; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 168–169.
221
Der Seele Rat, aus der Brixenser Handschrift herausgegeben, ed. Hans-Heinrich Rosenfeld,
Deutsche Texte Des Mittelalters, 37 (Berlin, 1932). For additional information, see
A. Dörrer, ‘H. von Burgeis und sein ‘Seelenrat’. Zum 700 jährigen Bestande der
Franziskaner in Südtirol’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen 167 (1935), 177–192;
VL2 III (Berlin, 1982), 706ff.; Neue deutsche Biographie VIII, 406–407.
310 chapter four
composed by the Dominican friar Thomas de Cantimpré).222 The

second or these poets, Konrad Spitzer, who after 1365 exchanged
his provincialate of the Austrian province for a position as a con-
fessor at the court of Duke Albrecht III, wrote a lengthy Büchlein von
der geistlichen Gemahelschaft (‘booklet of spiritual marriage’). In no less
than 6530 verses, this ‘booklet’ artfully elaborates the spiritual union
of the soul with God by means of grace. It again is heavily alle-
gorical, representing the virtues necessary for the soul’s spiritual union
with God as ten bridal maidens, and introducing the figure of Wisdom
(sapientia) as the soul’s spiritual counsellor. The whole ‘marriage’ is
set in a courtly context, which suggests that Konrad might have writ-
ten his work with the Viennese court in mind, and with the Viennese
courtiers as the work’s direct implied audience.223
A substantial Franciscan legacy of didactic and catechistic religious
poetry finally is to be found in the Spanish peninsula, again a region
for which much additional manuscript research is necessary. Thus
far, I have only been able to trace the poetic works of some five
friars between the late fourteenth and the first half of the sixteenth
century.224
222
MSS Amsterdam, University Library I.G. 56 & 57. See also Acta Sanctorum,
June III, 134–62 & June V, 650–60; J. Deschamps, Middelnederlandse handschriften uit
Europese en Amerikaanse bibliotheken. Catalogus (Brussels, 1970), 66–68. Such vernacular
versifications of hagiographic classics were quite common yet can not be charted
in full within the scope of this volume.
223
For a good analysis of its courtly presentation and its use of theological con-
cepts developed by the Victorines, Honorius Augustodunensis and Alexander of
Hales, see in particular Ulrich Schülke, Konrad Spitzers Büchlein von der geistlichen
Gemahelschaft. Untersuchung und Text, MTU, 31 (Munich, 1970) (the edition is found
on pp. 87–256). Konrad’s Büchlein has survived in one manuscript (MS Vienna,
Schottenstift 295 ff. 1r–67v). Between 1418 and 1430 a prose reworking was made
by a Benedictine monk from Melk. This prose version, which subdues some of the
more Franciscan theological elements inherent in the original, has survived in five
manuscripts (MSS Melk, Stiftsbibliothek 235 & 1730; Munich, Bayerische Staats-
bibliothek Cgm. 775 & 5942; Munich, Universitätsbibliothek 4° cod. ms 483). A
reworking of this prose version found its way to the printing press in the sixteenth
century. For additional information on this, see A. Klecker, ‘Das Büchlein von der
geistlichen Gemahelschaft in Cod. 295 des Wiener Schottenstifts’, in: Festschrift D. Kralik
(Horn, 1954), 193–203; Ulrich Schülke, ‘Konrad (Spitzer)’, VL2 V, 111–114.
224
Surprisingly absent in all this is the poetical output in the various French
provinces. Several French Franciscan poets were active during the first half of the
thirteenth century, partly under the inspiration of friar Pacifico da Ascoli. The evi-
dence is slight for later periods, although renewed manuscript research may uncover
much that still lies hidden. From the late medieval period date the songs on the
The first of these, the important theologian and controversialist

Diego de Valencia (Diego Moxena, ca. 1350–after 1424),225 is the
author (and in some instances the initial implied audience) of vari-
ous short religious lyrical poems that eventually found their way into
Juan Alfonso de Baena’s Cancionero (possibly the most important
Castilian poetic anthology of the early fifteenth century).226 On top
of these short lyrics, Diego wrote more lengthy religious songs on
the Virgin and on other saints.227
Friar Iñigo de Mendoza (c. 1424–1502), court poet and educator
at the court of the Catholic kings Ferdinand and Isabella, is among
Franciscan scholars foremost known for his para-liturgical Tratado
breve y muy provechoso de las ceremonias de la Misa and his Dechado e
regimiento de príncipes, a work of political edification. Yet Iñigo was a
renowned writer and performer of catechistic and devotional coplas,
which already during his lifetime were collected and printed at
Zamora. Among these stand out the Vita Christi fecho por coplas, the
Justa y diferencia que hay entre la razón y la sensualidad sobre la felicidad y
bienaventuranza humana, and a range of coplas on the Virgin and other
important saints (such as the Los gozos de nuestra Señora, the Coplas en
Virgin (Chants Royaux en l’Honneur de la Vierge) and on the passion of Christ by the
Observant friar Olivier Maillard (c. 1430–1502). See on these A. De La Borderie,
Oeuvres françaises d’Olivier Maillard (Nantes, 1877), 39–43, 46–51.
225
Nearly all important work on Diego de Valencia/Diego Moxena has been
done by W.D. Lange and Isaac Vázquez Janeiro. See for instance W.D. Lange, El
fraile trobador. Zeit, Leben und Werk des Diego de Valencia de Leon (1350–1412), Analecta
Romania, 28 (Frankfurt a.M., 1971), as well as I. Vázquez Janeiro, ‘Donde nasció
fray Diego de Valencia, poeta del cancionero de Barna?’, Antonianum 64 (1989),
366–97; Idem, ‘‘Nominetur ille doctor’: El último deseo incumplido de Juan Hus
en Constanza’, Antonianum 66 (1991), 265–300; Idem, ‘Jacques de Valence’, DHGE
XXVI, 762–764; Idem, ‘El maestro salmantino Diego de Moxena de Valencia, lec-
tor de Dante y Petrarca’, Salmanticensis 46 (1994), 397–432. Cf also J. Perarnau I
Espelt, in: Arxiu de Textos Catalans Antics, 15 (1996), 793.
226
Cancionero de Juan Alfonso de Baena, ed. J.M. Azáceta (Madrid, 1966), passim.
Juan Alfonso de Baena calls Diego a ‘muy grant letrado e grant maestro en todas
les artes liberales’, and a ‘muy grant fisico, astrólogo e mecánico, tando e tan mucho
que en su tiempo non se falló omne tan fundado en todas ciencias como él’ (Cancionero
no. 473), as well as a ‘maestro muy famoso en la santa teologia’ (Cancionero no. 519).
227
Cantilenae in Dei Servitium et Gloriosae Virginis eius Matris et Aliorum Sanctorum
Compositae: MS Rome, Bibl. Casanatense 1022 ff. 56c–60d. These songs have been
edited (without ascription to Diego) in: J. Perarnau Espelt, ‘Dos tratados ‘espiri-
tuales’ de Arnau de Vilanova en traducción castellana medieval’, Anthologia Annua
22–23 (1975–76), 512–529.
312 chapter four
que pone la Cena, the Coplas a la Verónica, and the Lamentación cuando
nuestra Señora tenia a nuestro Señor).228
Not many Castilian friars would have been able to vie with the
successful coplas written by Iñigo de Mendoza. Neither the poetic
writings by Francisco de Avila,229 nor the vernacular and rhymed
proverbs of Salomon gathered by Francisco del Castillo230 came any-
where close to the dissemination of Iñigo’s works. More successful
in this regard were the Las quatrocientas respuestas by Luis de Escobar
(1475–1551) from Sahagún (León): a series of predominantly gnomic
and satirical poems reminiscent of Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, describ-
ing the author’s experiences in the world and attacking the non-reli-
gious lifestyle, superstitions and professional practices of different
social groups in Castilian society. In between these satirical verses
228
This Cancionero was edited two times in the twentieth century: Iñigo de Mendoza,
Cancionero castellano del siglo XV, ed. R. Foulché-Delbosc, NBAE, 19 (Madrid, 1912)
and Fr. Iñigo de Mendoza, y sus Coplas de Vita Christi, ed. J. Rodríguez-Puértolas
(Madrid, 1938 & 1968). Cf. also Alejandro Amaro, ‘Una poesía inédita de Fr. Iñigo
de Mendoza y de Jorge Manrique’, AIA 4 (1915), 127–130. For more information,
see: Julio Rodríguez-Puértolas, Fr. Iñigo de Mendoza y sus coplas de vita Christi (Madrid,
1938 & Madrid, 1968); M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología de poetas líricos españos
(Santander, 1944), I, 332–333 & III, 41–56; Antonio Pérez y Gómez, ‘Notas para
una bibliografía de Fray Iñigo de Mendoza y de Jorge Manrique’, Hispanic Review
27 (1959), 30–41; K. Whinnom, ‘The Printed Editions and the Text of the Works
of Iñigo de Mendoza’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 39 (1962), 137–152; Idem, ‘El ori-
gen de las comparaciones religiosas del siglo de oro: Mendoza, Montesino y Román’,
Rivista de filología española 46 (1963), 263–285; Ch. Stern, ‘Fray Iñigo de Mendoza
and Medieval Dramatic Ritual’, Hispanic Review 33 (1965), 197–245; Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles en la edad media’, 337; Castro, Manoscritos francis-
canos de la Biblioteca nacional de Madrid, nn. 232, 673, 816; Idem, ‘Mendoza (Iñigo
de)’, DSpir X, 1012–1013; Gaspar Calvo Moralejo, ‘María ‘Esposa del Espíritu
Santo’ en Fr. Iñigo de Mendoza, OFM (1425–1507?)’, Estudios marianos 41 (1977),
89–116; Idem, ‘‘Los gozos de nuestra Señora’ y su culto en Fr. Iñigo de Mendoza,
OFM (1425–1507?)’, Ephemerides mariologicae 22 (1978), 67–92; Idem, ‘Fray Iñigo de
Mendoza, OFM (d. 1507?). Dos estudios sobre mariología’, Humanismo, reforma y
teología 2 (1978), 1–54.
229
Francisco de Avila (fl. ca. 1500) was a Castilian friar from the Concepción
province. He wrote for instance La vida y la muerte o Vergel de Religiosos en metro castel-
lano, divídese en 54 partes (Salamanca, 1508). See Gallardo, Ensayo de una biblioteca
española de libros raros y curiosos (Madrid, 1863) I, col. 319–344 (no. 304); Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 443; J. Meseguer Fernández, ‘Isabel la
Catolica en la opinion de Españoles y estranjeros’, AIA 31 (1971), 295–307, esp.
299ff.
230
Proverbios de Salomón, interpretados en metro español y glosados (Cuenca: Juan de
Cánova, 1558).Cf. Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 459.
can be found devotional and catechistic pieces, including poetic

reflections on Latin liturgical hymns and sequences like the Miserere,
Ora pro Nobis and Libera nos Domine.231
231
Las quatrocientas respuestas a otras tantas preguntas que el yllustrissimo señor don Fadrique
Enríquez, almirante de Castilla y otras personas (. . .) embiaron a preguntur al autor, con quinien-
tos proverbios de consejos y avisos a manera de letanía o las respuestas quinquagenas (Valladolid:
Francisco Fernández de Córdoba, 1545/Madrid, 1545/Saragossa, 1545/Valladolid,
1550/Antwerp, 1550/Valladolid, 1552/Munich, 1603 [German translation]). See:
Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 21–22; Romancero y cancionero sagradas, Biblioteca de Autores
Españoles XLII (Madrid, 1857), 549–550; Revista Franciscana 22 (1894), 118–125,
155; S. Eiján, La poesia franciscana en España y America (siglos xiii–xix) (Santiago de
Compostella, 1935), 101–107; Christoph E. Schweitzer, ‘La parte de Albertino,
Escobar y Guevara en el ‘Zeitkürtzer’, AIA 18 (1958), 217–223; J. Meseguer Fernández,
‘Passio duorum: Autores-ediciones-la obra’, AIA 29 (1969), 217–268; Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 478; Castro, Manuscritos franciscanos de
la Biblioteca nacional, 106, n. 99; AIA 37 (1977), 394–397; I. Vázquez Janeiro, ‘En
busca de un nombre para al traductor del Carro de las Donas, de Fr. Eximenez’,
Antonianum 56 (1981), 173–178; Mariano Acebal Luján, ‘Tenorio’, DSpir XV, 193.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONFESSION HANDBOOKS
Canon 21 (Omnis utriusque sexus) of the Fourth Lateran Council

demanded annual confession and communion from each Christian
who had attained the age of reason and, as we have seen, many
Franciscan sermons were specifically tailored to bring people so far
as to confess their sins, so that they become worthy of receiving the
Eucharist.
In the context of the innovative religious economy of penance and
satisfaction that took shape in the course of the thirteenth century,
in which people were urged to repent, confess their sins and receive
absolution on a regular basis, entirely new and mutually overlapping
genres of pastoral literature made their appearance, such as the
Regulae seu Summae Confitendi (for (the instruction of ) penitents), the
Interrogatoria seu Quaestiones Faciendae in Confessione or Confessionalia (for
those responsible for hearing confession), more comprehensive Summae
Confessorum (for those learning to become priests and confessors in
theological training centres), Summae de Casibus (collections of ‘cases’
which may arise in the counselling of souls and gathered for pur-
poses of study and praxis) and Tractatus de Vitiis et Virtutibus (both
practical and theoretical manuals of moral theology).1
1
There is, by now, a large and well-developed body of studies on later medieval
confessional literature. A good, up-to-date introduction to the field as a whole is
Handling Sin: Confession in the Middle Ages, ed. P. Biller & A.J. Minnis, York Studies
in Medieval Theology, 2 (Woodbridge, 1998), 3–33. Additional important studies on
the generics and socio-cultural aspects of later medieval confession are Pierre Michaud-
Quantin, ‘Les méthodes de la pastorale du xiiie au xv e siècle’, in: Methoden in
Wissenschaft und Kunst des Mittelalters, ed. A. Zimmermann, Miscellanea Mediaevalia,
7 (Berlin, 1970), 76–91; Leonard E. Boyle, ‘The Summa for Confessors as a genre,
and its Religious Intent’, in: The Pursuit of Holiness in late Medieval and Renaissance
Religion, ed. Charles Trinkhaus & Heiko Oberman, Studies in medieval and Renaissance
Thought, 10 (Leiden, 1974), 126–130; T.N. Tentler, ‘The “Summa” for Confessors
as an Instrument of Social Control’, in: The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and
Renaissance Religion, ed. C. Trinkaus & H. Oberman (Leiden, 1974), 103–126 & 137;
Jacques Le Goff, ‘Mestiere e professione secondo i manuali dei confessori nel
Medioevo’, in: Tempo della Chiesa e tempo del mercante (Torino, 1977), 143–152; Thomas
N. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation (Princeton, 1977); Joe
confession handbooks 315
The major innovations in this field took place in the first decades
of the thirteenth century, inspired by the initiatives of Peter the
Chanter, Robert of Flamborough, Thomas Chobham, and Raymond
de Peñyaforte, whose 1234 Summula de Poenitentia proved to be of last-
ing significance. Hence, by the time the Friars Minor began to make
their contribution to this field, they could fall back on an already
large number of works of non-Franciscan provenance, many of which
were used avidly by the Friars Minor themselves.2
A. Franciscan SUMMAE
The first Franciscan works of penitential literature properly speak-

ing (aside from sermons on penitential topics) seem to originate from
within the Franciscan studia context. Cases in point are the Summa de
Virtutibus and the Summa de Vitiis once ascribed to Alexander of Hales3
Goering, ‘The Summa of Master Serlo and thirteenth-century Penitential Literature’,

Mediaeval Studies 40 (1978), 290–311; Leonard E. Boyle, ‘Summae Confessorum’, in:
Les genres littéraires dans les sources théologiques et philosophiques médiévales. Définition, critique
et exploitation. Actes du Colloque international de Louvain-la-Neuve 25–27 mai 1981 (Louvain-
la-Neuve, 1982), 227–237; Pratiques de la confession. Des Pères du désert à Vatican II
(Paris, 1983); Roberto Rusconi, ‘“Confessio generalis”. Opuscoli per la pratica pen-
itenziale nei primi cinquante anni dalla introduzione della stampa’, in: I frati minori
tra ’400 e ’500, Atti del XII Convegno Internazionale Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984
(Assisi, 1986), 189–227; R. Newhauser, The Treatises on Vices and Virtues in Latin and
the Vernacular, Typologie des sources, 68 (Turnhout, 1993); M.G. Muzzarelli, Penitenze
nel Medioevo. Uomini e modelli a confronto (Bologna, 1994); Dalla penitenza all’ascolto delle
confessioni: il ruolo dei frati mendicanti. Atti del XXIII convegno internazionale Assisi, 12–14
ottobre 1995 (Spoleto, 1996); E. Feistner, ‘Zur Semantik des Individuums in der
Beichtliteratur des Hoch- und Spätmittelalters’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 115/1
(1996), 1–17; Leonard E. Boyle, ‘Pastoral training in the time of Fishacre’, New
Blackfriars 80/941–942 (1999), 345–353; Woods & Copeland, ‘Classroom and con-
fession’, 376–406.
2
Some friars already had produced penitential materials before their entrance
into the order. A case in point is Albert von Stade, one-time abbot of the Abbey
of St. Mary near Stade, who later, as a Franciscan friar, became known for his
Troilus, his notes on the Apocalypse commentary of Alexander Minorita, his pil-
grim guide for travellers to the Holy Land, and his Annales Stadensis. During Albert’s
Benedictine years, he apparently compiled the Raimundus: a versified version of
Raymond de Peñyaforte’s Summa de Casibus Poenitentia. See: Wadding, Scriptores, 8;
K. Fiehn, ‘Albertus Stadensis’, Historische Vierteljahrschrift 26 (1931), 536–572; Jürgen
Stohlmann, ‘Albert von Stade’, VL2 I, 141–151; M. Wesche, Studien zur Albert von
Stade (Freiburg, 1988).
3
On these Summae, predominantly compilations from the theological writings of
Alexander of Hales, Eudes Rigaud, and William of Middletown, see: Incipits of Latin
Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500, ed. M.W. Bloomfield et al. (Cambridge
316 chapter five
and the now-lost Summa de Poenitentia by Adam Marsh,4 all of which

had predominantly a theological vantage point, as well as the more
juridically inspired Summae by Heinrich von Merseburg, Heinrich von
Barben, Henry of Wodstone and Balduinus von Brandenburg. Nearly
all of these latter Summae seem to stem from Franciscan lectors well-
acquainted with matters of canon law, and keen to provide their
Franciscan students with the necessary materials for their education
as preachers and confessors.5
The first of these lector-canonists within the Franciscan order
whose work has come down to us is Heinrich von Merseburg (d. ca.
1280), who must have studied canon law before he joined the Friars
Minor.6 In the early 1250s and again between 1270 and 1276, Hein-
rich taught at the Franciscan studium of Magdeburg. In between, he
might have taught at the Franciscan studium of Erfurt (in and possi-
bly before 1259, as one of the successors of Helvicus von Magdeburg,
who had died in 1252). Heinrich’s Summa super V Libros Decretalium
or Summa Titulorum (ca. 1242), which according to its manuscript tra-
dition had a substantial success in Northern Germany,7 is one of the
MA, 1979), nos. 1254 & 2273 and the remarks of V. Doucet in Alexandri de Hales
Summa Theologica, ed. V. Doucet et al. (Quaracchi, 1924–1948) IV, cccxxxviii.
4
A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard
Sharpe, Publications of The Journal of Medieval Latin, 1 (Turnhout, 1997), 17–18.
5
An exception to this rule seems to have been Chiaro da Firenze, whose pen-
itential works would have originated during his work at the papal curia. Cf. F.M.
Henquinet, ‘Clair de Florence, O.F.M., canoniste et pénitencier pontif. Vers le milieu
du xiii siècle’, AFH 32 (1939), 3–48; M. Franceschini, DBI IV (Roma, 1962), 463–64.
6
See on this also the fourteenth-century biography of Heinrich von Merseburg
in Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek cod. ms. 1074 f. 2b. For more information on the
life and work of Heinrich, see: W. Jürgensen, ‘H. v. Merseburg’, LMA IV, 2100;
W. Jürgensen, ‘Heinrich von Merseburg’, VL2 III, 797–799; G. Fransen, ‘Henri de
Mersebourg’, DHGE XXIII, 1180; E. Seckel, Beiträge zur Geschichte beider Rechte im
Mittelalter (Tübingen, 1898), 262 & index; B. Kurtscheid, ‘Heinrich von Merseburg’,
FrSt 1 (1914), 60–290 and 4 (1917), 239–253; B. Kurtscheid, ‘De Studio Iuris
Canonici in Ordine Fratrum Minorum’, Antonianum 2 (1927), 157–173; 193–202;
CF 3 (1933), 463; F. Doelle, ‘Die Rechtsstudien der deutschen Franziskaner im
Mittelalter und ihre Bedeutung für die Rechtsentwicklung der Gegenwart’, Beiträge
zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Suppl. 3 (1935), 1037–1064; CF (Bibliographia
Franciscana) 7 (1937), 291; Amadeus a Zedelgem, ‘Notae de manuscriptis francisca-
nis sparsis in bibliothecis Germaniae et Austriae’, CF 13 (1943), 38f, 51f; V. Doucet,
‘Commentaires sur les Sentences. Supplément au Répertoire de M. Fréderic Stegmüller’,
AFH 47 (1954), 127; W. Trusen, ‘Forum Internum und gelehrtes Recht im Spätmittelalter’,
Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 88 (1971), 83–126;
W. Stelzer, Gelehrtes Recht in Oesterreich (Vienna-Cologne, 1982), 70–135.
7
Summa super V Libros Decretalium: MSS Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek M.ch.
f. 141 & M.ch. q. 23; Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August Bibliothek cod. 699 Helmst.;
first commentaries on the Decretals (Liber extra) of Gregory IX. It was

meant to function as a handbook of canon law for internal use in
the schools of the order. Contrary to the famous Summae by Raymond
de Peñyaforte OP and other canonists, which are organised to facil-
itate (future) confessors, Heinrich von Merseburg’s Summa follows the
order of Gregory’s Decretals, providing a concise commentary and
elucidation in handbook format for classroom purposes, and aiming
to cater towards the needs of the order’s theology students.8
Around 1260, an as yet unknown Franciscan lector wrote an
Apparatus to this work. It is an update that incorporates more recent
canonist commentaries, and is frequently found in the manuscripts
either directly after Heinrich’s Summa, or incorporated within the
individual titles.9 A second supplement was made around 1290 by
the Franciscan lector Heinrich von Barben, who had used Heinrich
von Merseburg’s Summa in the classroom, acknowledged the original
intentions of the Summa’s compiler,10 but decided to rework it into
a Casus Penitentiae with more practical confessional objectives in mind.11
Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek Cod. II.1.2° 69 ff. 215ra–314rb (an. 1460); Salamanca,

Biblioteca Universitaria 132 (15th cent.) ff. 1ra–174vb; Uppsala, University Library
C. 584 (14th cent.) ff. 1–3; Frankfurt a.M., Dominikanerkloster 127 ff. 1r–151v
(15th cent.); Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei theol. 2° 70 ff. 213ra–225rb (incomplete);
Königsberg, Universitatsbibliothek 47 & 59; Kassel, Stadt- und Landesbibliothek
Murchard MS Iuridica 4° 36 (14th cent.: Lectura super libris Decretalium Gregorii IX );
Frankfurt a.M., S. Petrus Kirche MS Petri 41 ff. 1r–30v (Casus super Summam Henrici
de Merseburg); Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek cod. ms. 1002–1008, 1025, 1036, 1062,
1074; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 3844, Clm. 9658, Clm. 11811,
Clm. 14502, Clm. 14642, Clm. 17523, Clm. 22278, Clm. 26713, Clm. 28312; St.
Florian cod. XI. 149. For more manuscripts, see the studies mentioned in the pre-
vious note.
8
Hence, unnecessary details are left out, as he also announces in the proemium:
‘Multo magis eligens pauca ydonee declarare quam legentes multis inutilitatibus per-
gravare, non proprie seu private sed communi deserviens utitilitati (. . .) hanc sum-
mulam compilavi.’ MS Königsberg, Universitätsbibliothek 47 f. 3a.
9
For an independent version, see Apparatus ad Summam Henrici de Merseburg: MS
Kassel, Stadt- und Landesbibliothek Murchard Bib. Manuscripta Iuridica 26 f. 194va
(15th cent.)
10
Hence, in the prologue to his supplement, Heinrich von Barben states (MS
Leipzig 1013 f. 152a): ‘Ut autem sacerdotibus pateat via ad scienciam iuris canonici,
ideo frater Henricus Merseburg de ordine fratrum Minorum, quondam lector in
Magdeburg, summulam iuris canonici quam habemus prae manibus communi utili-
tati deserviens compilavit.’
11
Cf. MS Leipzig 1013 f. 152r: ‘Cum summam henrici fratribus legerem et quos-
dam casus lectioni insererem, quos textus eiusdem summule non habebat, fratres
multimodis precibus ac importunis instanciis me rogarunt, ut eosdem casus verbis
brevibus et simplicibus annotarem, quatenus fratres simplices ad planiciem eorundem
318 chapter five
An updated abbreviated version (Summa Brevis super Decretales, inc.:

‘Fecit Deus duo luminaria magna’), which reworked all three previ-
ous works into a new compilation, made its appearance in the early
fourteenth century.12
Akin to the Summa by Heinrich von Merseburg, albeit substantially
longer, is Balduinus von Brandenburg’s Summa Titulorum super Decretalibus
Gregorii IX from the 1270s,13 written to instruct regular and secular
clerics alike in the basics of canon law necessary for their pastoral
obligations. Although it was solid and extensive, it soon was over-
shadowed by early fourteenth-century compilations, and therefore
has not survived in large numbers of manuscripts.14
An English contemporary of Heinrich von Merseburg, the Oxford
lector Henry of Wodstone (active at the Oxford studium around
1257/1258), made his own contribution by expanding and rework-
ing the Summa de Sacramentiis written by Simon of Hinton OP. Henry’s
reworking, finished in 1261, relies heavily on Bonaventura da Bagno-
reggio’s Breviloquium and Sentences commentary. It is an attempt at
combining canonist and theological materials for the benefit of Fran-
ciscan lectorate students,15 who needed to prove that they were well-
equipped for their tasks at a time when mendicant preaching and
confession activities came under scrutiny at Paris and Oxford alike.16
casuum expediendis penitencium perplexitatibus recurrerent, qui non possent se ac

confitentes sibi in latebrosa silva iuris canonici ad liquidum expedire . . .’
12
See especially the studies of Kurtscheid, Doelle and Jürgensen mentioned before.
13
Summa Titulorum super Decretalibus Gregorii IX, MSS Danzig, Stadtbibliothek 1873
(XVIII.A.f. 51) ff. 1–278 & 1874 (XVIII.B. f. 101) ff. 1–204; Kurtscheid, ‘De stu-
dio iuris canonici in ordine fratrum minorum’, 174–182. It would seem that Balduinus’
work itself was used by Heinrich von Barben for his own revision of Heinrich von
Merseburg’s Summa.
14
Kurtscheid, ‘De Studio Iuris Canonici in Ordine Fratrum Minorum’, 179 comes
with the following verdict: ‘. . . licet intentio auctoris fuerit utrique clero exhibere
practicum commentarium iuris canonici, tamen Summa Balduini inter praestantiores
huius generis libros saeculi XIII recensenda est. Per totam Summam praevalet
indoles iuridica. Auctor in utroque iure est bene versatus; frequenter fontes iuris
allegat, et in subsidium tantum argumentorum ad canonistas et theologos recurrit.’
15
Robert J. Mokry, An Edition and Study of Henry Wodeston’s Summa de Sacramentiis:
a thirteenth century Franciscan Pastoral Manual, Ph.D. Thesis (University of London,
Heythrop College, 1997). The work can for instance be found in MS Oxford,
Bodleian Laud. Misc. 2 ff. 130–167v, a manuscript containing several other works
of pastoral literature. This complete manuscript was at an early stage (in any case
prior to 1295) in possession of the Franciscan friar John of Stamford (probably
already before he became archbishop of Dublin in 1284).
16
From this period stem for instance Bonaventura’s Quare Fratres Minores Praedicent
et Confessiones Audiant, found in: Bonaventura Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII
Before the end of the thirteenth century several other significant

penitential works of Franciscan provenance made their appearance.
Some of these, such as the Summa de Poenitentia ascribed to John of
Wales17 and the penitential works connected with the name of Giovanni
Marchesini,18 again were the products of theologians rather than
375–385. Cf. B. Thiel, ‘St. Bonaventura über ausserordentliche Seelsorge’, Theologie

und Glaube 45 (1955), 49–52. Rusconi, ‘La predicazione minoritica in Europa nei
secoli XIII–XIV’, 141–165.
17
In between John of Wales’ more renowned works of pastoral theology, such
as his Breviloquium de Quatuor Virtutibus, directed at preachers, teachers, and confes-
sors (see for instance MSS Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 1470 ff. 205–226; Solothurn,
Zentralbibliothek S. 369 ff. 1r–34v; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 8848; London,
Wellcome Hist. Medical Library 556 (15th cent. Italian); Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale
5983 (an. 1391); Sydney, University Library Nicholson 23 ff. 165ra–195vb (ca. 1400);
Prague, National Museum XIII F 8 ff. 13–50; Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. 2°
11 ff. 14r–46r; Basel, Universitätsbibliothek A.VII 36 ff. 120r–140v; Bonn, Univer-
sitäts- und Landesbibliothek S 721 ff. 3r–39v; Cologne, Historisches Archiv der Stadt
MS Chron. und Darst. 8a ff. 138r–151v; New Haven (CT), Yale University Library
Marston 223 ff. 52v–75r; Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya MS 650 ff. 190–213v;
Valencia, Catedral 288 ff. 1–55. It apparently appeared as the Breviloquium de Quatuor
Virtutibus Cardinalibus Antiquorum Philosophorum et Principum (Venice, 1498/Lyon, 1511/
Paris, 1516)), and his large Communiloquium, we also encounter a Summa de Poenitentia
(cf. MSS Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenzenziana Fonds Santa Croce Plut. XXXII.
Sin. 2.; Oxford, Bodleian Bodley 402 (15th cent.)) and a Tractatus de Paenitentia/Summa
de Partibus Penitentiae (cf. for instance MSS Erfurt, Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek der
Stadt, Amplon. Q. 100 ff. 88r–118r; Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana Fonds
Santa Croce Plut. XXXII sin. 2 pp. 96–119; Sarnano, Biblioteca Comunale Com.
E. 127 ff. 1r–145; Barcelona, Biblioteca de Catalunya MS 650 ff. 137–183v). This
latter work was published, together with the Ordinarium sive Alphabetum Vitae Religiosae,
as the Tractatus seu Summa de Poenitentia et ejus Partibus, ed. F. Haroldus Magonza
(Mainz, 1673). In the proemium, in which John admits that many previous authors
have dealt with these issues, he writes: ‘Nihilominus aliqua breviter ex dictis prae-
dictorum sanctorum (esp. Augustine, Gregory the Great, Isidore, Cassiodore, the
Vitae Patrum, John Chrysostomos, Hugues de St. Victor) propter juniores praedica-
tores colligentur, ut ea in promptu habeant.’ John also produced a Summa Iustitiae,
which is related to the Summa Vitiorum of Guillaume Perault. The prologue of John’s
Summa has been printed in S. Wenzel, ‘The continuing life of William Peraldus’
Summa Vitiorum’, in: Ad Litteram. Authoritative Texts and their Mediaeval Readers, ed. M.D.
Jordan & K. Emery (Notre Dame IN, 1992), 135–163. For more information, see
A.G. Little, Studies in English Franciscan History (Manchester, 1917), 174–192; Brady,
‘Jean de Galles’, DSpir VIII, 532–533; Swanson, John of Wales, passim.
18
To this lector are ascribed, with more or less certainty, a Tractatus de Poenis
Peccatorum diversimode Nuncupatis (MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 488 ff. 3–43, inc.:
‘Pena debita peccatori nunc censetur nomine perditionis et termine . . .’ expl: ‘Non
parcas tue verecundie et confusioni, ut Deus parcat tue malitie et transgressioni.
Amen. Explicit utile opus de poenis peccatorum editum a fr. Marchesino, lectore
ordinis minorum.’), an Opus de Vitiis (MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 488 ff. 59–130,
inc.: ‘Incipit opus de vitiis a fr. Marchesino compositum (. . .) De superbia est loquen-
dum quantum ad causam defectivam. Oritur enim superbia ex stoliditate intellec-
tus.’), and a Confessionale/Summa Confessorum (found for instance in MSS Stuttgart,
320 chapter five
canonists, and thus far have not been studied in depth. A compa-
rable theological bend can be found in the concise Compendium Parvulum
by friar Martin Bordet from Majorca (fl. ca. 1280?),19 and in the
various works of moral theology produced by the late thirteenth-
century Florentine preacher Servasanto da Faenza (d. c. 1300).
The reception of Servasanto’s most widely disseminated work, the
Liber de Exemplis Naturalibus, a collection of emblematic exempla, leg-
ends, visions and miracle stories for the use of preachers,20 inspired
him to produce at least two other works of moral theology, namely
the Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis, and a work that is known to us under
the titles Summa de Poenitentiae and Antidotarium Animae.21 The first of
these texts, the Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis—in fact a reworking of book
three of Servasanto’s Liber de Exemplis Naturalibus—speaks at length
(in seventeen distinctions and a plethora of chapters) about the major
topics of moral theology, grappling in a general manner with issues
such as grace, guilt, virtue and sin, Catholic faith (and its opposites),
trust, the mirth of the blessed versus the desperation of sinners, char-
ity and maliciousness, before embarking on a systematic exposition
of the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins.22
Würtembergische Landesbibliothek HB I 164 ff. 128ra–139vb; Klosterneuburg,

Stiftsbibliothek S. Aug. 323; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Lat. 6023; St.
Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek 789, which mentions in the explicit: ‘Explicit libellus de sim-
plici informatione simplicium sacerdotum in confessionibus audiendis; nomine Goelinus,
conscriptus et completus a fr. Ulrico de Ahusen, sacerdote ordinis S. Johannis sacro-
sanctae domus hospitalis jerosalimitanae anno dominicae incarnationis, 1000° 300°
15°, indictione 13 . . .’). During the Middle Ages, this work was frequently portrayed
as a work of Bonaventura, and as such was included in several editions of his works
(such as the Strasbourg edition of 1495, the Venice editions of 1504 and 1564, and
the nineteenth-century edition of Peltier). The Quaracchi editors, however, sug-
gested that the Confessionale should not be ascribed to Bonaventura, nor to Giovanni
Marchesini. Cf. Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898), VIII, Prolegomena
cxi & X, 23. See on these texts and their ascription also Wadding, Scriptores, 166;
Hurter, Nomenclator, 3rd edition II, 414–415; Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 204–205;
L. Oliger, ‘De bibliotheca S. Ludovici episcopi Tolosani’, Antonianum 7 (1932), 499;
Kleinhans, ‘De studio Sacrae Scripturae in Ordine Fratrum Minorum saec. XIII’,
Antonianum 7 (1932), 438–439; Teetaert, ‘Reggio (Marchesius de)’, DThC XIII–2,
2102–2104.
19
Compendium Parvulum sive Interrogatorium Perutilissimum Confessiones Audiendi pro
Confessoribus et Praedicatoribus tale Officium Incipientibus Exercere. Cf. L. Oliger, EsFrns 38
(1926), 217–218; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles en la edad media’, 237–
238 (no. 113).
20
See my chapter on Franciscan preaching.
21
Two other works by Servasanto, known from references in his Summa de Virtutibus
et Vitiis have not yet been found, namely his Dialogus and his Summula Monaldina.
22
The Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis can be found in MSS Florence, Biblioteca
Servasanto’s other work, the possibly even larger Summa de Poenitentia/

Antidotarium Animae,23 written between the 1260s and the 1280s, is
akin to the Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis, holding a middle ground between
a summa of moral theology, a collection of model sermons with exempla
on penitential issues (comparable with Servasanto’s quadragesimal
Nazionale Cod. E.6.1046; Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria Cod. 1696. A partial

edition (Prologue, Epilogue, and Table of Content) is provided by L. Oliger in
Miscellanea Ehrle (Rome, 1924) I, 173–176. In the prologue, we can read (Oliger,
pp. 173–174): ‘. . . ad unum beatitudinis finem nititur pervenire (. . .) summum hoc
bonum haberi vel videri non potest nisi a purgatissimis mentibus. Mentes autem
purgari non possunt nisi optimis moribus, mores vero bonos anime humane non
induunt, nisi sacris virtutibus, theologicis quidem et cardinalibus, pro fine summum
bonum habentibus (. . .) Ergo ut bonum iam dictum ab omnibus concupitum videre
possimus, gratia Dei et virtutibus omnibus indigemus. Sed quia magnum librum de
hiis omnibus feci, imo illuminante meo Domino conscripsi, set a pauperibus fratribus
non possit haberi; rogatus ut inde quedam utiliora exciperem, disposui me Christo
iuvante et beatissima eius matre, utilitati communi annuere, Domini me caritate
cogente. Primo itaque de bonis hiis maximis locuturus, principium sumam a gra-
tia, que omnium virtutum generalis est forma, generaliter totam perficiens animam.
Et consequenter de culpa illi opposita. Tandem de virtutibus simul et vitiis quedam
generalia ponam. Et ultimo de virtute qualibet vitioque contrario per se agam. (. . .)
Totaliter itaque liber iste duas principales partes habebit, quarum prima erit de
gratia et culpa opposita. Sed de virtutibus et vitiis dictabitur pars secunda.’ The
Epilogue of the work shows Servasanto’s motivations for writing (Ibidem, 174): ‘Ergo
quod tam multa scribere ausus sum, non inputetur, precor, superbie, sed ut otiosi-
tatem effugerem, ne in tristitiam mentis inciderem desperationem anime inducen-
tem, ne in meum periculum modicum talentum acceptum absconderem, et ut iuxta
gregorianam sententiam mercedis predicantium particeps fierem, si eis ad predi-
candum materiam preparem.’ The Tabula distinctionum further gives a good impres-
sion of the work’s intent (Ibidem, 175–176: ‘Iste liber hic que continet breviter
pandit et habet decem et septem distinctiones. Prima est de dono gratie et malitia
culpe, de virtute et peccato in genere. Secunda est de catholica fide et de multi-
plici errore ei opposito. Tertia est de spe, de gaudia sanctorum in patria et celesti
gloria. De desperatione et malo diffidentie. Quarta est de caritate, de mundi suique
amore, de hodie et malo invidie. Quinta est de quatuor virtutibus cardinalibus in
genere. De prudentia et malo stultitie et imprudentie. Sexta est de temperantia,
sobrietate et eorum officiis. Septima est de gula et eius remediis. Octava est de vir-
ginitate et castitate. De peccato luxurie et eius remediis. Nona est de humilitate,
de causis humilitatis et signis per que cognoscitur. Decima est de superbia et eius
multiplici specie, de vana gloria et earum remediis. Undecima est de virtute pau-
pertatis et exemplis ad eius amorem moventibus. Duodecim est de avaritia, usura,
rapina, prodigalitate et earum remediis. 13a est de bono clementie, de pace, de
periculo guerre, de furore ire et eius remediis. 14a est de virtute spiritualis letitie
et de peccato accidie et otiositatis et eorum remediis. 15a est de fortitudine, pati-
entia et virtute perseverantie. 16a est de iustitia, obedientia, misericordia et eius
operibus. 17a est de vitio lingue et eius multiplici specie.’
23
This can be found in the MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.E.19; Bologna,
Collegio d’Espagna 50 ff. 1ra–210ra & 53/1; Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 4272 ff. 87r–128r;
Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Conv. Soppr. G.VI.773; Munich, Bayerische Staats-
bibliothek Clm. 12313; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana Cod. scaff. XVIII n. 404 &
322 chapter five
cycles mentioned elsewhere) and a confession manual tailored to the

interrogation of the faithful. It has much in common with some of
the works of John of Wales, as well as with later manuals of non-
Franciscan provenance, like the Specchio della vera penitenza by Jacopo
Passavanti (ca. 1350) and the Specchio de’peccati by Domenico Cavalca
(ca. 1350). Presented as being both very useful for ‘conversations’
with sinners in confessional encounters (conversioni peccatorum utilima)
and very well-suited for preaching penitential matters ( predicationi aptis-
sima), Servasanto’s Summa de Poenitentia was compiled to complement
his remarks on penitence in the second part of his Liber de Exemplis.24
Whereas in the Liber de Exemplis Servasanto had devoted eleven chap-
ters to penitence, the Summa expands on this ‘concise’ treatment with
more than 200 chapters and (again) 17 main distinctions, covering:
1.) the existence of God and the nature of the Trinity, 2.) the creation
of man, his place in the universe and his fall from grace, 3.) the
fickle and weak nature of man since the fall, 4.) the existence of
penitence as remedy against this, 5.) motives for penitence, 6.) the
usefulness of penitence, 7.) main parts and characteristics of peni-
tence, 8.) the main constituents of contrition, 9.) the main constituents
of confession, 10.) satisfaction in general, 11.) satisfaction through
prayer, 12.) satisfaction through almsgiving, 13.) satisfaction through
fasting, 14.) temptation and its four major causes (temptation by God
(in testing man), the world, the flesh, and the devil), 15.) remedies
against temptation, 16.) the remedy of patience, 17.) the remedy of
following Christ’s example.
Carla Casagrande has noticed the remarkably philosophical char-
acter of Servasanto’s works, again a characteristic that Servasanto’s
Cod. scaff. XX n. 458; Paris, Bibliothèque National Nouv. Acq. Lat. 3052. See
also Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500, ed. M.W. Bloomfield,
B. Guyot, D.R. Howard, T.B. Kabealo (Cambridge Mass., 1979), 420–421, no.
4956 and the literature mentioned below. The Summa de Paenitentia appeared early,
without an author’s name, as the Antidotarium Animae (Louvain: Johannes de Westfalia,
1485). A table of content of the Summa has been published by Carla Casagrande,
in Dalla penitenza all’ascolto delle confessioni: Il ruolo dei frati mendicanti, Atti del XXIII
Conv. Intern. Assisi, 12–14 ott. 1995 (Spoleto, 1996), 59–102. A full critical edi-
tion of the Summa is presently being made by Stephen Cordova (PIMS).
24
De penitencia que quia timore concipitur primo de timore aliquid est agendum; De peniten-
cia et eius utilitate; De falsa penitencia; De tribus partibus penitencie; De contricione; De con-
fessione oris; De satisfactione operis; De tribus partibus iam dictis penitentie similitudinibus; De
modis satisfaciendi et primo de oratione; De elemosina; De elemosina corporali; De ieiunio tam
temporali quam spirituali. Cf. MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Conv. Soppr. G.1
695 ff. 20rb–27rb.
manuals of moral theology have in common with John of Wales’

more famous (and undoubtedly more successful) compilations.25 The
same tendency has already been noted for Servasanto’s surviving ser-
mons in my chapter on Franciscan preaching as religious instruc-
tion. Servasanto’s relatively wide-ranging theological and philosophical
underpinning of penitential issues points to a context of study and
might well have resulted from our author’s involvement with the
training of future lectors and preachers at the Franciscan studium at
Florence. Servasanto’s dual objective, which makes his works so inter-
esting for cultural historians, nevertheless gave the Liber and the
Summa a somewhat hybrid character, possibly making them at once
too theoretical to function as practical works for preaching and pen-
itential activities, and too one-sided to function as all-round theo-
logical school texts in a theological studium (for which by then several
concise but comprehensive texts had become available, such as
Bonaventura’s Breviloquium, Hugues Ripelin OP’s Compendium Theogicae
Veritatis and a large number of abbreviated Sentences commentaries).26
More practical, and in any case more successful, was the De Veneno
Septem Peccatorum Mortalium Eorumque Remedia by the Irish Franciscan
friar Malachy of Limerick (fl. ca. 1300). These ‘Remedies’, which
survive in 36 manuscripts or more, and frequently are found together
with pastoral works by Robert Grosseteste, were designed to inform
25
Carla Casagrande, ‘Predicare la penitenza. La Summa de Poenitentia di Servasanto
da Faenza’, in: Dalla penitenza all’ascolto delle confessioni: Il ruolo dei frati mendicanti, Atti
del XXIII Conv. Intern. Assisi, 12–14 ott. 1995 (Spoleto, 1996), 59–102. On pp.
74–75, she remarks: ‘Una tale attenzione a temi teologici, in più sostenuti massic-
ciamente da argomentazioni filosofiche, non è frequente in testi di pastorale sulla
penitenza. Un testo che mi pare possa avvicinarsi sotto questo aspetto alla Summa
di Servasanto è il trattato sulla confessione di Roberto Grossatesta, conosciuto sotto
il titolo Deus est, dalle prime parole dell’incipit.’
26
See on this also Ibidem, 79. For more information on the works of Servasanto,
see also B. Kruitwagen, ‘De “Summa de poenitentia” van Fr. Servasanctus’, Neerlandica
Franciscana 2 (1919), 55–66; Idem, ‘Das “Antidotarium animae” von Fr. Servasanctus
OFM’, in: Wiegendrucke und Handschriften. Festgabe Konrad Haebler (Leipzig, 1919), 80–106;
L. Oliger, ‘Servasanto da Faenza O.F.M. e il suo “Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis”’,
Miscellanea Francesco Ehrle. Scritti di storia e paleografia I: Per la storia della teologia e della
filosofia (Rome, 1924), 148–189; Idem, ‘De duobus novis codicibus Fr. Servasancti
de Faventia’, Antonianum 1 (1926), 465–466; Idem, ‘Narrationes duae Fr. Servasancti
de Faventia (d. c. 1300) circa vitam antiquorum Fratrum Imolae et in Provincia
S. Francisci’, Antonianum 2 (1927), 281–283; P. Laner, ‘Un nouveau manuscrit de
la “Summa de poenitentia” du Franciscain Servasanctus’, Bibliothèque de l’École des
Chartes 100 (1939), 229–230; A. Teetaert, ‘Servasanctus da Faenza’, DThC XIV (2nd
ed.) (Paris, 1941), 1963–1967; C. Frison, ‘Fra’ Servasanto da Faenza predicatore
francescano del XIII secolo. Nota bio-bibliografica’, Studi Romagnoli 39 (1988), 301–315.
324 chapter five
the general populace (via their parish priest and the preachers whose
sermons they were supposed to listen to) about the poisons of sin
and their antidotes. Malachy’s work probably is one of the first
Franciscan penitential texts (outside the homiletic context) that suc-
cessfully breached the gap between the Franciscan studia context and
the praxis of pastoral care at the parish level.27
The early fourteenth century certainly marked a first high point
of Franciscan confessional writings, and more in particular of large
and influential Summa Confessionum, written first of all for purposes of
instruction at Franciscan studia, and additionally to assist priests in
their confessional tasks. The oldest of these probably is the Summa
Confessorum by Johann von Erfurt ( Johann von Sachsen), which sur-
vives in three redactions, finished between ca. 1300–1302, after 1304,
27
The Remedia contain in sixteen chapters: i.) Quod triplici ratione omne pec-
catum veneno comparatur; ii.) Triplex remedium contra peccatum in generali; iii.)
De primordiali veneno peccati et principali, scilicet superbia; iv.) Triplex superbie
remedium; v.) De veneno invidie; vi.) De triplici remedio invidiae et quibus invidia
comparetur et quanta mala ex ea sunt orta; vii.) De veneno irae; viii.) Remedium
contra iram; ix.) De veneno acidie; x.) De remedio acidie; xi.) De avaritie veneno;
xii.) De remedio avaritie; xiii.) De veneno gule; xiv.) De remedio gule; xv.) De
veneno luxurie; xvi.) De remedio luxuriae. On top of this systhematic treatment of
the vices, the Remedia harbours a range of interesting (albeit merely fantastical and
mythological) statements about Ireland and the moral inclinations of its people. See
for instance MSS Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek Cod. II.1.2° 68 ff. 146ra–148va
(an. 1448); Kassel, Landesbibliothek MS 2° Theol. 50 (15th cent.) ff. 136r–147v.
Lengthy listings of additional manuscripts can be found in M. Esposito, ‘Friar
Malachy of Ireland’, The English Historical Review, 33 (1918), 359–366; E.B. Fitzmaurice
& A.G. Little, Materials for the History of the Franciscan Province of Ireland (Manchester,
1920), 46, 56–58; R.J. Hayes, Manuscript Sources for the History of Irish Civilisation III
(Dublin, 1965), 289–290; Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500
A.D., ed. M.W. Bloomfield et al. (Cambridge MA, 1979), no. 5102; S.H. Thomson,
The Latin Writings of Robert Grossesteste (Cambridge, 1940), 268–270. The Remedia were
published in the early modern period: F. Malachie Hibernici, ordinis minorum, doctoris
theologie, strenui quondam divini verbi illustratoris necnon vitiorum obiurgatoris acerrimi Libellus,
septem peccatorum mortalium venena eorumque remeda describens: qui dicitur Venenum Malachiae
(Paris: In Officina Henrici Stephani, 1518). According to this edition and subse-
quent Franciscan bibliographers, Malachy would have been master of theology at
Oxford. Although Malachy’s Remedia show a wide reading and a firm grounding in
theology (yet using almost exclusively authors from before 1200), there is no fur-
ther evidence to support this assumption. It is more probable that Malachy had
followed a lectorate course or an equivalent form of theological education at one
of the studia generalia (in Oxford or Cambridge) or at one of the more important
custodial schools in the English province. Our friar probably should be identified
with the Franciscan friar Malachy of Limerick who in 1286 was in the picture for
the position of Archbishop of Tuam. Cf. Sbaralea Supplementum I, 507 & BF III,
573; Sweetman, Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland II (1877), 311–312, 340;
M. Esposito, ‘Friar Malachy of Ireland’, The English Historical Review 33 (1918), 362–3.
and after 1311 respectively. It is not altogether clear where and when
friar Johann obtained his rather extensive legal knowledge. He was
in any case active as a lector at the important Franciscan studium of
Erfurt around 1275, and again in 1290 and 1309 (and at the studium
of Magdeburg between ca. 1285 and 1295). This suggests that he
had completed his lectorate training in the early 1270s. It is quite
possible that he went through the theology degree programme in
Bologna in between his various lector assignments and that, during
these degree studies, he followed courses of canon and roman law
in neighbouring faculties.28
Whatever the origin of his legal prowess, Johann was sufficiently
well-versed in canon law to produce a series of legal and related
penitential works alongside of his large and varied theological and
philosophical writings.29 Within his legal and penitential oeuvre30 two
28
On his life and works, see Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 69–70; Stegmüller, Repertorium
Biblicum III, 390–392 (nos. 4460–4461); F. Doelle, ‘Johann v. Erfurt. Ein Summist
aus dem Franziskanerorden um die Wende des 13. Jahrhunderts’, Zeitschrift für
Kirchengeschichte 31 (1910), 214–248; B. Kurtscheid, ‘Die Tabula utriusque Iuris des
Johannes von Erfurt’, FrSt 1 (1914), 269–290; Idem, ‘De Studio Iuris Canonici in
Ordine Fratrum Minorum’, 157–160; O. Bonmann, ‘Ein franziskanisches Literatur-
katalog des xv. Jahrhunderts’, FrSt 23 (1936) 113–149; V. Heynck, ‘Studien zu
Johannes von Erfurt I: Das vierte Buch seines Sentenzenkommentars’, Franziskanische
Studien 40 (1958), 327–360 & Idem, ‘Studien zu Johannes von Erfurt II: Sein
Verhältnis zur Olivischule’, FrSt 42 (1960), 153–196; Meier, Die Barfüsserschule zu
Erfurt, 11–12, 42f, 61, 65–66, 69 & passim; P. Glorieux, La faculté des arts et ses
maîtres au xiiie s. (Paris, 1971), 208; Norbert Brieskorn, Die ‘Summa Confessorum’des Joh.
von Erfurt, I: Einleitung (Bern, 1980); Norbert Brieskorn & Volker Honeman, ‘Johannes
von Erfurt’, VL2 IV, 584–589.
29
His theological and philosophical oeuvre is large and important (even if not
everything has survived until the present day), comprising a Tabula de Verborum
Significatione, a Vocabularium Vocum sive Glossarium Bibliae (also known as the Libellus in
Britonem, which is a reworking of William Brito’s Expositio Difficiliorum Partium Totius
Bibliae), a Tabula Originalium (a biblical encyclopaedia?), a rather popular Sentences
commentary (heavily dependent on Bonaventura (esp. Book II and III, Pietro de
Tarantasia, Petrus de Trabibus (esp. Book IV), Tommaso d’Aquino and John Pecham
(esp. Book I)), several biblical commentaries ( Job, Jesaiah, Cant., Apoc.), sermons,
a Tabula Tocius Philosophiae Naturalis, a Tabula Logicae, a Liber de Moralizatione Septem
Artium, and a Tabula Tocius Philosophiae Moralis. See for more information the liter-
ature mentioned in the previous note.
30
Other legal works ascribed to Johann are the Decem Casus Respicientes Episcopum
from 1282 on confession and absolution by different orders of priests (parish priests,
bishops etc.), surviving in MS Cues (near Bernkastel a.d. Mosel), Bibliothek des
Hospitals 267 ff. 466–468 (inc.: Simplex sacerdos potest absolvere . . .; expl.: Ioannes
lector Magdeburgensis; coram Ministro et Senioribus Posita est ista compilatio
propter episcopos et omnem clerum A.D. 1285) and the Quaestio Confessionis, sur-
viving in MSS Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana Conv. Soppr. 123 ff. 97r–98v (14th
cent.); Cues, Bibliothek des Hospitals 267 ff. 468v–471 (late 13th cent.). This latter
326 chapter five
works stand out, namely the immensely popular Tabula Iuris Utriusque,
written to provide Franciscan theology students and clerics in gen-
eral with a concise but thorough entrance into matters of canon and
roman law,31 and the aforementioned Summa Confessorum, which was
built with recourse to the materials gathered in the Tabula, and like
this earlier work aimed at providing regular and secular priests with
all the canonical information they needed to equip them for their
confessional tasks and for other sacramental obligations.32 In the mid-
work has been edited in F.M. Delorme, ‘Questions de Jean d’Erfurt et de Roger
Marston autour du canon Omnis Utriusque Sexus’, SF 31 [6] (1934), 319–335.
31
This Tabula utriusque Iuris has survived in a large number of manuscripts. The
aforementioned studies list MSS Angers, Bib. Civile Cod. 330 (13th cent.); Cues
(near Bernkastel a.d. Mosel), Bibliothek des Hospitals Cod. 267 (late 13th cent.);
Chartres, Cod. 319 (357) (14th cent.); Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana XXVIII,
Sin 1; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana 321; Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 287; Reims,
Bibliothèque Civile Cod. 761 (G 501) (14th cent.) & Cod. 712 (G 500) (13th cent.);
Vendôme, Cod. 78 (14th cent.); Venice, Biblioteca di S. Marco III, 201 (2278);
Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek Dominikanerkonvent M.ch.q. 138 ff. 10v–211r (an.
1396); Bruges, Bibl. Semin. 46/57; Oxford, Bodleian Rawl. C 738 (early 14th cent.);
Oxford, Oriel College Cod. 72 (14th cent.) & Cod. 53 (13th cent.); Aschaffenburg,
Schlossbibliothek 40; Klosterneuburg 666 & 667; Toledo, Biblioteca Cathedral
A.J.A.III.100; Trier, 888 ff. 1r–200v; Valencia, Biblioteca Cathedral 123; Wolfenbüttel,
2547 ff. 356c–357b (fragment); Worcester Cathedral Cod. F. 15 (14th cent.) & Cod.
F 151 (14th cent.) & Cod. F 156 (14th cent.); Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek Cod.
885 (14th cent.); Metz, Bibliothèque de la Ville Cod. 117 (an. 1292); Munich,
Staatsbibliothek Clm. 8705 (14th cent.); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 7404; Erlangen,
Universitätsbibliothek Cod. 350 (14th cent.); Assisi, Biblioteca del Conv. di S.
Francesco Cod. 229 (14th cent.) & Cod. 232 (14th cent.). The Tabula consists of
an alphabetically ordered collection of law materials for the use of theologians and
priests, not solely for matters pertaining to confession, but for all matters in which
an orientation in canon or roman law was necessary. The work had a great suc-
cess in this field, yet, as can be expected, did not have a large impact on more
specialised canonist literature. The first version was composed after 1274 (and before
1285). It saw several reworkings (both by Johann von Erfurt and by others) until
the early fourteenth century. For more information on manuscripts and influence, see
esp. Kurtscheid, FrSt 1 (1914), 269–290 and Meier, Die Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt, 43.
32
Johann’s Summa Confessorum has come down to us in thirteen complete manu-
scripts and a series of additional fragments. The work is divided into two books
(which again are divided into parts, articles, and questions). The first of these dis-
cusses the capital sins, whereas the other book takes care of the precepts of the
decalogue. Within this basic grid, Johann dealt extensively with many canonical
issues pertaining to the task of the confessor and the obligations of the contrite pen-
itent. Kurtscheid, ‘De Studio Iuris Canonici in Ordine Fratrum Minorum’, 187ff.
provides us with the following overview of the Summa’s content:
Book I, part I: De confessione; Qualiter debeat esse confessor; Cui sit confitendum; part
II: De superbia; De ypocrisi; De inobedientia; De iactantia; part III: De ira; De rixa; De
adulatione; De blasphemia; part IV: De invidia; De susurratione; De detrectatione; De exul-
tatione in prosperitatibus; De afflictione in adversis; part V: De accidia; De negligentia
circa eucharistiam; De negligentia in contractibus; De pusillanimitate; De correctione; De
fourteenth century, Johann’s Summa Confessorum was given a German

alphabetical reworking.33
The oeuvre of Jean Rigaud (d. 1323) from Limoges, a friar from
a younger generation with close ties to the papal curia of Pope John
bello; De excommunicatione; De interdicto; De sententia suspensionis; De sententia deposi-

tionis; De supplenda negligentia praelatorum; part VI: De avaritia; De donatione; De dote;
De testamento; De successione haereditaria; De successione ab intestato; De emptione et ven-
ditione; De locato et conducto; De contractu emphyteosis; De commodato; De precariis; De
permutatione; De pactis; De deposito; De fideiussoribus; De pignoribus; De societate; De cura
negotiorum gestorum; De tutoribus et curatoribus; De officialibus; De turpi lucro; De eleemosina;
De decimis; De primitiis; De obligationibus; De prodigalitate; De venatione; part VII: De
gula; De ebrietate; De jeiunio et abstinentia; De inepta laetitia; De scurrilitate; De immundi-
tia; De multiloquio; part VIII: De luxuria; De adulterio; De castitate; De sponsalibus; De
matrimonio; De condicionibus matrimonio appositis; De conjugio clandestino; De conjugio lep-
rosorum; De conjugio servorum; De consanguinitate; De cognatione spirituali; De cognatione
legali; De affinitate; De frigidis et maleficiatis; De secundis nuptiis; Qui sint filii legitimi;
Qui matrimonium accusare possunt; De divortiis; De clericis conjugatis; De conversione con-
jugatorum; De peccato originali.
Book II, part I: De praeceptis; De dispensatione; De primo praecepto; De baptismo;
De confirmatione; De eucharistia; De poenitentia; De contritione; De satisfactione; De indul-
gentiis; De unctione extrema; De ordine; De spe; De caritate; De consecratione ecclesiae; De
rerum divisione; De religiosis dominibus; De communitate ecclesiae; De paganis; De sortile-
gio; De haereticis; De iudaeis; part II: De secundo praecepto; De jurejurando; De menda-
cio; De voto; part III: De tertio praecepto; part IV: De quarto praecepto; Qualiter honorandi
sint parentes; De suffragiis mortuorum; De clerico aegrotante; De vita et honestate clerico-
rum; De regularibus; De abbatibus; De sanctimonialibus; De abbatissis; De apostatis; De
jure patronatus; part V: De homicidio; De scandalo; De poenis; De injuria; De his quae
vi metusque causa fiunt; De eunuchis; De torneamentis; De expositione infantium vel lan-
guidorum; part VI: De furto; De sacrilegio; De rapina; De usuris; De mutuo; De simo-
nia; De censibus et tributis et exactionibus; De iudicio temerario; De dominio; De aleatoribus;
De histrionibus; De dolo; De praescriptione; De usucapione; De pluspetitione; De transgres-
sione terminorum; De sepulcris; De beneficiis; De praebendis; De vicariis; De monetae
falsificatione; De iniusta condemnatione; De transactione; De feudis; De dampno; De fama;
De infamia; De rerum inventione; De privilegiis; De visitatione et procuratione; De usu et
usufructu; De servis; De liberis; De libertis; De servitutibus; part VII: De octavo prae-
cepto; De falso testimonio; De fide instrumentorum; De crimine falsi; part VIII: De nono
praecepto; De decimo praecepto. See for a rather complete analysis: Summa Confessorum:
Die Summa confessorum des Johannes von Erfurt, teil 2 und 3, ed. N. Brieskorn,
Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe II, Bd. 245 (Berlin, 1981).
A good example of how penitential and catechetical elements were kept together
in the manuscripts is MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 632. It con-
tains an anonymous decalogue explication, a reworking of the Summa Confessorum of
Johannes von Freiburg, an incomplete Pater Noster explication, Sun- and Saints’ day
sermons from the so-called Schwarzwälder Prediger, sermons and sermon fragments of
Berthold von Regensburg, an as yet unidentified Speculum Confessionis, separate con-
fession questions, extracts from the Rechtssumme of Berthold von Freiburg, additional
sermons, prayers, a listing of biblical and scientific books, and finally a song on the
ten commandments and a prayer to the Virgin Mary. See: Baumann, Aberglaube für
Laien, 139.
33
On this reworking by the friar Berthold von Freiburg see the article of Peter
328 chapter five
XXII, exhibits a comparable mix of theology and canon law. Aside

from his many sermons,34 Jean produced between 1309 and 1317
two successful works: the Compendium Pauperis (ca. 1312–1317), a ‘con-
cise’ theological handbook (inspired by the Compendium Theologicae
Veritatis by Hugues Ripelin OP and the Franciscan Dieta Salutis),35
and the Formula Confessionum (ca. 1309–1312), which received its first
Johanek in VL2 I, 807–813, as well as the following more in-depth studies and edi-
tions: Die ‘Rechtssumme’ Bruder Bertholds. Untersuchungen I, ed. Marlies Hamm & Helgard
Ulmschneider, TTG, 1 (Tübingen, 1980); Die ‘Rechtssumme’ Bruder Bertolds I: Die Hand-
schriftliche Überlieferung, ed. Helmut Weck, TTG, 6 (Tübingen, 1980); Die ‘Rechtssumme’
Bruder Bertholds. Eine deutsche abecedarische Bearbeiting der ‘Summa Confessorum’ des Johannes
von Freiburg, Bände I–IV: Synoptische Edition der Fassungen B, A, und C, ed. Georg Steer,
Wolfgang Klimanek, Daniela Kuhlmann, Freimut Föser, Karl-Heiner Südekum,
TTG, 11–14 (Tübingen, 1987); Die ‘Rechtssumme’ Bruder Bertholds. Eine deutsche abecedarische
Bearbeitung der ‘Summa Confessorum’ des Johannes von Freiburg, Band VI: Quellenkommentar
A–H, Band VII: Quellenkommentar I–Z, ed. Marlies Hamm, Helgard Ulmschneider,
TTG, 16–17 (Tübingen, 1989–1991).
34
Schneyer, Repertorium III, 676–703. For more information on this theologian-
canonist, who acted as provincial minister of the Provence province round 1305,
became penitentiary of Pope John XXII, and eventually was raised to the episco-
pal see of Tréguier (21–02, 1317), see Bonaventura Kruitwagen, ‘Narratiuncula de
Indulgentia Portiunculae ex libro “Compendium Theologiae Pauperis” deprompta’,
AFH 2 (1909), 407–11; N. Valois, ‘Jean Rigaud, frère mineur’, Histoire Littéraire de
la France 34 (1914), 282–298; A. Teetaert, ‘La “Formula Confessionum” du Frère
Mineur Jean Rigaud (d. 1323)’, in: Miscellanea Historica in Honorem Alberti de Meyer
(Louvain-Brussels, 1946), II, 651–676; Doucet, ‘Commentaires sur les Sentences.
Supplément’, 140; E. Amann, ‘Rigaud, Jean’, DThC XII, 125–6 & XIII, 2705;
P. Péano, ‘Les ministres provinciaux de Provence’, AFH 79 (1986), 35–37; B.G.
Guyot, ‘La “Dieta Salutis” et Jean Rigaud’, AFH 82 (1989), 360–93; ‘Jean Rigaud’,
DHGE XXVII, 505.
35
This Compendium apparently survives in over 30 manuscripts, a.o. MSS Florence,
Biblioteca Riccardiana 349 ff. 6–74; Ravenna Class. 80; Perugia 1040 (M 63);
Sélestat, Bibliothèque Municipale 32 (an. 1435); Vienna, Österreichische National-
bibliothek 1419 (27–4, 1337); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 3150. It contains
basic theological information on doctrinal matters and the sacraments, an enumer-
ation of virtues and vices, and sermon examples for Sun- and feastdays. An early
edition (without the sermon examples) appeared as the Compendium Pauperis, ed.
F. Willer (Basel: Jakob de Pforsten, 1501). A partial modern edition can be found
in Angela Peyranne, Un abrégé de théologie du XIV e siècle, la première partie du ‘Compendium
pauperis’, Diss. (Toulouse, 1999). In his 1989 study mentioned in the previous note,
Bertrand-Georges Guyot informs us (p. 364): ‘. . . Jean Rigaud avait sous les yeux
le Compendium theologice veritatis et la Dieta salutis dont il recopie des passages en les
raccordant par quelques phrases de transition.’ B.G. Guyot, ‘La “Dieta Salutis” et
Jean Rigaud’, AFH 82 (1989), 360 also gives a concise characterisation of this kind
of ‘. . . littérature de second niveau, destinée à la formation des pasteurs, et utilisant,
en partie au moins, les récentes acquisitions théologiques. Elle se présente habituelle-
ment sous la forme de commentaires aux éléments de base de la vie chrétienne,
Pater, Credo, Décalogue, ou comme manuels plus construits adoptant souvent le
modèle septennaire déjà classique.’ See also Noël Valois, ‘Jean Rigaud, frère mineur’,
Histoire littéraire de la France 34 (1914), 291–297.
analysis by Valois (1914),36 and thereafter was described in more

detail by Teetaert (in 1946).37
This latter Formula charts in six parts and 26 chapters the main
aspects of the confessional in a very practical fashion (no doubt con-
tributing to its success).38 Confession is presented as the necessary
36
Valois, ‘Jean Rigaud, frère mineur’, 286–291.
37
This Formula Confessionum, which is also found under titles like the Tractatus de
Penitentia et Confessione, Summula Confessionum, Summa Confessorum or Formula de Modo
Confitendi, had a wide reception during the late medieval period. The various stud-
ies mention its presence in MSS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 3725 & 6622;
Lambach, Benedictine Monastery 176; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Lat.
3234 ff. 27–76; Vienna, Nationalbibliothek 3648 ff. 86–192; Munich, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek Lat. 14625 154ff.; Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek Theol.
A.55 ff. 344–364; Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek 1304 ff. 301–318; Prague, National
Museum XIV E 2 (3477) ff. 118–156; Prague, Metropolitankapitel N. 42 & N. 1069
ff. 213–236; Angers, Bibliothèque de la Ville 322; Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 555
ff. 123–134; Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 644 ff. 106–162; Barcelona, Archives of the
Crown of Aragon Ripoll 175 ff. 1–47; Saint-Michiel, Bibliothèque de la Ville 50;
Toulouse, Bibliothèque de la Ville 384; Tours, Bibliothèque de la Ville 404; Cortona
Biblioteca dell’Academia Etrusc. 57 & 205; London, British Library Arundell 379
ff. 2r–22v; Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 1161 ff. 1r–41r; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale
Conv. Soppr. F.VI. 6855; Florence, Laurenziana Plut. IV sin 11; Parma, Bibl. Palat.
95; Pistoia, Bibl. Fortaguerri D. 278 f. 336. In some of the manuscripts, the work
is dedicated to Berengarius Frédol (Bérenger Frédol), bishop of Frascati, papal pen-
itentiary ( just like Jean Rigaud), and himself the author of a Summa de Confessione.
To Jean Rigaud is also ascribed a saint’s life on Antonio di Padova, found in MS
Bordeaux, Bibliothèque Publique 270 ff. 283–302. See on this Valois, ‘Jean Rigaud,
frère mineur’, 283–286.
38
Teetaert has made an edition of the prologue on the basis of MSS Rome,
BAV Lat. 1161, London, British Library Arundel 379, Barcelona, Archives of the
Crown of Aragon Ripoll 175. In this prologue, Jean announces (among other things):
‘Idcirco hec formula (. . .) sex partes habebit. Prima pars erit de hiis que confes-
sionem debent precedere. Secunda de hiis que habent confessionem comitari. Tertia
de hiis que confessio complectitur. Quarta de hiis que ipsam confessionem conse-
quuntur. Quinta de hiis propter que confessio iteratur. Sexta continebit unum
confiteor, quod docebit confiteri iuxta istam formulam et ad quandam brevitatem
per illud hec formula reducetur. Advertat autem quilibet, qui legerit ordinem dicen-
dorum, quod de illis peccatis solum confiteatur, in quibus eum sua conscientia oner-
abit vel accusabit, et illa taceat in sua confessione, in quibus se iudicavit innocentem.’
Teetaert, ‘La “Formula Confessionum” du Frère Mineur Jean Rigaud’, 660–661).
Teetaert also offers an edition of the first rubrics after the prologue and the titles
of the various individual ‘chapters’ of the Formula Confessionum. In all, it contains 26
‘chapters’. The first 22 of these (De quinque sensibus, De peccatis mortalibus, De
superbia, De avaritia, De luxuria, De invidia, De gula, De ira, De accidia, De
decem preceptis, Secunda tabula decem preceptorum, De operibus misericordie,
De virtutibus, De fide, De spe que est secunda virtus, De VII sacramentis, De cari-
tate, De virtutibus cardinalibus, De temperantia, De fortitudine, De iustitia, De cir-
cumstantiis peccatorum aggravantibus) deal with the first three elements (de hiis
que confessionem debent precedere, de hiis que habent confessionem comitari, &
de hiis que confessio complectitur). The fourth part (de hiis que ipsam confessionem
330 chapter five
medicine to the diseased Christian flock, effective in separating the

corrupted humours, purging them, preventing their return and strength-
ening the remaining meritous and virtuous humours of body and
soul.39 In its denunciation and analysis of sins, the Formula is highly
critical of the urban mores of money makers, usurers, and merchants.
It also attacks the practices of legal professionals (lawyers, judges)
and the overall pervasiveness of avarice and gluttony. The work’s
primary intended audience, and that is something of a novelty, seems
to comprise the (well-educated) penitent as well as the confessor. To
ensure that the act of confession is properly focussed, the Formula
includes mnemonic rhymes that can be pondered and recited by the
penitent in his approach of the confessional.40 To facilitate this mem-
orisation process even further, this Formula Confessionum was soon given
a complete versified abstract, known as the Confessionale Metricum,
making it possible for the penitent to learn by heart and to recite
more easily all the constituting elements of a good confession.41
Whereas Jean Rigaud might have been writing with the (literate)
penitent in mind, Durand de Champagne, the learned confessor of
the Queen of France ( Jeanne de Navarra), wrote his Directorium or
Summa Confessionum pro Confessionibus Audiendis (ca. 1311–1314)42 for
consequuntur) is addressed in the ‘chapters’ De restitutione & De satisfactione. The

fifth part receives one chapter (Propter que debet confessio iterari), emphasising fre-
quent confession. The sixth part is an abbreviation and recapitulation (Confessio
generalis sub compendio replicans omnia supradicta).
39
‘Vide igitur, fili, quod confessio est quedam medecina. Medecina autem sumi-
tur ad quatuor. Primo ad separationem, collectionem et digestionem humorum cor-
ruptorum et nocivorum. Secunda ad purgationem malorum humorum presentium
et preteritorum. Tertio ad preservationem malorum humorum, ne in corpore generen-
tur. Quarto ad confectionem meritorum et virtutum.’ Ibidem, 660.
40
Such as: ‘Sit simplex, humilis confessio, pura, fidelis/Atque frequens, nuda,
discreta, libens, verecunda,/Integra, secreta, lacrymabilis, accelerata,/Fortis et accu-
sans, et parere parata.’ Ibidem, 668–669, note 6.
41
See for instance MS Prague, Univ. 2040 ff. 158v–169v. For a more detailed
pastoral analysis of the Formula and its offspring, see also the study of Valois men-
tioned in a previous note. In his 1946 study (pp. 674ff.), Teetaert mentions another
Formula Confessionum attributed to Jean Rigaud (a.o. MS London, British Library
Arundel, 379 ff. 23r–26r), but it would seem that this ascription is false.
42
See for instance MSS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 2307; Paris, Bibiothèque Nationale
Lat. 3264 (once in the possession of Jean de la Tissenderie OFM, who became
bishop of Rieux in 1324) and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 16891 (once in
possession of the Grand couvent des Cordeliers at Paris. The prologue of the work
has been edited and analysed in U. Neumann, ‘Sacerdos sine Scientia est sicut
doctor cecus . . .’ Postulate zur charakterlichen und wissenschaftlichen Bildung des
Beichtigers in der Summa Collectionum pro Confessionibus Audiendis des Durand von
Champagne OFM’, in: Universität und Bildung, Festschrift Laetitia Boehm zum 60. Geburtstag,
simple clerics with confessional obligations, who did not have time
to read a lot of books and did not have money to acquire many of
them either.43 His captatio benevolentiae towards these ‘simple priests’
notwithstanding, Durand took great care to include in his Summa the
latest canonist materials, such as those put forward by Boniface VIII
in the Liber Sextus (1299),44 and did not limit himself to the peni-
tential basics. As a matter of fact, his Summa is everything but con-
cise, consisting of two large books that by their volume and content
belie the simplicity announced in the prologue.
The first book of this Directorium speaks at length about 1.) the
qualities and obligations of the confessor; 2.) penitence and its parts
(the famous triad of contrition, confession, satisfaction); 3.) the elements
of satisfaction (alms, fasting, prayer, indulgences, and restitution); and
4.) the seven capital sins. Under the headings of the seven capital
sins, however, Durand dealt in separate distinctions with a wide array
of questions and problems. Hence under ira, he discussed the different
qualities of wrath as a sin (which opened the road to dwell on blas-
phemy, injuring people, violent accidents, intimidation, liberty and
slavery, serfdom etc.) as well as issues tangentially related to wrath,
such as the nature of paternal correction, purgation, jurisdiction, and
issues of excommunication (including details about interdict and sus-
pension). Likewise, the sin of avaritia gave Durand the possibility to
speak in detail about issues of donation, testamentary bequests, hered-
itary laws, rules pertaining to selling and buying products, loans and
contracts, wages, deposits, bail, fiefs, usufruct, and so on.
ed. Müller et al. (Munich, 1991), 33–44. Another (but more faulty) transcript of
the prologue can be found in Dieterle, ‘Die Summae confessorum (sive de casibus
concientiae)’, 70–78.
43
‘. . . Ego in ordine fratrum Minorum minimus, simplex pro simplicibus, pau-
per pro pauperibus, qui tantam librorum multitudinem ex quibus collecta sunt
habere prae paupertate non possent, vel [quibus] propter occupationes varias stud-
ere vel perlegere [non] liceret, etiam si haberent, praesens opus stilo rudi sed com-
pendiosi, non de scientia mea sed de divino confisus auxilio, attemptare praesumpsi.’
Cited from the article of Neumann mentioned in the previous note.
44
In his prologue, Durand gives his reasons for being as up-to-date as possible:
‘Multa quoque a prioribus scripta a modernis doctoribus sunt suppleta, declarata
lucidius et melius emendata, in tantum ut etiam ipse dominus Hostiensis in appa-
ratu suo super Decretales de eadem quaestione dicat aliter quam in Summa, judi-
cans posteriora prioribus praeferenda. Papa vero Bonifacius jura nova condidit et
multa dubia declaravit. Propterea non superfluum, imo valde necessarium, judicavi
novas casuum tangere quaestiones, modernorum opiniones, additiones, declarationes,
seu correctiones exprimere de Sextu decretalium, in locis propriis et titulis explicare,
prout in foro conscientiae videtur expediens pro consiliis animarum.’ Ibidem.
332 chapter five
After this lengthy first book, Durand devoted the second book of
his Directorium to the ten commandments, the treatment of which
regularly gave cause to refer back to passages in book one where
comparable issues were at stake. In his treatment of the ten com-
mandments, Durand took the opportunity to address specific issues
of faith and morals. Hence, the first commandment (Non adorabis deos
alienos) was used by Durand to write extensively about the articles
of faith, the sacraments, the theological virtues, the liturgy and eccle-
siological matters (including passages on tithes, oblations, the role of
the priests and their acolytes during the religious service, the dedi-
cation of churches, the privileges and exemptions of clerics, sorti-
leges and superstitions, the position of Jews in Christian society,
heretics, Sunday observance etc.). It shows that, albeit not simple
and concise, the Summa, by the sheer fact of its comprehensive nature,
could function as the ‘simple’ priest’s only book (if he was only able
to afford it!).
A comparable objective lay behind Astesano d’Asti’s (d. c. 1330)
Summa de Casibus Conscientiae (also known as the Summa Astesani) which,
according to the prologue itself, was an abbreviation of an even
larger Summa of canonist and theological materials (the Summa Quaes-
tionum Sacrae Scripturae de Omni Materia) that apparently did not sur-
vive. Astesano’s surviving Summa de Casibus (1317), which was dedicated
to cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, was written to serve ‘ad con-
silium in foro conscientiae tribuendum.’45 Hence it meant to offer
45
For its manuscript dissemination and information on Astesano himself, see
J. Dieterle, ‘Die Summa de Casibus Conscientiae des Astesanus de Asti’, Zeitschrift für
Kirchengeschichte 26 (1905), 350–362; M. Bihl, ‘Astesanus’, DHGE IV, 1169; J.G.
Ziegler, Die Ehelehre der Pönitentialsummen von 1200–1350 (Regensburg, 1956), passim;
J.G. Ziegler, ‘Astesana’, LThK, I2, 959; R. Abbondanza, ‘Astesano’, DBI IV (1962),
463–465. The work quickly found its way to the printing press: Summa Astesana de
Casibus Conscientiae (Venice, 1468/Venice, Joh. de Colonia & Joh. Manthen, 1478
& 1480/Strasbourg, 1469–70/Strasbourg, 1473–1474 (2x)/Basel, c. 1477/Cologne,
1479 (2x)/Nürnberg, 1482 & 1520 (1528?)/Lyon, 1519 (2x)/Rome, 1728–30). The
1478 edition has been re-issued on CDRom (Graz, Akad. Druck- und Verl. Anst.,
1996). The Canones Poenitentiales found in many manuscripts under Astesano’s name,
are in fact taken from the Summa de Casibus (tit. 32 of book V). These Canones also
found their way to the press: Canones Paenitentiales, ed. L. Pachel & U. Scinzenzeler
(Milan, 1479), a partial edition; Canones Paenitentiales (Leipzig, 1495 (3x)/Nürnberg,
c. 1495/Vienna, 1496). The Canones are also included in (several editions of ) Nicola
da Osimo’s Supplementum to Bartolomeo da San Concordio’s Summa Pisanella, and in
several early modern editions of Gratian’s Decretum. In addition, the Canones Paenitentiales
were edited by H.J. Schmitz in his Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisziplin der Kirche (Mainz,
1883) I, 800–808.
confessors and priests a complete guide to penitential issues. Following

the outlines of the famous confession manual of Raymond de Peña-
forte OP, Astesano’s Summa is divided into eight books, respectively on
1.) the divine precepts (De divinis praeceptis); 2.) virtues and vices (De
virtutibus et viciis); 3.) contracts and testaments (De contractibus et voluntatibus
ultimis); 4.) the sacraments and in particular those of baptism, con-
firmation and the Eucharist (De sacramentis in communi et in speciali de
baptismo, de confirmatione, de eucaristia); 5.) penitence and last rites (De
penitentia et unctione extrema); 6.) priesthood (De ordinis sacramento); 7.)
ecclesiastical sanction (De censura ecclesiastica); 8.) marriage (De matri-
monia). The work was designed with three separate indexes, one pro-
viding the necessary references to the Decretals, one for all the rubrics
cited from the Corpus Iuris Canonici and the Corpus Iuris Civilis, and
one alphabetical index on the individual penitential topics dealt with
in the text. Astesano not only built on juridical sources, but also
cited most major thirteenth-century theologians, showing like several
of his Franciscan predecessors a good command of both the theo-
logical and the legal disciplines. Moreover, in its rather psychologi-
cal approach, the work is clearly influenced by Aristotle’s Nichomachean
Ethics, and does not refrain from citing appropriate medical author-
ities. Astesano’s Summa de Casibus had a considerable (if not over-
whelming) impact on penitential writings in the later medieval period,
especially among the Franciscan Observants in Italy (such as Bernardino
da Siena), who liked the work’s psychological approach. Eventually
it saw no less than 15 printed editions.
Another Directorium Iuris in line with those of Durand de Champagne
and Astesano d’Asti was produced by Peter Quesel, an English friar
active in the Norwich area. Peter’s Directorium, apparently his only
surviving work (which also is known as the Repertorium Iuris Canonici
and as the Summa Directoria in Foro Conscientie et Iudicali) consists of a
prologue (revealing the author’s intentions and his objective to target
various categories of readers), four books or parts in which he organ-
ises his materials, and a concluding epilogue. In his prologue, Peter
announces that he has organised his work in such a manner that
poor clerics can obtain or copy for themselves the part most con-
genial to their immediate obligations. Hence, his work neither follows
the Decretals nor an alphabetical approach, but discusses in the first
chapter matters pertaining to the trinity, faith and the seven sacra-
ments (geared towards teachers of theology at various levels), in the
second chapter matters of interest to those who have to administer
334 chapter five
and/or receive the sacraments (such as parish priests and their flock),
in the third chapter crimes and transgressions that can be an imped-
iment for receiving the sacraments (for confessors and inquisitors),
and in the fourth chapter a series of legal issues in the strict sense
of the word (for those who want to know more about canon and
civil law).46
As his prologue already makes out, Peter’s Directorium is both a
methodical and a practical work, listing for each problem the applic-
able canonist materials (as found in the Decretum, the Decretals and
additional collections), followed by a concluding thesis, in which the
author makes a case for the best solution. In these solutions, the
work follows closely the Summae compiled by Raymond de Peñaforte
and Johann von Freiburg. Due to its practical character, Peter Quesel’s
Directorium has been widely used, as can be seen in the number of
its surviving manuscripts, most of which have an alphabetical table
of content or an index (a tabula generalis) to boot, providing the titles
or rubrics of the individual books (and hence providing the alpha-
betical entrance not given by the work itself ).47
46
‘Istud autem opus in quartor libros volui dividere ut qui pauper est non pos-
sit se excusare quod non possit ad minus librum illum habere qui ad eius offi-
cium noscitur pertinere. Et ideo omitto scribere secundum ordinem Decretalium et
secundum ordinem alphabeti ut totam unam materiam valeam pertrattare. (. . .) In
primo libro trattatur De summa Trinitate et de Fide Catholica et de septem sacra-
mentis. (. . .) In secundo de hiis qui habent ecclesiastica sacramenta ministrare et
de hiis que ad eos et ad recipientes sacramenta et etiam que possunt ad contrac-
tus varios pertinere. (. . .) In tercio de criminibus propter que a sacramentis potest
impediri et de penis pro criminibus imponendis. (. . .) In quarto de hiis que ad jus
et ad judicium pertinent.’ (On the basis of Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 2317 f. 1c. as
found in Lioi, SF, 59 (1962), 218).
47
See for example MSS Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale MS 75 (15th c.); Turin,
Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria MS 398 (D.I.18); Firenze, Biblioteca Laurenziana
Santa Croce Plut I, Sin 8 & Plut III Sin 2; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale I.D.1
(Fondo Brancacciano); Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek MS 2146 (15th c.);
Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 2317; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana 28 Scaff 1; Brussels,
Bibiothèque Royale 225–226 ff. 3r–261v (Books I–II) & 152–154 ff. 1r–282v (Books
III & IV, Cf. Catalogue nos. 2549 & 2550); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat 4261,
4262 & 8934; Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Pasini Latini 281 [CCLXXI] D-I-18;
Oxford, Merton College 223; Oxford, Bodleian Canonici Miscell. 463; Burgos
5.f.1–250 (15th cent.); Prague, Metropolitan Chapter Library MS J. 5 ff. 1r–192v;
Prague, National Museum 3778 (XVII A 4) ff. 294–361 (Book four. This manu-
script also contains the Summa de Casibus by Astesano d’Asti on ff. 1–266, and the
Tractatus de Instructione Confessorum by Johann von Freiburg on ff. 287–293); Kloster-
neuburg, Stiftsbibliothek MS a 1044 (incomplete); Königsberg, ehemalige Staats-
und Universitätsbibliothek a. 1436 (lost?). For more information, see Wadding,
Scriptores, 192; Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 357–358; AFH 2 (1909), 631; A. Teetaert,
After Peter Quesel, the production of large Summae Confessionum

within the Franciscan order temporarily subsided. The by then large
number of Franciscan (and Dominican) confession manuals appar-
ently gave confessors and teachers alike more than sufficient infor-
mation to perform their tasks. What remained a problem, however,
was the labour division between the mendicants and the secular
clergy. Particularly during the 1280s and 1290s, and again in the
years leading up to the Council of Vienne (1311) this lead to almost
open warfare over the ministry of souls at the diocesan and parish
level.48 When, after the Council of Vienne, Boniface’s VIII mitigat-
ing Super Cathedram was re-issued (Dudum a Bonifacio), it became once
more necessary to instruct the friars on the boundaries of their con-
fessional activities, in order not to further antagonise the secular
clergy. To facilitate the friars’ understanding of the rules of and limits
to their confessional activities, the Erfurt lector Hermann Topelstein
wrote sometime in the 1330s at the request of his provincial minister
La confession aux laïques dans l’Église latine depuis le VIII e jusqu’au XIV e siècle (Bruges-
Paris, 1926), 456–457; A. Teeteart, ‘Quesel, Pierre’, DThC XIII, 1536–37; L. Lioi,
‘Il “Directorium Iuris” del francescanesimo Pietro Quesuel nei sermoni domenicali
di S. Giacomo della Marca’, SF, 59 (1962) 213ff. A Handlist of the Latin Writers of
Great Britain and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard Sharpe, Publications of The Journal
of Medieval Latin, 1 (Turnhout, 1997), 433–434.
48
As early as the 1260s the issue of demarcating and legitimising Franciscan con-
fessional activities lead Bonaventura or one of his immediate colleagues to write
Quare Fratres Minores Praedicent et Confessiones Audiant. Edited in Bonaventura, Opera
Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 375–385. Cf. Thiel, ‘St. Bonaventura über ausseror-
dentliche Seelsorge’, 49–52. For the chronology of this pastoral conflict, which
evolved alongside of the parallel conflict between the mendicant orders and the sec-
ular clergy at the universities of Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, see P. Glorieux,
‘Prélats français contre les religieux mendiants. Autour de la bulle ‘Ad fructus uberes’
(1281–1290)’, Revue d’Histoire de l’Église de France 11 (1925), 309–331, 471–495;
C. Uyttenbroeck, ‘Le droit pénétentiel des religieux de Boniface VIII à Sixte IV’,
EF 47 (1935), 171–189, 306–332; E. Feyaerts, ‘De Evolutie van het Predikatierecht
der Religieuzen’, Studia Catholica 25 (1950), 177–190, 225–240; Charles de la Roncière,
‘Faire croire’, in: L’histoire du christianisme des origines à nos jours, tome VI: un temps
d’épreuves (1274–1449), ed. J.-M. Mayeur, Chr. Pietri, A. Vauchez & M. Venard
(Paris, 1990), 355–412 (356–7). Rusconi, ‘La predicazione minoritica in Europa nei
secoli XIII–XIV’, 155 argues that in Bonaventura’s time appears ‘una linea pas-
torale il cui fine è integrare ceti sociali e comportamenti individuali e collettivi all’in-
terno di un modello totalizzante, di cui sono articolazione da un lato i sermones ad
status e dall’altro le summae penitenziali articolate secondo le ripartizioni giuridiche dei
casus.’ This totalising aspect of mendicant pastoral care was facilitated by the priv-
ileges given to the mendicant friars by subsequent popes. Hence, late 1281, Martin
IV sanctioned in his Ad Fructus Uberes an almost total mendicant monopoly in the
fields of preaching and confession. With some mitigations, this was confirmed in
Super Cathedram of Boniface VIII.
336 chapter five
a concise Casus Abstracti a Iure. At the Franciscan general chapter of

1337 (Cahors), this guideline was endorsed for circulation through-
out the Franciscan Order.49
Whereas the success of the large early fourteenth-century Summae
Confessionum might have put a temporary halt on the production of
large all-encompassing confession handbooks, the closing decades of
the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century did see the
appearance of several smaller manuals about which as yet not many
details are known, due to insufficient scholarly analysis. Most impor-
tant among these texts might have been the Tractatus de Septem Vitiis
Capitalibus et Decem Preceptis by Francesco da Perugia (apostolic pen-
itentiary in Rome around 1375),50 the Interrogatorium seu Confessionale/
Summa de Casibus secundum Fr. Bartholomaeum ascribed to Bartolomeo
da Milano (Bartolomeo di Grassis?, fl. ca. 1371),51 The Subarrhatio
49
Casus Abstracti a Iure, MSS Assisi, Sacro Convento 447 ff. 121v–127r (olim Assisi,
Bib. Communale 447); Assisi, Sacro Convento 667 ff. 74r–78r (olim Assisi Communale
667); Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 333 ff. 126r–135v; Munich, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek Clm. 8968 ff. 182 ra–192va; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.F.23
ff. 181r–186r; Wroclaw, Biblioteka Kapitulna 72; Rome, Biblioteca Nazionale 16
ff. 33r–74r; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 3373 ff. 21–25v, 32v–34v (14th cent.).
This manuscript also contains a Practica Inquisitionis on ff. 1–21, 35–71. A modern
edition of the Casus appeared in E.H. Reiter, ‘A Treatise on Confession from the
Secular/mandicant Dispute: The “Casus Abstracti a Iure” of Herman of Saxony,
O.F.M.’, Mediaeval Studies 57 (1995), 1–39 (with an introduction on pp. 1–12). Several
late medieval manuscripts that contain the Casus also include a Tractatus de Dignitate
Sacerdotis. This latter work, which at times also is attributed to Hermann Topelstein,
eventually was printed anonymously as the Stella Clericorum. In the early fifteenth-
century, this demarcation issue was taken up again by the Franciscan lectors Dietrich
Struve (known for his Latin reworkings of works by Marquard von Lindau) and
Johann Reyneke. They composed a treatise De Discordia Inter Prelatos et Religiosos,
which deals both in Latin and in German and from a canon law perspective with
major points of conflict over confession rights between the secular and the regular
clergy. De Discordia inter Prelatos et Religiosos: MS Hildesheim, Dombibliothek 672 ff.
236ra–239va. See Glassberger, Chronica, AF II (1887), 277; Nigel F. Palmer, ‘Struve,
Thidericus OFM’, VL2 VIII, 460–461.
50
I do not know whether this Francesco should be identified with the Francesco
da Perugia (‘Doctor summus’) who was a pupil of Giovanni da Ripa and composed
a highly structured Sentences commentary in the 1360s, to become regent master at
Paris in 1370. For the Tractatus de Septem Vitiis Capitalibus et Decem Preceptis, see MSS
Prague, Universitätsbibliothek 1671 (IX.A.6) ff. 120v–127r; Wilhering, Zisterzienserstift
80 ff. 8–14v. See Sbaralea, Supplementum I, 294; F. Fußenegger, ‘Neues über Franz
von Perugia’, FrSt 25 (1938), 285–287; T. Majic, ‘Die Apost. Pönitentiarie im 14.
Jahrhundert’, Romische Quartalschrift 50 (1955), 127–177; Johannes Schlageter, ‘Francesco
di Perugia’, LThK III (1995), 51.
51
Interrogatorium seu Confessionale/Summa de Casibus secundum fr. Bartholomaeum. See
MS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 645 ff. 130r–159v. (inc.: Et primo. de peccatis que
ad episcopum debet mitti.; expl.: Explicit summa de casibus secundum Fratrem
Animarum seu de Vitiis et Virtutibus by Johann Zerngast (preacher at

Vienna in the later fourteenth century), which seems to be more a
treatise to facilitate Franciscan preachers involved in penitential
preaching than a confession manual properly speaking,52 the Summa
de Poentitentia by Johann von Peyne,53 the Summa de Peccatis by the
enigmatic Henricus Hollen,54 the Quaestio Utrum Videlicet Confessor Habeat
Auctoritatem Absolvendi by Alberto da Perugia,55 which would have been
an academic exercise ( just like several confessional texts ascribed to
Paolo da Terrano, Hugh David, Johannes Kerberch von Braunschweig,
and Johann Kanneman),56 the works of friar Fortunato da Coppulis
Bartholomaeum Mediolanensem de ord. fr. Minorum). See: Sbaralea, Supplementum I,

124; B. Pergamo, ‘I francescani alla facoltà teologia di Bologna’ AFH 27 (1934) 14;
C. Piana, Chartularium Studii Bononiensis S. Francisci (saec. XIII–XVI), AF XI (Quaracchi,
1970) 88*, 93*, 124*–126*, 36s; Bibliotheca Manuscripta ad Sacrum Conventum Assisiensem,
ed. Cesare Cenci (Assisi 1981) I, 280, 376 & II, 510. To Bartolomeo also is ascribed
a Summula de Testamentis Faciendis: MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouv. Acq. Lat.
1905 ff. 145v. See on this the study of Pergamo, as well as H. Omont, ‘Nouvelles
acquisitions du département des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale pendant
les années 1905–1906’, Bibiothèque de l’École des Chartes 68 (1907), 30.
52
Subarrhatio Animarum seu de Vitiis et Virtutibus: MSS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm.
8715 (originating from the local Franciscan convent); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm.
16174; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 26864 (From the Franciscan convent in
Regensburg).
53
MS Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. 4° 25.
54
Summa de Peccatis et Poenitentia: MS Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei theol. 2° 48 ff.
225ra–284vb. Heinrich’s Sermones Evangeliares Annuales can be found in MS Lüneburg,
Ratsbücherei theol. 2° 57.
55
MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, I. H. 43 f. 302rv. See Manoscritti francescani
della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, ed. C. Cenci, 2 Vols., Spicilegium Bonaventurianum,
VII–VIII (Grottaferrata, 1971) I, 156.
56
Paolo da Terano (fl. ca. 1435), De Angelis Damnatis, MS Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale VII.E.22 ff. 254r–278v; De Articulis Fidei, MS Naples, Naz. XIII.AA.43
ff. 1r–4r; De Iuramento, MS Naples, Naz. VIII.AA.31 ff. 384r–392v; De Negotiatione,
MS Naples, Naz. I.A.23 ff. 262b–269b, MS Naples Naz. V.H.274 ff. 150r–155r,
MS Naples, Naz. VII.E.33 ff. 212r–217r & MS Naples, Naz. VIII.AA.31 ff. 376r–381r;
De X Praeceptis, MS Naples, Naz. XIII.AA.43. See Manoscritti francescani della Biblioteca
Nazionale di Napoli, ed. C. Cenci, 2 Vols., Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, VII–VIII
(Grottaferrata, 1971) II, 1098. The question Utrum paenitens, peccata sua confessus fratri
licenciato, teneatur eadem rursus confiteri proprio sacerdoti, composed at Oxford around 1426
by Hugh David (d. after 1430), can be found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
Lat. 3221 (s. xv) ff. 55r–67. See A.G. Little, The Grey Friars in Oxford. Part I: A
History of the Convent; Part II: Biographical Notices of the Friars. Together with Appendices of
Original Documents (Oxford, 1892), 256; A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain
and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard Sharpe (Turnhout, 1997), 185. Johann Kerberch,
lector at the Braunschweig convent between 1419 and 1430, is responsible for a
set of Conclusiones de Libertatibus Fratrum ad Officium Audiendarum Confessionum: MSS
Braunschweig, Stadtbibliothek 58 ff. 221rb–226vb (15th cent.); Göttingen, Universitäts-
bibliothek cod. theol. 156h ff. 10r–12r (15th cent.). Some of his sermons and related
338 chapter five
de Perugia,57 and the confession manual of Egidio Guilelmi Missali

(fl. ca. 1400).58
B. DOTTRINE, SPECULA and CONFESSIONES GENERALES
The early fifteenth-century volte-face of the Italian regular Observance

from a eremitical movement towards a pastoral taskforce also had
repercussions for the production of confession manuals. Many renowned
Italian Observant preachers, who habitually dwelt on penitential top-
ics in their sermons, produced independent confession manuals for
training and teaching purposes in the Observant study houses, as
well as (vernacular) texts to instruct the increasingly literate Italian
public. Hence, Bernardino da Siena allegedly produced a Latin Summa
Confessionis (Confessio et Pulchritudo)59 for his fellow friars (many of whom
he taught the main tenets of moral theology at Monteripido near
Perugia during the 1430s), as well as several Italian confession guides
for penitents, such as the Specchio or Trattato della Confessione,60 the La
confessione di sancto Bernardino volgare utilissima e brieve,61 and the Una doc-
trina di sancto Bernardino utile del modo che se deba lo homo confessare.62 It
may well be that these vernacular works were not directly the prod-
uct of Bernardino, but were compilations based on Bernardino’s
materials can be found in MS Braunschweig, StB 156 ff. 3v–62v (15th cent.).

F. Doelle, ‘P. Johann Kerberch von Braunschweig über die Armut in den sächsischen
Provinz zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhunderts’, FrSt 5 (1918), 13–25; Meier, Die Barfüsserschule
zu Erfurt, 97f.; Volker Honemann, ‘Kerberch, Johannes, von Braunschweig’, VL2 IV,
1126–1127. The Franciscan theologian Johannes Kanneman also wrote a question
or commentary entitled De Libertate Confessionem Audiendi, directed against the com-
plaints of the secular clergy. Cf. Honemann, ‘Kanneman, Johannes’, 983–986.
57
See MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale V.H.33.
58
Parts of his Tractatus de Confessione can be found in MS Madrid, Biblioteca del
Escorial, d. III. 12. Cf. Wadding, Scriptores, 8; Sbarala, Supplementum I, 4.
59
This Summa Confessionis is not included in the Quaracchi edition of Bernardino’s
Opera Omnia, as the editors doubted the work’s authenticity. Nowadays, scholars tend
to accept the attribution. The manual can be found in Bernardinus Senensis, Opera
Omnia (Venice, 1591) IV, 151–176; Opera Omnia (Paris, 1635) III, 566–587; Opera
Omnia (Lyon, 1650), III, 457–474; Opera Omnia (Venice, 17452), III, 421–437.
60
This text can be found in S. Bernardino da Siena, Opere volgari, ed. D. Pacetti
(Florence, 1938), 47–316.
61
La confessione di sancto Bernardino volgare utilissima e brieve divisa in dodici parti prin-
cipali (Pescia, 1485).
62
Una doctrina di sancto Bernardino utile del modo che se deba lo homo confessare (Venice,
1494).
homiletic teachings.63 Giovanni da Capistrano, Bernardino’s pupil

and successor as the leader of the Italian regular Observants, who
just as his mentor was a relentless penitentiary preacher, likewise
produced sets of penitential manuals for friars and individual believ-
ers who wanted to scrutinise their conscience in hindsight of prospec-
tive confessional encounters, such as the La Breve Dottrina, the Speculum
Consciencie, and the Tractatus de Conscientia Serenanda.64
From these handbooks ascribed to Bernardino da Siena and
Giovanni da Capistrano onwards, the production of Dottrine, Specula
and Confessiones Generales for penitent believers grew dramatically. They
came predominantly, but not exclusively, from the pen of Observant
friars. Cases in point are the Speculum Animae by Antonio da Bitonto
(ca. 1385–1465),65 the Regola per ben confessarsi by Giacomo della Marca
(1393–1476),66 the Trattato della confessione by the anti-Judaic zealot
63
Cf. D. Pacetti, ‘Le opere volgari sulla confessione attribuite a San Bernardino
da Siena’, SF 31 (1934), 451–479; R. Rusconi, ‘Il sacramento della penitenza nella
predicazione di San Bernardino da Siena’, Aevum 47 (1973), 249–250.
64
La breve dottrina, ed. M.A. Buscemi, PhD Diss. (Rome, 1966), 187–291; Tractatus
de Conscientia Serenanda (Venice, 1584); Speculum Conscientiae, edited in: Tractatus uni-
versi Iuris, duce et auspice Gregorio XIII Pontifice Maximo in unum congesti I (Venice, 1584),
33–371. See also the article of A. Poppi, in: S. Giovanni da Capestrano nella Chiesa e
nella Società del suo Tempo (L’Aquila, 1989); Ottokar Bonmann, ‘Jean (saint), de
Capistrano’, Catholicisme VI, 420–421; S. Giovanni da Capistrano: un bilancio storiografico.
Atti del Convegno Storico Internazionale. Capestrano, 15–16 maggio 1998, ed. Edith Pásztor,
Quaderni di provinciaoggi, 30 (L’Aquila, 1999).
65
Past bibliographers (such as Wadding and Sbaralea) attributed several of Antonio
da Bitonto’s works to Antonio da Matelica (notably his Sermones Domenicales, his
Sentences commentary, his Summa Casuum (Speculum Animae), and the Quaestiones in
Epistolas et Evangelia Quadragesimalia cum Postilla Nicolai Lyrani. For Antonio’s Speculum
Animae, see Brussels, Bibliothèque Royal 2732 (10573); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
3525. Cf. C. Piana, ‘Fr. Antonius de Bitonto O.F.M., predicator et scriptor saec
XV’, FS 13 (1953), 178–97; M. Bihl, ‘Antoine de Bitonto’, DHGE III, 762–763.
66
Giacomo produced various works for penitent lay people. His sermon De
Confessione, the eleventh sermon of his Quadragesimale circulated widely on its own in
Latin and Italian, and was repeatedly edited: La Confessione del B. Fr. Iacobo della
Marca de l’Ordine et de l’Observantia de S. Francesco (a.o. Rome, 1493/Venice: Alexander
de Bindonis, 1515). Cf. Lasic, De vita et operibus S. Iacobi de Marchia, 202–203. His
vernacular Regola per ben confessarsi, from ca. 1474/1475, which also was edited sev-
eral times during the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, was directed ‘. . . ai
peccatori che si vogliano preparare in maniera adeguata alla confessione sacra-
mentale viene presentata, in sostanza, una griglia di tutti i peccati possibili: dap-
prima i sette peccati capitali, poi le violazioni dei dieci comandamenti, i peccati
contro i cinque sensi corporali, i dodici articoli della fede, i sette sacramenti, le
sette opere della misericordia corporale e quelle della misericordia spirituale, le tre
virtù teologali ed i cinque doni dello Spirito Santo. La confessione vera e propria
è in questa Regola limitata ad un ‘dico mia colpa’ confinato nel verso dell’ultima
340 chapter five
Michele Carcano da Milano (1427–1484),67 the Tractatus de Confessione

by the like-minded preacher and Dante scholar Bartolomeo da Colle
(1421–1482),68 the Confessione generale breve e utile by fra Bonaventura,69
the Confessione generale by Bernardino da Feltre (1439–1494),70 the
carta dell’edizione.’ R. Rusconi, ‘“Confessio generalis” Opuscoli per la pratica pen-

itenziale nei primi cinquante anni dalla introduzione della stampa’, in: I frati minori
tra ’400 e ’500, Atti del XII Convegno Internazionale Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984
(Assisi, 1986), 205. See D. Massi, Regola per ben confessarsi di S. Giacomo della Marca,
Unpublished Diss. (Rome: Pontificia Università Lateranense, 1963); R. Lioi, ‘Situazione
degli studi su S. Giacomo della Marca’, PS 6 (1969), 20–21.
67
Trattato della Confessione/Confessionale Generale (Venice, 1484/Milan: Ulricus Scinzen-
zeler, 1495/Milan, 1529). For a Croatian translation of the work, see: J. Lenhart,
‘Friar Michael de Carcano’s “Confessional” in a Croatian Edition of 1496’, FS 6
(1946), 111. The work presents itself as a confession manual to be used by peni-
tents. Hence, the rubric of the first edition states: ‘Incomincia la confessione gene-
rale, cioè lo modo che la persona de’tenere in esaminare la conscientia quando se
confessa.’ However, the work is rather more substantial than other works of this
‘subgenre’ and presents the self-examination of the soul by the penitent as a process
under the guidance and control of a priest. Not surprisingly, the work does not
give a simple list of sins, but amounts to a kind of questioning grid on the sins
against the articles of faith, the sins against the ten commandments, the seven cap-
ital sins, and the sins connected with the corporal senses, but also on the cardinal
virtues, the seven beatitudes, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments, and
the works of mercy. It therefore could also function as a concise vernacular con-
fession manual for priest-confessors involved in catechistic training and confession
activities. For more information, see R. Rusconi, ‘Carcano, Michele’, DBI XIX
(1976), 742–744; C. Schmitt, ‘Michel Carcano de Milan’, DSpir X (1976), 1174–1176.
68
Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, Lat. 2713 ff. 17r–29v (autograph); Florence,
Biblioteca Riccardiana 1637 ff. 50r–68v. In chapter IV, I mentioned his catechism.
For more information, see Marco Arosio, ‘Bartolomeo da Colle (1421–1484), predi-
catore dell’Osservanza francescana e dantista minore’, in: Gli Ordini mendicanti in Val
d’Elsa, Atti del convegno di studio Gli Ordini mendicanti in Val d’Elsa organizzato dalla Società
Storica della Valdelsa. Colle Val d’Elsa, Teatro dei Varii; Poggibonsi, Convento di San Lucchese;
San Gimignano, Biblioteca Comunale, 6–8 giugno 1996, Biblioteca della ‘Miscellanea Storica
della Valdelsa’, 15 (Castelfiorentino, 1999 (2000)), 73–189.
69
Cf. Rusconi, ‘‘Confessio generalis’’, 189–227, 204, who tells us that this work
was printed at least two times: at Venice (1500) and at Florence (1510).
70
Confessione generale del beato Bernardino da Feltre molto utílissima (a.o. Milan, 1510/Venice,
1520). The work saw additional editions throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The first lines of the proemium betray the author’s intention: ‘Considerando
molte volte quanto la humana fragilitate sia facile al peccare & quanti errori per
ignorantia commettono: deliberai ordinare questa breve & utile forma di confes-
sione: accio che lo indotto peccatore legendola cognosca & so aricordi piu apta-
mente li suoi peccati & possa redurseli a memoria: & de quelli dolendose possa
meglio a Dio satisfar: confessarsi ordinamente & con divotione secondo che in questo
libreto scripto trovarai.’ This Confessione gives interesting list of possible sins in different
‘states’ of life: sins common among religious people, teachers, judges, lawyers, notaries,
doctors, merchants etc. This coheres with the renewed ‘ad status’ approach of many
Observant preachers and educators, who wanted to proscribe moral rules for people
in all walks of life in the community. This is for instance also visible in the ser-
short and popular Confessionale generale by Roberto Caracciolo da

Lecce,71 the Brevissima introductione de done che se voleno ben confessare by
Francesco da Mozzanica,72 the works of fra Raphaele,73 the Tractato
utile e salutifero degli consigli de la salute dello peccatore by Antonio da
Vercelli,74 the Tratado de la confession and the Tratado de penitencia
ascribed to the Conventual friar Pietro da Trani,75 and the Illuminata
mons of Bernardino da Siena, in Bernardino da Busti’s Rosarium Sermonum, and in

the various treatises of Cherubino da Spoleto.
71
Confessionale generale del reverendo padre Roberto (Venice, ca. 1500).
72
Brevissima introductione de done che se voleno ben confessare (Milan, 1510). Aside from
a ‘confessione generale’, listing all possible sins, it focuses in its section on confes-
sional interrogation on the problems and issues associated with ‘typical female’
behaviour. See Anne Jacobson Schutte, Printed Italian Vernacular Religious Books, 1465–
1550: A Finding List (Genève, 1983), 181; Rusconi, ‘‘Confessio generalis’’, 213–214.
73
In its printed editions, the Confessione generale de fra Raphaele (a.o. Venice: A. Bindoni,
1524) is a short work of ca. 8 folios, containing a ‘confessione breve & utilissima
nella quale sonno dechiarati le X comandamenti & le VII peccati mortali & li V
sentimenti sotto brevità.’ This comes close to an elementary work of religious instruc-
tion, in which confession is linked to elementary teachings on the commandments
and the capital sins.
74
Tractato utile e salutifero degli consigli de la salute dello peccatore/Consegli della salute del
peccatore (ed.: s.l., 1470; Modena: Domenico Roccociola (Rochozola), July 1492) Cf.
Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke II, 505 (nos. 2256–2257). This treatise was based on
sermons held in 1466 at Borgo San Sepolcro, and was reworked within a year into
a treatise providing 13 consigli enabling the average Christian to reach salvation. It
also survives in MS Rome, Biblioteca Collegii O.F.M. ad S. Antonium, codex non-
dum signatum ff. 101ra–129vb. Comparable works of Antonio are the Tractatus de
Virtutibus (Lyon, 1504; Venezia: Albertinus de Lisona Vercellensiss, 1505; Hagenau,
1513) and the De Duodecim Fructibus Confessionis/Sermone de’ dodici frutti della confessione
(Modena: Dominicus Roccociola, 1491; Parma: Andrea Portilia, 1479). Cf. B. von
Mehr, ‘Notae über neuere Neiträge zur Geschichte der vortridentischen Franziskani-
schen Predigt’, CF 18 (1948), 258; O. Schäfer, ‘De fr. Antonio a Vercellis O.F.M.,
eiusque Quadragesimali “De aeternis fructibus Spiritus Sancti”’, AFH 36 (1943),
253–272 (259); Gesamtkatalog Der Wiegendrucke II, 505 (no. 2259); R. Pratesi, ‘Antonio
da Vercelli’, DBI III (1961), 580–581.
75
Pietro produced his Tratado de la confession before he finished his theology degree
studies at Ferrara in 1466. Pietro wrote the Tratado at the request of Duke Borso da
Modena. Apparently, Pietro and the Duke were well-acquainted and shared a love
for book-acquisition. Later in life, as bishop, Pietro composed a treatise De Ingenuis
Puerorum et Adolescentium Moribus, which eventually was published in 1496. Tratado de
la Confession: MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale I.A.23 ff. 358v–369; Naples, Naz.
XII.G.6 ff. 176a–180d; Copenhagen, Royal Library 1599 ff. 1r–21r. The first Naples
manuscript is also described (with a partial transcription of its prologue), in A. Miola,
‘Le scritture in volgare dei primi tre secoli della lingua ricercate nei codici della
Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli’, Il Propugnatore 2, ii (1878), 298. In the Copenhagen
manuscript the prologue runs as follows: ‘Comença el tratado de la confession, com-
posta per frate Piero da Trane de l’ordine de li frati Menori a requisitione de lo
illustrissimo et devotissimo duca de Modena, marchese de Ferrara. El qual trattato
se divide in cinque parte. La prima contiene che cosa è confessione. La secunda
342 chapter five
Conscientia by his Conventual colleague Antonio Sassolini (fl. ca. 1500),

written for a female pupil.76 To this list can be added a number of
anonymous works of predominantly Observant origin (frequently ded-
icated to or destined for devout lay women), such as the Brevissima
forma e modo de confessar gli suoi peccati, printed at Padua in 1472 and
1477, the Confession de Maria Maddalena,77 the very Bernardinian Forma
Recognoscendi et Confitendi Peccata,78 and the Modo breve per confessarse,
which dates from ca. 1550.79 As the last-mentioned work already
indicates, this production of confession manuals for penitents con-
como diè esser la confessione. La terza quando è tempo necessario ala confessione.
La quarta como el peccatore diè andare ala confessione. La quinta dela peniten-
cia de la confessione. Bisogna prima sapere de la proprietà de la contricione, se
volemo intendere che cossa sia confessione.’ The work apparently was directed to
aristocratic lay people. One copy of the treatise once was kept in the library of
Duke Ercole I. Cf. G. Bertoni, La biblioteca Estense e la cultura Ferrarese ai tempi del
duca Ercole I (1471–1505) (Turin, 1903), 237, n. 58. The Copenhagen manuscript
also contains a Tratado de Penitencia (ff. 25r–40). This treatise, written in the same
hand and in the same style as the Tratado de la Confession, might well be another
work of Pietro. Inc: ‘naturalmente la creatura rationale desidera de sapere et per
instinto proprio de natura lo apetito humano è costretto a intendere, come el
filosofo.’ Expl: ‘E perché niuna cosa è più necessaria quanto è saper la saluta nos-
tra, imperò desidera naturalmente di sapere se colui el quale tutto el tempo de la
sua vita o mazor parte è stato in peccato mortale, receve penitencia salutifera de
perdonanza in lo ponto de la morte sua, cioè se costui se salva o danna.’ See also
Celestino Piana, ‘Lo Studio di S. Francesco a Ferrara nel Quattrocento’, AFH 61
(1968), 142ff.
76
Illuminata Conscientia. Opera vulghare per modo di ragionamento [. . .] nella quale opera
si tracta diffusamente del Peccato, della Contritione, della Satisfactione et della Comunione (Florence:
Antonio Tubini & Andrea Ghirlandi, 1512). Antonio Sassolini, minister general of
the Conventuals in 1519, wrote his Illuminata Conscientia for Maria Salviati. The work
explains the nature of sin, contrition, the ways to arrive at satisfaction through
proper confession and penitence, and the proper manner to partake in the Eucharist.
Antonio criticises heavily the popular ‘confessioni vulghari’ that enticed people to
confess countless little sins without discrimination.
77
A versified confession manual, meant to be recited prayer-like, and ending
with the following verses: ‘Chi dice o fa dire questa confessione sacrata/Trenta dì
per sé o per sua brigata:/Zamai l’anima sua non serà damnata/E sancta Maria
Magdalena serà sempre sua bona advocata.’ Probably of Franciscan or Dominican
provenance, and printed both in a Venetian ‘Minorite’ printing house and in the
Dominican printing house at Ripoli (near Florence). Cf. M. Lowry, ‘“Nel Beretin
Convento”: the Franciscans and the Venetian Press (1474–1478)’, La bibliofilia 85
(1983), 27–40; P. Bologna, ‘La stamperia fiorentina del monastero di S. Jacopo a
Ripoli e le sue edizioni’, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 20 (1892), 349–378;
21 (1893), 49–69; Schutte, Printed Italian Vernacular Religious Books, 269. This work
seems to stand in a late fifteenth-century trend to produce versified confession man-
uals to be recited and to be memorised.
78
Forma Recognoscendi et Confitendi Peccata (Naples: Matthias von Olmütz, 1481) Cf.
Rusconi, ‘‘Confessio generalis’’, 204ff.
79
Modo breve per confessarse (Venice, ca. 1550). Cf. Rusconi, Ibidem, 219, note 107.
The work seems to have been directed to Franciscan tertiaries.
tinued in the early sixteenth century.80 As a matter of fact, from the

later 1540s onwards the production of these texts received a new
impetus among the Italian Capuchins, starting with the anonymous
Breve modo di confessarsi.81
During the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Italian
friars did not have a monopoly on such texts of penitential instruc-
tion for the laity, many of which have close links with straightfor-
ward catechistic teachings. In other order provinces the production
of penitential guides for the laity also saw an upswing in this period,
as can be illustrated with examples from Germany, the Low Countries,
France, and the Iberian Peninsula.
Ludwich Schönmerlin, lector at the Thann convent in the 1480s,
and compiler of a passion devotion treatise and a curious Jahrzeitenbuch
(containing a mixture of liturgical and catechetical information),82
reworked in 1483 a fourteenth-century Bihtebuochs, turning it into a
confession manual for lay people and dedicating it to a woman in
his acquaintance.83
Johannes van Remerswael, a Dutch friar from the Cologne province,
finished by 1492 in Antwerp his manual Der Sondaren Troest, which
also is known under the title Spieghel der Consciencien. Not unlike
Malachy of Limerick’s older De Veneno, this substantial manual for
penitents (ca. 200 pages in the existing editions) discusses in three
parts the illnesses and weaknesses of the soul, the remedies to counter
them, and the means to strengthen the sinner’s spiritual health and
mental resolve, namely the sacraments of confession and communion.84
80
From that period also stems the Confessione generale et brevissima per ciaschaduna
persona che facilmente se voglia confessarsi integramente de tutti li soi peccati (Venice: Guglielmo
da Fontaneto, 1539) by the Conventual friar Angelo da Venezia. Cf. Rusconi,
Ibidem, 220.
81
See: I Frati Cappuccini III/2, 3335–3346.
82
For the first work, see my paragraph on passion devotion treatises elsewhere
in this volume. Just like his other works, his Jahrzeitenbuch can be found in MS
Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4700. L. Pfleger, ‘Fr. Ludwich Schönmerlin, ein
Thanner Franziskaner des ausgehenden 15. Jahrhunderts’, Straßburger Diözesanblatt 4
(1902), 107f.; Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen der Straßburger Franziskanerprovinz,
107f; Karin Schneider, ‘Schönmerlin, Ludwig OFM’, VL2 VIII, 827–828.
83
Schönmerlin’s reworking, which he dedicated to ‘frow Elß von Mosack’, can
be found in MS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4700, ff. 201r–260v. The text on
which his reworking was based, which he had encountered in the now lost manuscript
Strasbourg, Johanniterbibliothek A 100, has survived in an eighteenth-century copy
(MS Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Municipale 810b) and in J.J. Oberlin, Bihtebuoch, dabey
die Bezeichenunge der hl. Messe (Strasbourg, 1784), 1–74.
84
Der Sondaren Troest/Spieghel der Consciencien (Antwerp: Gerard Leeuw, 1492/Antwerp,
Matthaeus Goes, 1492). Copies of these editions can be found in the Koninklijke
344 chapter five
Johannes’s younger colleague Johannes Elen (ca. 1470–after 1517),

another friar from the Cologne province, who possibly studied at
Louvain university before his entry into the order,85 published in
1517 in Den Bosch (Brabant, in the Low Countries) in a mixture
of German and Dutch dialects an instruction manual on the sacra-
ment of confession, entitled: Der Gemeynder Bicht. One year later, the
book was published again in Antwerp, now in a more common form
of Dutch, under the title Der ghemeenten biechte. After a short expla-
nation of the ten commandments, the religious obligations of the
Catholic believer, and the seven capital sins, this booklet zooms in
on the scrutiny of the believer’s conscience before confession, the
proper way to go to confession, the confession’s beginnings (voor-
biecht), the proper manner to confess the various types of sins; the
confession’s closure (nabiecht), the various kinds of confession, the
types of secular and regular priests that have authority to hear it,
and the question when and how restition should take place.86
Another Observant friar from the Cologne province, Adriaan van
Mechelen (fl. 1545), produced around 1550 in the wake of the
Catholic reformation a set of works on confession and communion:
the Een salich ende profitelijck onderwijs vander Biechten87 and the Onderwijsinghe
Bibliotheek (Dutch Royal Library) of The Hague, the Bibliothèque Nationale of

Paris, and in the Stadsbibliotheek (City Library) of Antwerp respectively. See Schlager,
Beiträge zur Geschichte der kölnischen Franziskanerprovinz, 228; Schmitz, Het aandeel der min-
derbroeders in onze middeleeuwse literatuu, 33–34; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliografia Franciscana
Neerlandica ante Saec. XVI I, 157–158 & Idem, Franciscana 29 (1974), 26–28; Archange
Houbaert, ‘Jean de Remerswael’, DSpir VIII, 651.
85
On 26 February 1490, a certain Johannes Elen van Balen was listed as a stu-
dent at Louvain. Matricule de l’Université de Louvain, ed. A. Schillings (Brussels, 1958)
III, 60, no. 27.
86
Der gemeynder bicht (Den Bosch: Laurens Hayen, 1517); Der ghemeenten biechte
(Antwerp: Hendrik Eckert van Homberch, 1518). See B. De Troeyer, ‘De minder-
broeder Jan Elen en zijn volks biechtboekje’, OGE 39/4 (1965), 394–406; Idem,
Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 27–30. The work shows that
Johannes was well-acquainted with all the canonical rules and privileges surround-
ing confession in the later Middle Ages. The Bull of Pope Leo X from 19 December
1516 may have been a direct incentive to produce his book. At the end of the text,
Johannes warns against reading incorrect Bible translations and incorrect histories
and legends, urging his public instead to learn with the help of this book how to
live virtuously.
87
Een salich ende profitelijck onderwijs vander Biechten, gecolligeert uuter heyliger scriftueren,
ende doctoren der heyligher kercken (Louvain: Hugo Cornwels, 1550). For more infor-
mation, see Benjamin De Troeyer, ‘Adriaan van Mechelen’, Franciscana 17 (1963),
3–7; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saec. XVI I, 188–191. In his intro-
duction, Adriaan claims to have written it on demand: ‘. . . dat ick soude willen een
ende instructie hoe hem een yeghelijck sal bereyden ter taferelen Gods te gane ende
te ontfanghen dat weerde heylighe Sacrament 88 respectively. Both ‘teachings’
(onderwijsinghe) were meant to stimulate the devotion, peace of mind
and doctrinal purity of the ‘simple people’ (simpel lieden).
More outspoken directed against the challenge of Lutheranism
were the sermon treatises on confession and communion written by
Augustinus von Alveldt (d. ca. 1535), whose commentaries on the
rules of Chiara and Francesco d’Assisi are mentioned elsewhere in
this volume. Augustinus had entered the order in the Saxony province
some years before 1520, the year he taught as a lector at the Leipzig
studium. Later he would hold the positions of guardian (in Halle) and
provincial minister of Saxony. From his Leipzig years onwards,
Augustinus became one of the fiercest Catholic polemicists against
the theological positions of Luther and Melanchthon. In this light
should also be seen his Tractatus de Communione sub Utraque Specie and
his bilingual Sermo de Confessione Sacramentali/Ein Sermon von der sacra-
mentalichen beycht, which served the double goal of instructing Catholic
believers and of thwarting criticism on Catholic sacramental theology.89
maniere int corte bescrijven voor simpel lieden, waer door si souden moghen leeren,
wat bichte is, ende hoe dat si hem souden moghen tot bichten bereyden.’ Aside
from dogmatic issues, and the urge to confess regularly, the booklet contains a lot
of practical advice. Most importantly, the author makes it clear that a person in
doubt about the expertise and the jurisdiction of his ordinary confessor, can always
turn to ‘. . . religieusen, die door consent ende privilegie des Paus, eenen yeghe-
licken mogen absolveren int bisdom daer si ghepresenteert zijn den ordinaris. Als
die Minderbroeders, Predicaers, Augustijnen, Carmelijten, Johanniten, ende die oor-
dene des heyligen gheets gheprofessijt. Van desen mach hij gerechtighe absolutie
ontfanghen, als van sinen gherechten pastoor.’ Cited from the 1963 analysis given
by Benjamin De Troeyer.
88
Onderwijsinghe ende instructie hoe hem een yeghelijck sal bereyden ter taferelen Gods te gane
ende te ontfanghen dat weerde heylighe Sacrament, ghecolligeert uuter heyliger Scriftueren, ende ander
gheapprobeerde doctoren (Louvain: Hugo Cornwels, 1550). After a dogmatic explana-
tion of the sacrament itself which, after all, had come under attack by the Lutherans
and the Calvinists, this ‘teaching’ deals with the mental preparation for commu-
nion and the mental and bodily disposition with which it should be received.
According to the author, it is important to receive the communion in the spirit of
gratitude (in een dancbaerheit der passie ende der doot Christi Jesu).
89
Tractatus de Communione sub Utraque Specie Quantum ad Laicos: an ex sacris litteris elici
possit, Christum hanc, vel praecepisse; vel praecipere debuisse. Et quod in re hac sentendium pie
sane, catholice sit, iuxta veritatem evangelicam (Leipzig: Wolfgang Stöckel, 1520); Sermo de
Confessione Sacramentali an confessio prorsus homini mortali ad verae beatitudinis vitam sit necessa
(Leipzig: Martin Landsberg, c. 1520); Ein Sermon von der sacramentalichen beycht. Ob diesel-
big dem sterblichen menschen tzu der seligkeit gentzlich von notten ader nicht not (Leipzig: Martin
Landsberg, 1520). See for more information (also on his other polemical works,
such as his more famous Widder Luthers Trostunng an die Christen zu Hall) especially
346 chapter five
Confession manuals for lay penitents appeared also in the French

and Flemish provinces. Most significant are the La Confession Générale
ascribed to the famous Observant preacher Olivier Maillard (ca.
1430–1502),90 which closely follows the Observant examples found
in the Italian peninsula, and the Le Traicté de Exemplaire Penitence by
the anti-reformation preacher and guardian (of Le Biez, Artesia)
Jehan Clerici (fl. ca. 1527) from the new Observant Flemish province.91
It would seem that this treatise, like some of his other spiritual works,
was a reworking of his quadragesimal teachings.92 It is dedicated to
Jeanne de Hornes, widow of the golden fleece knight Hugues de
Melun, and gives a rather evocative account of the penitential oblig-
ations of the leisurely and aristocratic lay person.
Finally, the production of confession manuals for lay penitents saw
a definite upswing in Iberian provinces, and from there in the new
Franciscan provinces created in American New Spain. Cases in point
L. Lemmens, Pater Augustin von Alfeld (d. um 1532). Ein Franziskaner aus den ersten Jahren
der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland (Freiburg, 1899); Idem, ‘Zur Biographie des P.
Augustin von Alfeld’, FrSt 5 (1918), 131–134; H. Smolinsky, Augustin von Alveldt und
Hieronymus Emser. Eine Untersuchung zur Kontroverstheologie der frühen Reformationszeit im
Herzogtum Sachsen, RST 122 (Münster, 1983); K. Hammann, Ecclesia spiritualis. Luthers
Kirchenverständnis in den Kontroversen mit Augustin von Alveldt und Ambrosius Catharinus
(Göttingen, 1989); D.V.N. Bagchi, Luther’s Earliest Opponents. Catholic Controversialists,
1518–1525 (Minneapolis, 1991); Heribert Smolinsky, ‘Alveldt’, LThK I (1993), 478.
90
Maillard seemingly wrote two such works, both of which saw a plethora of
early editions: La Confession de Frère O. Maillard (a.o. Poitiers, 1481); Le Confession
Générale (a.o. Lyon, 1526). Cf. F.-M. Delorme, ‘Olivier Maillard et Duns Scot à
Toulouse’, LFF 17 (1934), 347–365.
91
Le Traicté de exemplaire penitence: MS Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 5109–5111
(2) ff. 167–238; Arras (Atrecht), Bibliothèque Municipale 236. It was published as:
Le Traicté de Exemplaire Penitence (Paris: Ambroise Girault, ca. 1535).
92
Several of his sermons still survive in MS Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale
5109–5111 (2) ff. 1–164. Aside from his Traicté de Exemplaire Penitence, Jehan also
wrote the Le Traicté des Fondemens du Temple Spirituel de Dieu, Le Manuel des Chrestiens,
and Le Traicté nommé des Trois Passions de Nostre Seigneur Jesuchrist. At least one of these
was published: Le Traicté des Fondemens du Temple Spirituel de Dieu (Paris: pour Jehan
le Bailli, after 1527). It describes the foundations of God’s spiritual temple, that is
la persone chrestienne. In fifteen chapters, it speaks about the twelve articles of faith,
which are foreshadowed in the twelve foundations and the twelve jewels described
in the book of the Apocalypse (21: 18–21). In its introduction, it states: ‘S’ensuit
ung traicté des fondements du temple spiritual de Dieu, c’est la personne chreti-
enne, contenant les XII articles de la foy figurés par les XII fondemens et XII pier-
res precieuses dont mension est faicte en l’Apocalipse au XXIe chapitre. Presché
en forme de sermon par moy frere Jehan Clerici, disciple de theologie en la ville
d’Athe, l’an mil cinq cens vingt et sept . . .’ For more information on his life and
works, see Matthaeus Verjans, ‘Clerici ( Jean), OFM’, DSpir II (1953), 972–973;
B. De Troeyer, Nieuw Biografisch Woordenboek I (1964), 311–312; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia
Franciscan Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 72–74.
are the Tratado de Confissom by the Portuguese Conventual friar Joao

de Chaves (d. 1526),93 the Remedio de Pecadores and related texts by
Juan de Dueñas (1545),94 the Confessionario and Espejo del Alma by the
Asturian friar Francisco de Hevia (fl. ca. 1550?),95 directed to priests
and penitents alike, and the Confessionario Breve by Alonso de Molina
(ca. 1510–1579),96 which became one of the first influential confes-
sionals in Mexico, and set the tone for many missionary confessionals
in the second half of the sixteenth century.
C. Large Franciscan confession handbooks after ca. 1450
Alongside of these texts that (at least in theory) were written to shape
the moral and penitential dispositions of lay people, the period after
93
This manual apparently dates from 1489. A modern edition appeared as the
Tratado de Confissom. Fac-simile leitura diplomática e Estudo bibliográfico, ed. José V. de
Pina Martins (Lisbon, 1973). See Lopes, ‘Franciscanos portugueses predentinos.
Escritores, mestres e leitores’, 497–498.
94
Remedio de Pecadores, por otro nombre, llamado confessionario, que habla de la sacramen-
tal confesión, de la cual se tratan tres cosas. Qué ante della qué en ella y qué después della hac-
erse debe (Valladolid: Juan de Villaquirán, 1545/Toledo, 1546). Juan is also the
author of the comparable Espejo del Pecador y tesoro del ánima (Valladolid: Sebastián
Martínez, 1553) and of a more encompassing Espejo de consolación de tristes en el qual
se muestran ser mejores los males desta vida que los bienes della, por muy claros exemplos de la
Sagrada Escritura (Burgos, 1540), parts of which also appeared separately. See: Wadding,
Scriptores, 201; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 475–476.
95
Hevia’s Confessionario y Breve Información para toda persona que desea saberse confesar
con brevedad probably saw its first edition shortly after 1550. It was repeatedly reprinted
among the works of Louis de Granada, for instance in the latter’s Quarta Parte de
la Contemplación (Saragossa, 1558), ff. 86–103, and it appears also in several Italian
translations of Louis de Granada’s works. It amounts to a confession manual divided
into seven chapters. Aside from the habitual adhortations, Hevia’s Confessionario insists
that parish priests teach their penitents the practice of penance in the form of a
proper examination of their conscience. It urges that penitents choose the same
confessor over time, and that they confess their sins at least at Christmas, Easter,
Pentecost, and at all the major feasts of the Virgin Mary. See on the Confessionario,
the Espejo del Alma, and on Hevia’s other works (Libro llamado Thesoro de Ángeles,
Praeparatio Mortis) especially Manuel de Castro, ‘Hevia’, DSpir VII, 433–434; Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 479–480.
96
It was edited several times in the 1560s and 1570s: Confessionario Breve, en la
lengua mejicana y castellana (Mexico: Antonio de Espinosa, 1565/Mexico: Antonio de
Espinosa, 1569/Mexico: Pedro Balli, 1577). Our Observant missionary also pro-
duced a larger work for teaching and study purposes. This eventually appeared as
the Confessionario Mayor en la lengua mejicana y castellana (Mexico: Antonio de Espinosa,
1569/Mexico: Antonio de Espinosa, 1609/Mexico: Pedro Balli, 1578). In the twen-
tieth century, the work was edited again: Confessionario mayor en la lengua mexicana y
castellana, ed. R. Moreno (Mexico, 1984).
348 chapter five
ca. 1450 saw a new apex in the production of large confession hand-
books, that is large-scale Summae for study and reference purposes,
intermediate Summulae and Summae Casuum with the dual purpose of
study and praxis, and more concise Interrogatoria for confessors active
in the field.
An interesting early exemplar in this new wave of confession hand-
books was conceived by the Conventual friar Johann Düren (fl. ca.
1450) from the Cologne province. His Tractatus de Septem Peccatis
Mortalibus seu Capitalibus in form and content still relied heavily on
the old Summa Confessorum by Johann von Erfurt, and aimed to help
identify capital sins and distinguish them from venial ones. After its
treatment of sins, the work discusses in some detail the nature and
proceeding of confession, and the fifteen conditions under which it
should take place.97
Among the first large confession manuals of Observant provenance
(on top of the products of Bernardino da Siena and Giovani da
Capistrano mentioned before) the Supplementum Summae Pisanellae stands
out. It was written by Giovanni da Capistrano’s colleague and close
contemporary Niccolò da Osimo (d. 1453). His Supplementum, which
corrected, amplified and clarified the materials found in the popu-
lar but ageing Summa Confessorum written by the Dominican friar
Bartolomeo da Pisa, found a willing market in the Italian peninsula
during the 1470s and 1480s, that is, until the appearance of the
large confession handbooks of Battista Trovamala de Salis and Angelo
Carletti de Chivasso.98
97
De Septem Peccatis Mortalibus (inc.: ‘Cum confessor idoneus’): MS Amiens,
Bibliothèque Municipale 481 ff. 103r–153v (The Amiens MS contains also the De
Gestis Trium Regum by Johann von Hildesheim, and Innocent III’s De Miseria Humanae
Conditionis). De Septem Peccatis alludes to yet another work of Johann, namely the
Tractatus de Decem Praeceptis. Wadding, Annales Minorum IX (Quaracchi, 1932), 428
(ad. an. 1410, n. 18) & 501–502; Wadding, Scriptores, 138; Sbaralea, Supplementum
II, 68; Schlager, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kölnischen Franziskaner-Ordensprovinz, 168, 244;
M.W. Bloomfield, ‘A Provisional List of Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and
Vices’, Traditio 11 (1955), 281 (nn. 167 & 299 (n. 332)); Clément Schmitt, ‘Jean de
Düren’, DSpir VIII, 481–482.
98
The Supplementum Super Magistrutiam Bartholomaei Pisani (written ca. 1444) can for
instance be found in MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale XII.A33; VII.F.6; XII.A.26;
XII.A.32; Bergamo, Biblioteca Comunale Angelo Mai MA 238 (15th cent. (CDRom,
Omnia Opera Angelo Mai: AM00058); Budapest, Magyar Tudományos Akedémia
Könyvtára K. 455 (15th cent.) ff. 1ra–187rb; Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Lat.
471 (15th cent.) ff. 1ra–163vb. In the prologue, Niccolò makes it clear: ‘. . . quo-
niam summa quae magistrutia seu pisanella vulgariter nuncupatur propter eius com-
pendiositatem apud confessores cominus inolevit. Et quia propter eius abachicas
The famous preacher Giacomo della Marca, whose Regola per Ben
Confessarsi have been mentioned earlier, produced in the course of
his lengthy career a variety of confession handbooks, or rather hand-
books of moral theology of intermediate length. The first of these,
the Compendium Theologiae Moralis of 1442,99 is still heavily dependent
on Peter Quesel’s Directorium. Slightly more independent and innovative
are Giacomo’s Campus Florum from 1450,100 a reworking of the Com-
pendium into a dictionary of moral theology concentrating on impor-
tant themes that also are central in many of Giacomo’s sermons
(such as blasphemy, confession itself, and usury), and the Summula
Iuridico-Moralis,101 which is a full-blown summa of moral theology to
instruct (beginning) priests on the rites and rules pertaining to bap-
tism, confession, matrimony, the consecration of altars, excommuni-
cation and related issues.
The Observant summae and summulae saw their high point between
the 1470s and 1490s, and most were of Italian provenance.102 One
quotationes nimium in suis quotis reperitur corrupta ac propter eius brevitatem in

plerisque suis decisionibus valde dubia, declaratione et suppletione indigens: idcirco
(. . .) decrevi dictam summam emandatam ad communem quotationem reducere
(. . .) et propter praedicta hoc opus supplementum appellari potest.’ Quoted from
J. Dieterle, ‘Die Summae confessorum (sive de casibus concientiae)—von ihren
Anfängen an bis zu Silvester Prierias—II’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 27 (1906),
183–188 ( 185–186). The Supplementum saw also various printed editions: Supplementum
Summae Pisanellae (Venice, 1473/Venice, 1477/Venice: per Franciscum Renner de
Hailbronn, 1484). Cf. Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, no. 2149–2172. For more
information, see aside from Dieterle also Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 266–268; A. van
Hove, Prolegomena ad Codicem Iuris Canonici (Mechelen, 1945), 516; C. Piana, ‘Scritti
polemici tra Conventuali ed Osservanti a metà del ’400 con la partecipazione dei
giuristi secolari’, AFH 71 (1978), 369, 372–373, 382 & AFH 72 (1979), 37, 39–51;
U. Picciafuoco, Fr. Niccolò da Osimo, vita, opere, spiritualità (Monteprandone, 1980);
Pierre Péano, ‘Nicolas d’Osimo’, DSpir XI, 293–295; Gianfranco Berbenni, ‘Nicolò
di Osimo (1370–1453)’, in: Mistici francescani, III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 763–768.
99
MS Oxford, Bodleian Library cod. Lat. Can. Misc. 262 ff. 1–222. Cf. Lasic,
De vita et operibus S. Iacobi de Marchia, 183 & R. Lioi, ‘Il “Campus Florum” di
Giacomo della Marca e un suo Compendium Theologiae Moralis’, PS 7 (1970), passim.
100
A.o. MS Monteprandone 45. Cf. Lasic, De vita et operibus S. Iacobi de Marchia,
182 & R. Lioi, PS 7 (1970), passim.
101
Summula Iuridico-Moralis: Cf. Lasic, De Vita et Operibus, 183 & R. Lioi, PS 7
(1970), passim.
102
Exceptions to this rule are the Directorium Confessorum (1490) by Franziskus
Willer, found in MS Luxembourg, Bibl. 236 (See: Wadding, Scriptores 95; Sbaralea
Supplementum I, 308. Among his works can also be listed a Lignum Pomiferum Beatae
Mariae Virginis (dedicated in 1494 to Trithemius), various religious poems, the De
Immaculata Conceptione (1490), and a Cosmographia), and the sixteenth-century Summa
Casuum Conscientiae by Antonio de Córdoba (1485–1578), a Spanish vernacular ver-
sion of which was published in Toledo in 1582. See: Alonso Lamela, ‘Aportación
350 chapter five
of the best-known of these is the Summula ho Vero Sumeta de Pacifica

Conscientia by Pacifico da Cerano (ca. 1420–1482). Completed in
1473, it was printed two times in the later fifteenth century and at
least five more times before the Council of Trent (with additional
revised editions thereafter). The Summula was the fruit of Pacifico’s
advanced training in Roman and Canon law and of his long career
as an Observant preacher and confessor. It is a detailed but straight-
forward confessor manual with (as was in fact very common) com-
plementary materials for catechistic instruction, showing beginning
priests and confessors how to teach the articles of faith, the sacra-
ments, the ten commandments, and how to give prospective penitents
basic behavioural guidelines commensurate with their social status
(married couples, professional lawyers, doctors, masters and students,
merchants, bankers, artisans priests, bishops, etc.). For practical pur-
poses, the work contains interrogatory schemes that confessors could
use for their socially stratified flock of penitents. At a more general
level, the Summula subsequently gives an introduction to the tasks
and obligations of the confessor. It includes the penitential canons,
as well as papal and episcopal excommunication procedures. For
authorisation and reference purposes it lists the most important canon-
ist and theological sources in the margin.103
A product of the same category is the Summa Casuum Conscientiae
completed in 1483 by the Piemontese Observant friar Battista
Trovamala de Salis († after 1494). This Summa, which among canon-
ists became known as the Summa Baptistiana, was an almost immediate
success. Inspired by this, Battista came out with a completely revised
and expanded version in 1489: the Rosella Casuum Conscientiae or Summa
Rosella. This revision likewise was very successful, especially in North
and Middle Italy.104
bio-bibliográfica en torno a Fray Antonio de Córdoba, O.F.M. (1485–1578)’, Liceo

franciscano 6 (1953), 179–208; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’,
463–464.
103
Opereta dicta Summula ho vero Sumeta de pacifica conscientia (Milan, 1479), with six
additional editions before the Council of Trent. Afterwards, a strongly revised edition
came out: Somma pacifica composta più di cent’anni dal R.P.F. Pacifico da Novara, ed.
Francisco de Treviso OCarm. (Venice, 1579/Venice, 1581). For more information,
see Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 302; A.L. Stoppa, Pacifico da Cerano alla luce della storia
(Novara, 1966/Novara, 1974); Pierre Péano, ‘Pacifique de Cerano’, DSpir XII, 21.
104
Summa Casuum Conscientiae (Novi Ligure: Nicolaus Girardengus, 1484; Nürnberg:
Anthonius Koberger, 1488; Speyer: Peter Drach, 1488). See also: Gesamtkatalog der
Wiegendrucke III, 359–363 and E. Bellone, ‘Appunti su Battista Trovamala di Sale
More (in)famous than any of the manuals mentioned thus far, was
the large Summa de Casibus Conscientia (Summa Angelica) by the Piemontese
Observant friar and doctor utriusque juris Angelo Carletti da Chivasso
(1411–1495), finished sometime between 1470 and 1485.105 Itself
building upon the Summa Pisana and its fifteenth-century supplement
by Niccolò da Osimo, Angelo’s Summa was designed as a detailed
and complete repertory of the right theological and penitential answer
to every possible penitential problem. Its thorough character and
alphabetical organisation apparently filled a need among confessors
and teachers of law and theology, because it was published in Italy,
France and the German lands no less than 20 times between 1486
and 1500, and probably as frequently in the two decades thereafter.
O.F.M. e la sua “Summa Casuum”’, SF 74 (1977) 375–402. Rosella Casuum Conscientiae

(Pavia: Franciscus Girandengus & Johannes Antonius Birretta, 1489; Venice: Georgius
Arrivabene, 1489 & 1495) The 1495 edition of the Summa Rosella has also been
published electronically: Graz, Akad. Druck- und Verl. Anstadt, 1996, 2 CDRom.
See also L. Babbini, ‘Tre “summa casuum” composte da tre francescani piemon-
tesi della provincia di Genova’ SF 78 (1981) 163–165; J.A. Brundage, ‘The Rise of
Professional Canonists and Development of the Ius Commune’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-
Stiftung für Rechtsgschichte, kanonistische Abteilung 81 (1995), 26–63; G.R. Dolezalek,
‘Lexiques de droit et autres outils pour le “ius commune”’, in: Les manuscrits des lex-
iques et glossaires de l’Antiquité tardive à la fin du Moyen Age, ed. J. Hamesse, Textes et
études du Moyen Age, 4 (Louvain-la-Neuve-Turnhout, 1996), 353–376.
105
Summa Angelica de Casibus Conscientiae (Chivasso: Jacobinus Suigus, 1486; Venice:
Georgius Arivabene, 1487; Venice: Nikolaus de Frankfurt, 1487; Spier: Peter Drach,
1488; Neurenberg: Anton Koberger, 1488; Venice: Georgius Arrivabene, 1489;
Strasbourg: Martinus Flach, 1489; Lyon: Jean du Pré, 1490 etc.) Cf. Gesamtkatalog
der Wiegendrucke II, 275–297. Until 1520 the work saw 31 editions with additions
and corrections. It was kept in print until 1771. The Summa is but one of Angelo
Carletti’s writings. To him are for instance also ascribed a Tractatus de Restitutionibus,
ed. Honorius Marentinus de Summaripa, 2 Vols. (Rome 1771–1772), a Declaratio
seu Interpretatio Bullarum Indulgentiarum Sixti IV (Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, 1481),
and a more concise confession manual that also saw the printing press, namely the
Manuscriptum (. . .) in quo agit de Decem Praeceptis Decalogi et de Septem Vitiis Capitalibus
(Milan, 1767). This latter work starts of with considerations considering the choice
of a suitable confessor. This is followed by a detailed exposition of the ten com-
mandments in relation to sin, and a treatment of the capital sins, the root of which
is superbia. For more information, see in particular Dieterle, ‘Die Summae Confessio-
num’, 296–310; F. Gillmann, ‘Clave non errante’, Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht
110 (1930) 464; A. van Hove, Prolegomena ad Codicem iuris Canonici, 2nd Ed. (Mechelen,
1945), 516–517; Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon I, 174; S. Pezzella, ‘Carletti,
Angelo’, DBI XX, 136–138; Angelo Carletti da Chivasso, 1411–1495, Quaderni dell’Unitrè,
1 (Chivasso, 1995); Dolezalek, ‘Lexiques de droit et autres outils pour le “ius com-
mune”’, 373; D. Tuniz, ‘Angelo Carletti da Chivasso’, in: Il grande libro dei santi
(Cinisello Balsamo MI, 1998) I, 148–149; Frate Angelo Carletti osservante nel V centenario
della morte (1495–1995). Atti del convegno, Cuneo 7 dicembre 1996–Chivasso, 9 dicembre
1996, ed. O. Capitani, R. Combra, M.C. de Matteis, G.G. Merlo, Società per gli
studi storici, archeologici ed artistici della provincia di Cuneo, 118 (Cuneo, 1998).
352 chapter five
Thus, the Summa Angelica became one of the most prominent peni-
tential manuals, and a veritable symbol of the Catholic system of
penitence and satisfaction. Therefore, it became also a cherished
object of criticism and ridicule by early sixteenth-century humanists
and reformers. Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wanted a return to a
more evangelical Christianity less encrusted with rules and traditions,
regarded the Summa Angelica and comparable encyclopaedic manuals
as the work of congestores.106 In 1520, when Luther burnt the papal bull
announcing his excommunication, he also chose to throw in the flames
three other symbols of Catholicism, namely Tommaso d’Aquino’s
Summa Theologica, the Decretals, and a copy of Angelo Carletti’s Summa
de Casibus Conscientiae, which Luther called the Summa plus quam dia-
bolica, especially because of its handling of indulgences.
Due to their immediate success, large encyclopaedic confession
manuals like the Summa Angelica and the Summa Pacifica gave rise to
an offshoot of emendations, such as the Castigationes et Additiones ad
Summa Angelicam by Giacomo Ungarelli da Padova (d. 1517),107 and
of smaller, at times anonymous productions.108 In addition, Observant
friars engaged in the writing of vernacular adaptations. Hence, the
Observant friar Pacifico da Novara was responsible for the compi-
106
Such verdicts can for instance be found in Erasmus’ Antibarbari. For more
information, see T.B. Deutscher, ‘Angelo Carletti’, in: Contemporaries of Erasmus, A
Biographical Register (Toronto-Buffalo-London, 1985) I, 268.
107
Giacomo had studied theology and canon law at Padua before he became
lector at the Santo Spirito convent of Ferrara. In the course of his religious career,
he travelled as an itinerant apostolic preacher through the Romagna, the Ancona
region and Umbria. He is behind the foundation or re-establishement of the Monti
di Pietà of Ferrara and Terni, and of a set of confraternities devoted to the Holy
Name of Jesus and the Holy Sacrament (Ferrara, 1507). His at times bleak anti-
Judaism shows not only in his sermons but also in his De Malatiis et Impietatibus
Juadaeorum Modernorum, a work that he dedicated to Pope Leo X. For the editions
of his Castigationes, see Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 21–22; Cl. Schmitt, ‘Jacques Ongarelli
de Padoue’, DHGE XXVI, 711; M. Frison, ‘Il B. Giacomo Ungarelli da Padova’,
L’Araldo 9 (1930), 66–68; A. Ghinato, ‘I Francescani e il Monte di Pietà di Terni
dal 1490 al 1515’, AFH 52 (1959), 249–289; ‘Notae bibliograficae’, AFH 78 (1985),
536; T. Lombardi, Storia del Francescanesimo (Padua, 1980), 268–269; AF XII (Grotta-
ferrata, 1988) Appendix I, 581–584.
108
A case in point is the Summa de Confessione found in MS Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale XIV.E.29, which is predominantly based on the Summa Angelica, the Summa
Pacifica, and upon the penitential works of Francesco Piazza da Bologna, Bernardino
da Siena, Giovanni da Capistrano and Cherubino da Spoleto. The anonymous
Franciscan compiler of this confession handbook also produced a Compilatio Exemplorum:
MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.B.43 & XIV.C.35. See Manoscritti francescani
nella Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli II, 816–7, 975–7.
lation of a vernacular Summa Pacifica (Milan 1479), produced ‘per li

simplici confessori in materna lingua sotto brevitate.’109
Most of these larger summae were composite works: combining a
lengthy systematic or alphabetical treatment of penance with proce-
dural information about confession, guidelines for the proper train-
ing and behaviour of confessors, and a set of catechistic elements
for the further instruction of contrite penitents. Several of these texts
also zoomed in on the actual confession techniques, that is the ways
to subtract from willing and/or reluctant penitents the information
relevant to the proper evaluation of their contrite status and to the
correct measure of satisfaction needed in each individual case.
D. INTERROGATORIA
Ideally speaking, these confession techniques should enable the con-

fessor to find out whether the full spectrum of the moral and doc-
trinal message taught from the pulpit had sunk in, and to force the
penitent to vocalise his or her transgressions. As these confession
techniques formed the core of the confessional enterprise, they grad-
ually became the major subject matter of a whole subset of confes-
sional writings, namely the so-called Interrogatoria, which as a sub-genre
can be considered as the confessor’s professional counterpart to the
Dottrine, Specula and Confessiones Generales directed at penitent believ-
ers. Whereas the latter had to teach the penitent what to confess
and how to confess it, the Interrogatoria were to ensure the confessor
that the penitent had told him all there was.
Although the Interrogatoria were clearly not an Observant inven-
tion—like many other late medieval specimen of penitential litera-
ture they have their origin in the decades directly after the Fourth
Lateran Council of 1215—many of the most successful ones were
of Observant provenance, and functioned within the overall pastoral
rejuvenation pushed forward by the leaders of the Observant reform
movements. One of the earliest Observant specimen probably was
109
The same development can be charted in Dominican circles, where Latin
works were made for the learned confessors, and vernacular adaptations with added
didactic and catechistic elements were produced both for the more modest curates
and for the cultured laity. See Rusconi, ‘‘Confessio generalis’’, 196ff.
354 chapter five
the Interrogatorium Confessorum110 by Niccolò da Osimo, which in itself

can be seen as being complementary to his aforementioned Supplementum
super Magistrutiam Bartholomaei Pisani, and likewise reaches back to the
penitential legacy of the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The high point of Franciscan Observant Interrogatoria coincides with
that of the large Observant Summae Confessorum. One of the best-
sellers among them undoubtedly was the Enchiridion sive Interrogatorium
pro Animabus Regendis sive Interrogatorium Confessorum, finished in 1475
by Alessandro Ariosto from Ferrara (d. ca. 1484), and printed by
several of the leading printing presses of Europe.111 The success of
this interrogatory guide no doubt was facilitated by the stratified ad-
status approach towards the various categories of penitents and the
sins commensurate with their social position (an approach that would
also have been one of the factors behind the success of the Summula
ho Vero Sumeta de Pacifica Conscientia by Pacifico da Cerano mentioned
in the above). Comparable works were produced by Bartolomeo
110
Interrogatorium (= Interrogationes Necessariae in Confessionibus), MS Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale VII.F.23 ff. 90r–174v.
111
The Enchiridion sive Interrogatorium can still be found in several manuscripts. See
for instance MSS Washington D.C., Holy Name College, 28 and Bologna, Biblioteca
Universitaria 172 (a manuscript from the Observant St. Paul convent in Bologna).
From the end of the fifteenth century onwards, it found its way to the printing
press. Not much is known about the incunable versions. In the early sixteenth cen-
tury, it appeared several times as the Enchiridion sive Interrogatorium pro Animabus Regendis
sive Interrogatorium Confessorum pro Animorum Curanda Salute (Venice: Philippus Pincius
Mantuanus, 1513/Venice: Georgius de Rusconibus, 1516/Paris: Jehan Petit, 1514/Paris:
Jehan Petit, 1520/Paris: Regnault Claudière, 1522/Pavia, 1516/etc.). For more
information on editions (also on Alessandro’s Libellum de Usuris and his Abbreviatio
Tractatus Restitutionum S. Bernardini, likewise meant for preachers and confessors), see
G. Fussenegger, ‘De vita et scriptis Fratri Alexandri Ariosti (d. 1486)’, AFH 49
(1956), 143–165 (153). Fussenegger, who explains that the Enchiridion originally was
dedicated to Marco da Bologna (previously general vicar of the Regular Observants),
provides some information on its structure and content: ‘Est enim manuale casuis-
ticum de administratione sacramenti poenitentiae, in tres partes divisum. In quarum
prima auctor de septem virtutibus pertractat quibus oportet sacerdotem insignitum
esse ut suae aliorumque hominum bene consulat saluti; debet enim esse bonitate
conspicuus, scientia idoneus, potestate praeditus, in interrogando cautus, in absol-
vendo providus, in poenitentiis dandis circumspectus, rerum auditarum secretus.
Quae omnia ex iure canonico et auctorum sententiis copiose explicantur. In parte
secunda de interrogationibus faciendis circa decem decalogi praecepta septemque
peccata capitalia agit. In tertia vero de interrogationibus ad condicionem cuiuslibet
confitentis pertinentibus disserit. Permultae sunt personae, quarum statum Fr.
Alexander in hac parte respicit, v.g. Summus pontifex, cardinales, episcopi, sacer-
dotes beneficiati, praelati religiosorum, religiosi professi, doctores et magistri, iudices,
advocati, medici, rectores hospitalium, caupones, macellarii, sutores, cerdones, pic-
tores, nauclerii etc.’ Ibidem, 152–153.
Caimi da Milano (d. 1496),112 by Jacopo Mazza da Reggio Calabria

(fl. ca. 1500),113 and by the French Observant friar Gabriel Maria
Nicolas (d. 1532), known for his role in the creation of the new
order of the Annonciades de Marie.114
112
The brother of friar Bernardino Caimi da Milano. His Interrogatorium sive
Confessionale (1474) was organised according to the schemata found in the work of
Antonino da Firenze, and was inspired by Angelo Carleti’s Summa. Bartolomeo’s
Interrogatorium was recommended to the clergy on the synods of Basel (1503) and
Augsburg (1548). See a.o. MSS Washington D.C., Holy Name College no. 26;
Rome, BAV Vat. Palat. Lat. 713 and Emanuelle Boaga, ‘Bartholomaeus de Chaimis’,
LThK II (1994), 41.
113
Lucerna Confessoris (Naples, 1519). This provincial minister of the Observant
Calabria province wrote at least two other works with a pastoral and spiritual intent,
reminiscent of those of Cherubino da Spoleto. See Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 13,
389; Clément Schmitt, ‘Mazza ( Jacques)’, DSpir X, 871–872.
114
His Lunetae Confessorum can for instance be found in MS Toulouse, Bibliothèque
Municipale 257 ff. 1–127 (inc. f. 1r: ‘Incipit liber noviter editus a Reverendo Patre
fratre Gilberto Nicolai, ordinis Minorum Observantiae, intitulus Lunetae Confessorum.’).
The work consists of three parts (secundum tria munera Christo et Mariae oblata),
called the Tractatus de auro Mariae, the Tractatus de thure rectae intentionis, and the
Tractatus de praeceptis, peccatis, et modo se habendi in fine confessionis respectively. See: Mère
Gabriel-Maria, ‘Gabriel-Maria (Gilbert Nicolas)’, DSpir VI, 17–25; P. Péano, ‘Gabriel-
Maria Nicolas’, DHGE XIX, 571–576; Dizionario degli Istituti di perfezione IV, 1007–1009;
Alfonso Pompei, ‘Gabriele Maria Nicolas’, in: Il grande libro dei Santi (Cinisello Balsamo
MI, 1998) II, 741–743.
CHAPTER SIX
INSTRUCTORY WORKS FOR THE MASS

AND THE DIVINE OFFICE
When, after 1209, the Franciscan movement began to turn into a

religious order, it became customary for the clerical friars to cele-
brate the daily divine office and the various liturgical festivities con-
nected with the regulated communal religious life. Meanwhile, lay
friars were held to more concise liturgical obligations. Soon, there
was a feeling that order-wide standardisation was necessary. A first
indication of this may be found in the Regula Bullata of 1223. Whereas
the rule of 1221 merely states that clerical friars should perform their
liturgical obligations according to the custom of clerics (‘secundum
consuetudinem clericorum’), the Regula Bullata urges clerics to per-
form the divine office according to the liturgical order of the Holy
Roman Church (‘Clerici faciant divinum officium secundum ordinem
sanctae romanae Ecclesiae’).1 This choice for the ‘Roman liturgy’
was probably inspired both by the use of this liturgy by the canons
of Assisi, which would have made it familiar to Francesco and many
of his early followers, and by Francesco d’Assisi’s inclination to con-
form the order’s liturgy to that practised at the papal court.
When the Franciscan order expanded to other regions and coun-
tries, subsequent minister generals and their assistants made an effort
to enhance liturgical unity throughout the emerging order provinces.
To that purpose model liturgical texts began to be distributed after
the general chapter of 1227. This development found its fruition
under the minister generals Haymo of Faversham (1240–1244),
1
In the Regula Bullata, the friars’ liturgical obligations are still described rather
succinctly in the third chapter (De divino Officio, et Jejunio; et quomodo Fratres debeant ire
per mundum): ‘Clerici faciant divinum officium secundum ordinem sanctae Romanae
Ecclesiae excepto Psalterio, ex quo habere poterunt breviaria. Laici vero dicant vig-
inti quatuor Pater noster pro Matutino; pro Laude quinque; pro Prima, Tertia,
Sexta, Nona, pro qualibet istarum, septem, pro Vesperis autem duodecim, pro
Completorio septem, et orent pro defunctis . . .’ See in general; S.J.P. Van Dijk,
‘The Liturgical Legislation of the Franciscan Rules’, FS 12 (1952), 241–262; Idem,
Some Manuscripts of the Earliest Franciscan Liturgy’, FS n.s. 14 (1954), 225–264
& n.s. 16 (1956), 60–101.
instructory works for the mass and the divine office 357
Giovanni Buralli da Parma (1247–1257) and Bonaventura da Bagno-

reggio (1257–1273), and resulted in more or less standardised bre-
viaries and other books for the divine office and the Mass.2
From the later 1220s onwards, the Franciscan output of such texts
must have been considerable. First of all, a large number of texts
was needed for order-internal purposes, as every convent had to have
a proper set of liturgical books and every clerical friar was supposed
to have a breviary at his disposal. The transcription of these liturgical
2
There was a desire to follow the liturgical uses developed at the papal curia,
especially the reformed officium and the breviary that came into being during the
pontificate of Innocent III. In order to promote this reformed divine office and the
breviary related to it, pope Gregory IX asked minister general Haymo of Faversham
to further simplify the breviary’s rubrics. Once this was done, Gregory imposed this
new breviary on the order as a whole (1241). Haymo also came out with a new
missal. Both of these texts proved to be of lasting importance, not solely within the
Franciscan order but also within the Church at large. After Haymo’s death, Giovanni
da Parma attempted to enforce Haymo’s various innovations throughout the order
(Salimbene makes it clear that, according to many, there was still room for improve-
ment: ‘Nec adhuc est bene ordinatum secundum appetitum multorum et etiam
secundum rei veritatem, quia multa sunt superflua, quae magis taedium quam devo-
tionem faciunt tum audientibus quam dicentibus illud, ut Prima dominicalis, quando
sacerdotes debent dicere missas suas et populus eas exspectat nec est qui celebret,
occupatus in Prima. Item dicere XVIII psalmos in dominicali et nocturnali officio
ante Te Deum laudamus.’ Salimbene, Cronica, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH Scriptores
XXXII (Hanover, 1905–1913), 31, ad. an. 1215). Bonaventura generally followed
the politics of his predecessors. The 1260 Narbonne constitutions mention that
provincial ministers should correct the text of the breviary and the missals ‘ad exem-
plar verius’ within three years. AFH 3 (1910), 502. On these developments, see
Hilarius Felder, ‘Saint François d’Assise et le Bréviaire romain’, EF 5 (1901), 490–504;
Jules Baudot, The Roman Breviary: Its Sources and History (St. Louis, 1909), 112ff. &
passim; Statuta Liturgica sue Rubricae Breviarii Auctore d. Bonaventura in Generali Capitulo
Pisano an. 1263 Editae, ed. H. Golubovich, AFH 4 (1911), 62–73; A. Le Carou,
L’office divin chez les Frères Mineurs en XIII e siècle (Paris, 1929); Hugo Dausend, Der
Franziskanerorden und die Entwicklung der kirchlichen Liturgie (Munster, 1924). This arti-
cle also appeared in FrSt 11 (1924), 105ff.; Idem, ‘Die Liturgie des Franziskanerordens
zur Zeit des hl. Antonius von Padua’, Liturgische Zeitschrift 3 (1930/31), 420–428;
Idem, ‘Die Liturgie und der Franziskanerorden’, FrSt 21 (1934), 187–191; S.J.P.
Van Dijk, Sources of the Roman Liturgy, the ‘Ordo Missalis’ of Haymo of Faversham (Leiden,
1963) II, 105–331; The Franciscan Missal and Breviary: Sources of the Roman Lirturgy, ed.
S.J.P. Van Dijk, 2 Vols. (Leiden, 1963); S.J.P. Van Dijk, ‘Ursprung und Inhalt der
franziskanischen Liturgie des 13. Jahrhunderts’, FrSt 51 (1969), 86–116, 192–217;
A.G. Nocilli, ‘La liturgia della Basilica del Santo nei suoi aspetti ed evoluzioni seco-
lari’, in: Liturgia, pietà e ministeri al Santo, ed. A. Poppi, Fonti e Studi per la Storia
del Santo a Padova VI, Studi 2 (Verona, 1978), 23–54; F. Costa, ‘La liturgia frances-
cana’, in: Francesco d’Assisi, Documenti e Archivi —Codice e Biblioteche —Miniature, ed.
Francesco Porzio (Milan, 1982), 298–303; Maura O’Carroll, ‘The friars and the
liturgy in the thirteenth century’, in: La predicazione dei frati dalla metà del ’200 alla
fine del ’300, Atti del XXII Convegno Internazionale Assisi, 13–15 1994 (Spoleto,
1995), 189–227.
358 chapter six
texts could not be left in the hands of outsiders.3 This implies that
the Assisi convent and several of the major provincial centres would
have developed liturgical scriptoria of some kind, if only temporarily.
In later periods (and particularly during the fifteenth century), it
became more common for Conventual and Observant friaries to
make use of the scribal services of local communities of Poor Clares
and tertiaries for the production of liturgical texts to be used by the
friars.4
When, in the later medieval period, the Roman liturgy gradually
became the standard throughout the Church, a movement that saw
its completion after the Council of Trent, we come accross Franciscans
involved in the production of corrected breviaries and related liturgical
materials meant for a wider public, as a service both to the clergy
at large5 and, increasingly, to the literate strata of lay society.6
3
Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, Statutum saec. XIII pro scribendis libris choralibus cum
notis quadratis ad usum Fratrum Minorum, ed. Benvenuto Bughetti, AFH 21 (1928),
402–412 (409–410).
4
On such developments, see my remarks in: Roest, A History of Franciscan Education,
231ff.
5
This would be the context of Pietro Arrivabene di Mantua’s late fifteenth-cen-
tury editions of the Roman breviary and the Missale Romanum: Breviarum Secundum
Ritum Romanum, Castigatum per Fr. Petrum Arrivabenum Ord. S. Francisci (Venice: Georgius
Arrivabene, 1497); Breviarum Franciscanum Secundum Ritum Romanum, Diligentissime
Emendatum per ven. Religiosum Fr. Petrum Arrivabenum Ord. Min. de Observantia (Venice:
Lucas Antonius de Giunta & Joannes Emerici de Spira, 1498, 1499 & 1500). Cf.
Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke IV, 32–35, 85–86 (nos. 5118, 5120, 5121, 5169); Missale
iuxta Morem Romane Ecclesie, Expletum Solertique Diligentia Catigatum per Fr. Petrum Arrivabenum,
Ord. Min. de Observantia (Venice: Lucas Antonius de Giunta & Joannes Emerici de
Spiri, 1497). Revised editions appeared in 1498, 1501, 1502, 1504, 1506 and 1508.
6
Many late medieval convents of Poor Clares were involved in the production
of illustrated breviaries for noble and wealthy bourgeois benefactors, as were quite
a few friars. A good example is Das deutsch roemisch Brevier, produced by friar Jacob
Wyg (fl. c. 1500) at the request of the Croatian nobleman Christoph Frangepan
and his Augsburg wife Apollonia. See: Das deutsch roemisch Brevier (Venice: Gregorius
de Gregoriis, 1518). On f. 629v of this German edition, it says that the work was
‘gecorrigiert, quotiert, und in ein sollige ordnung gesetzt’ by ‘brueder Jacob Wyg
barfueser ordens von Kolmar.’ (Yet Jacob is not to be found in the Tabulae Capitulares,
nor in the necrologies of the Strasbourg Franciscan province). The German edi-
tion, which was printed in 400 copies, contains a full German translation of the
complete Roman Breviary, with the exception of the office for Mary and the office
for the dead (this in contrast with another, comparable, German translation of the
breviary, which is also of ‘Franciscan’ provenance, namely the Teutsch Roemisch Brevier
vast Nutzlich und Trostlich (Augsburg: Alexander Weyssenhorn, 1535), produced for
the Poor Clares). The main objective of Jacob was to provide people (and esp.
women) without Latin language skills access to the standard breviary materials.
The Regula Bullata’s liturgical instructions were relatively succinct.

No wonder then that many subsequent rule commentaries as well
as general and provincial constitutions offered more detailed expla-
nations.7 The need for such explanations became pressing as the
liturgical year became ever more crowded with the introduction of
new feast days for Franciscan saints (such as Francesco, Antonio di
Padova, Chiara d’Assisi, Isabelle de France, etc.), for members of the
Holy Family and Mary Magdalen, and with the added liturgical
obligations connected with the friars’ involvement in urban pastoral
care.8 The growing burden of celebrating commemorative masses for
deceased benefactors, church dignitaries and friars also asked for
additional regulations, all of which had to be taught and enforced
throughout the order.9
Apparently, Jacob reverted to already existing German translations of the Psalter

and the Hymns. Cf. the remarks in Christine Stöllinger-Löser, ‘Wyg, Jakob OFM’,
Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. verfasserlexikon2 X, 1464–1466.
7
For an overview of these texts, see Chapter II of this volume.
8
The commemoration of Franciscan saints gave rise to a number of dedicatory
rhyme offices and Masses. Most famous are the Officium Sancti Francisci and the
Officium S. Antonii by Julian von Speyer (c. 1200–c. 1250). On these offices, see Die
Choräle Julians von Speyer zu den Reimoffizien des Franziskus- und Antoniusfestes, ed. J.E.
Weis, Veröffentlichungen des kirchenhistorisches Seminars München 6 (Munich,
1901); Die liturgischen Reimofficien auf die Heiligen Franziskus und Antonius gedichtet und com-
poniert durch Frater Julian von Speyer, ed. H. Felder (Fribourg, 1901); S. Francisci et
S. Anthonii patavini officia rhythmica auctore Fr. Juliano a Spira, ed. H. Dausend (1934); AF
X, 375–388; G. Abate, ‘Le fonti biografiche di San Antonio II: L’Ufficio Ritmico di
San Antonio di Fr. Giuliano da Spira, O.Min’, Il Santo 9 (1969), 152–160; J. Cambell,
‘Le culte liturgique de Saint Antoine au Moyen Âge: Office rithmique, texts et
chants’, Il Santo 12 (1972), 19–63; Miskuly & Bienentreu, Julian von Speyer, passim.
On the liturgical offices devoted to Isabelle de France, see Livarius Oliger, ‘Le plus
ancien office liturgique de la Bienheureuse Isabelle de France’, in: Miscellanea Giovanni
Mercati II (Città del Vaticano, 1946), 485–508 & Idem, ‘Le plus ancien office
liturgique de la Bienheureuse Isabelle de France’, AFH 5 (1912), 436–439.
9
At later general chapters, such as that of Paris and Pisa, it was decided that
individual convents should keep a Datarium or a Martyrologium. Cf. AFH 4 (1911),
73; AFH 7 (1914), 678. The Datarium was to be read after prime. For the feast of
San Francesco, Bonaventura composed the Legenda Minor (excerpted from the Legenda
Major), consisting of a series of lectiones for the liturgical feast and its octave. According
to some later thirteenth-century breviaries, the Legenda Minor was not solely to be
read ‘in choro’, but also ‘ad mensam’ during the week leading up to the feast day.
The same holds true for many other streamlined liturgical vitae of Franciscan saints
produced in the medieval period.
360 chapter six
A. Instruction manuals for the clergy
The call for standardisation, the increasing complexity of the Franciscan

liturgical life due to the various developments described above and,
most of all, the growing influx of adolescent friars not necessarily
well-acquainted with the details of liturgical practice, called for instruc-
tion booklets besides the rule. Much of this instruction found its way
into novice training treatises,10 into elementary handbooks for the
training of adolescent friars in the Franciscan custodial school network
(such as the Mammotrectus ascribed to Giovanni Marchesini), and into
basic works solely dedicated to liturgical instruction, such as David
von Augsburg’s Tractatus de Praeparatione ad Missam.11
Rather more meditative in character is Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s
Tractatus de Praeparatione ad Missam,12 which is not a mere handbook
with practical instructions on the liturgical acts themselves, but teaches
friars in two chapters and in prayer-like overtones how to prepare
their body and mind in order to approach the Eucharist with proper
humility and compassion, and how to contemplate its layered mean-
ing. Subsequently, an extract of this work was made by Giacomo
da Milano, the famous author of the Stimulus Amoris.13
10
Hence, in Bonaventura’s Regula Novitiorum readers are urged to recite the Pater
Noster, the Ave Maria and the Gloria Patri ‘cum genuflexiones’ a hundred times every
day. In addition, it counsels novices to recite and ponder ‘quotidie psalmos poeni-
tentiales cum litania pro benefactoribus vivis, et Vigilias trium lectionum pro defunc-
tis.’ Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 213. Bonaventura had also
a lot to say about the spirit in which the divine office was to be recited. Comparable
and rather detailed utterances on the divine office and the Mass can be found in
the Speculum Disciplinae by Bernard de Besse (for instance chapters 14–17). For a
more detailed analysis of Bonaventura’s and Bernard’s treatment of the way in
which novices and young friars should perform the divine office and other liturgi-
cal obligations, see: Willibrord Lampen, ‘De officio divino in ordine minorum iuxta
S. Bonaventuram’, Antonianum 2 (1927), 135–156. Lampen shows how, for Bonaventura,
the proper performance of the divine office was bound up with important christo-
logical and mystical issues. Lampen also offers a more detailed discussion of i.) the
way in which, according to Bonaventura, liturgical prayer should be approached,
and ii.) the spirit of Bonaventura’s Officium de Passione Domini (Cursus de Passione Domini
or Officium de Cruce), suggesting which hymns and orationes were seen to be part of
this office, and which were meant to be performed independently.
11
See MS Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Abendl. Handschriften
Series Nova 3622 ff. 172r–184r.
12
Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 99–106.
13
Giacomo’s Instructio Sacerdotis ad Se Praeparandum ad Celebrandam Missam was edited
in Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, Opera Omnia, ed. Peltier (Paris, 1868), 288–292.
Cf. P. Péano, ‘Jacques de Milan’, DSpir VIII (1974), 48–49.
Even more contemplative and aiming at the overall behaviour of

prelates and priests is another work ascribed to Bonaventura da
Bagnoreggio, namely De Sex Alis Seraphim. This widely distributed
work unfolds the six wings or virtues of meritorious prelates, namely
a zeal for Christian justice, profound piety, patience, an exemplary
lifestyle, discretion in office, and devotion to God.14 In its seventh
and final chapter, in which the liturgical obligations are central (and
are presented as an ongoing conversation with the Divine), the trea-
tise calls upon the superiors of the order to ensure that candidates
selected for the priesthood are assiduous in their liturgical duties,
and that they perform them in the expectation that they are in the
presence of God and under the constant surveillance of the Angels.15
On top of such works written initially for use within the order,
we come across a variety of instructory manuals for priests written
by Franciscan theologians at the request of non-Franciscan clergy-
men, or conceived by Franciscan bishops confronted with a lack of
liturgical knowledge among the priests in their diocese. Of course,
this latter category shows a significant overlap with the catechistic
instructions and instructory guidelines found in the synodal statutes
and episcopal letters of Franciscan bishops and theologians alluded
to in another chapter.16
14
De Sex Alis Seraphim, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII,
131–151 & Idem, Seraphici Doctoris S. Bonaventurae Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam
Spectantia (Quaracchi, 1965), 283–340. Possibly, this work did not flow from Bona-
ventura’s pen, but it was highly inspired by his theological style nevertheless. It con-
tains a prologue and seven chapters: I. De eligendi apti superiores inter multos;
incipientes indigent magistro; magistro non indigentes debent habere quatuor per-
fectiones; II. De prima ala praelatorum, quae est zelus iustitiae; III. De secunda
ala praelatorum, quae est pietas; IV. De tertia ala praelatorum, quae est patientia;
V. De quarta ala praelatorum, quae est exemplaritas vitae; VI. De quinta ala prae-
latorum, quae est circumspecta discretio; VII. De sexta ala prelatorum, quae est
devotio ad Deum.
15
‘. . . ut omnia fiant ordinate et non confuse et sine erroris haesitatione, ut
quisque deputatum ministerium congrue exsequatur (. . .) Idem, ut strenue et non
pigre seu desidiose opus Domini, scilicet divini cultus officium peragatur (. . .) item,
ut devote et reverenter, sine aliqua dissolutione et strepitu, distincte et attente div-
ina officia persolvantur, sicut in conspectu Angelorum et in praesentia Dei.’
16
Elements of liturgical instruction to priests can be found in Pecham’s Lambeth
Constitutions and in his Ignorantia Sacerdotum, cf. L. Kellog & E.W. Talbert, Bulletin of
the John Rylands Library 42 (1959–60), 345–377. Pecham himself was an important
liturgical author as well. On top of his liturgical hymns, he wrote a rhyme office
on the Trinity (Officium SS. Trinitatis), and a Psalterium Beatae Mariae Virginis, which
is a testimony to the Francican veneration for the Virgin. See: W. Lampen, ‘Jean
Pecham et son office de la Sainte Trinité’, LFF 11 (1928), 211–229. This office has
362 chapter six
One of the more important ‘early’ Franciscan ars missae for ordi-
nary priests is William of Middleton’s Opusculum super Missam. This
booklet probably was finished in the mid 1250s, at the time when
William was involved in the publication of Alexander of Hales’ Summa
Theologica.17 In its introduction, William’s Opusculum explains the role
of the priest, the nature and function of the altar, and the various
liturgical ornaments and instruments. The introduction also clearly
shows that the Mass consists of three main parts: the Introitus, followed
by the offering of the host and the chalice, communion itself, and
ending with the post-communion rites. This introduction is followed
by an explanatory commentary which, in five different chapters, deals
with the liturgical, theological and spiritual meaning of the liturgical
words, gestures and paraphernalia. The first four chapters (De tonsura,
De paramentis (quid significent paramenta quae sibi vestiunt, quando
Missarum solemnia celebrare volunt), De altari et utensilibus, and De
horis canonicis) are very concise.18 The fifth part of the text is fully
devoted to the Mass itself (Quintum principale de Missa), describing its
constititive elements in five main sections.
It has been argued that William’s Opusculum fits in nicely with the
Mass explications of Isidoro de Seville, Raban Maur, John Beleth,
Innocent III, and Hugues de St. Cher.19 There also are strong par-
allels with the influential Mass explications present in the Summa
Halensis, which was William’s main source text.20 Yet, whereas Alex-
survived in many manuscripts and saw several early editions in sixteenth-century

breviaries and hymn collections. Cf. G.M. Drèves, AHMA V (1889), 19–21; XXIII
(1896), 5–6 & L (1907), 593–597. In 1530, the Observant Franciscan friar Franciscus
Titelmans published an edition and commentary of this rhyme office, followed by
a biography of Pecham: Liber de Sacrosancta et Superbenedicta Trinitate, in quo Ecclesiasticum
Officium, quod in illius Solemnitate legit Romana Ecclesia, clare lucideque explanatur (Antwerp,
1530). Pecham’s Psalterium Beatae Mariae Virginis has been edited by Drèves, AHMA
XXXV, 153–171 (still attributing the work to Stephen of Canterbury).
17
Opusculum super Missam, ed. W. Lampen, Ephemerides Liturgicae 43 (1929), 329–345,
392–409; Opusculum super Missam, ed. W. Lampen (Ad Claras Aquas, Florence, 1931
(second edition)); Opusculum super Missam, ed. A. van Dijk, Ephemerides Liturgicae 53
(1939), 291–349 & 54 (1940), 3–11 (an edition based on different manuscripts).
18
Its conciseness notwithstanding, the fourth part on the canonical hours very
clearly instructs the reader on their significance, showing how the laudation in these
hours is symbolically linked with the life and sacrifice of Christ.
19
Willibrord van Dijk, ‘Guillaume de Middletown’, DSpir VI, 1223.
20
Cf. the 1939 edition of A. van Dijk, as well as H. Dausend, ‘Das Opusculum
super Missam des Fr. Wilhelm von Melitona und die entsprechenden Stellen in der
Summa theologica Alexanders von Hales’, in: Aus der Geisteswelt des Mittelalters (Münster,
1935) I, 575ff. A. van Dijk, Ephemerides Liturgicae 53 (1939), 310: ‘. . . patebit, non
ander’s Summa dealt with the Mass in an intellectual manner and

was aimed at a well-educated public, as did many Franciscan Sentences
commentaries and academic quaestiones,21 William’s Opusculum super
Missam tried to provide information to simple priests (simplicibus), and
this not solely for their instruction, but also to instill further piety.22
A comparable audience was ministered to by the Instructiones circa
Divinum Officium (ca. 1280),23 written by the Franciscan theologian
Gautier de Bruges, between 1279 and 1305 bishop of Poitiers.24 The
book was written for the instruction of simple priests and clerics (‘ad
instructionem sacerdotum et clericorum ignorantium’), and is a cross
between a liturgical handbook and a penitential manual, placing
heavy emphasis on the priest’s necessary knowledge of the vices, as
he had to be able to absolve the sins of his penitents.25
solum Innocentii De sacro altaris mysterio, sed etiam omnes auctores citatos insertos
fuisse in Opusculo mediante Summae Tractatus de officio Missae.’
21
An important set of exercises in this regard are the Quaestiones de Celebratione
Missarum by François de Meyronnes (MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.E.17
ff. 1–10; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VIII.A.23 ff. 83–90v), which should be seen
in the context of his other academic expositions on the articles of faith, the ten
commandments, faith and the symbolon. For a general discussion of these works,
see: Roth, Franziskus von Mayronis OFM, passim; H. Roßmann, ‘Die Quodlibeta und
verschiedene sonstige Schriften des Franz von Meyronnes OFM’, FrSt 54 (1972),
1–76.
22
A. van Dijk, Ephemerides Liturgicae 53 (1939), 306–307: ‘Et sic Opusculum nos-
trum considerandum est tamquam libellum ad propagandam vitam liturgicam apud
simplices clericos praesertim et sacerdotes.’
23
Un traité de théologie inédit de G. de Bruges. Instructiones circa divinum officium, ed. M. de
Poorter, Société d’ Émulation de Bruges, Mélanges, 5 (Bruges, 1911). Cf. the review
of A. Callebaut, AFH 5 (1912), 368–370.
24
Gautier was magister regens for the Franciscans at Paris between 1267 and 1269,
and subsequently held the post of provincial minister for the French order province.
During his episcopate, Gautier repeatedly came into conflict with the French crown,
not in the least because of his hierocratic ideas and his support for the policies of
pope Boniface VIII. On his life and works, see E. Longpré, Gauthier de Bruges (Paris,
1931); R. Hofmann, Die Gewissenslehre des Walters von Brügge in der Hochscholastik
(Münster, 1941); E. Stadter, Psychologie und Metaphysik der menschlichen Freiheit. Die
ideengeschichtliche Entwicklung zwischen Bonaventura und Duns Scotus (München, 1971),
34–58; H. Huning, ‘Die Bedeutung der Philosophie für Theologie und Heilige
Schrift nach Walter von Brügge OFM’, FrSt 58 (1976), 289–314.
25
In this context should also be mentioned the hymns and the explicatory notes
on the Mass and other liturgical issues produced by Louis de Toulouse (1274–1297),
second son of Charles II d’Anjou (King of Naples) and short-time bishop of Toulouse
between December 1296 and 19 August 1297 (the date of his death). Several man-
uscripts containing Louis’ liturgical explications are mentioned in the index of
Manoscritti francescani della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, ed. C. Cenci, Spicilegium
Bonaventurianum, 7–8 (Grottaferrata, 1971) II, 1084. See also J. Paul, ‘Saint Louis
d’Anjou, franciscain et évêque de Toulouse (1274–1297)’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 7 (1972),
364 chapter six
The De Officio Episcopi et Ecclesiae Caeremoniis, by Gautier’s colleague

Guibert de Tournai, is not geared towards the liturgical and peni-
tential obligations of simple priests, but to those of their episcopal
superiors. Written at the request of bishop Guillaume de Bussy, it
describes the episcopal rites for benedictions during synods and Mass,
and generally stresses the episcopal duties to the flock under the
bishop’s care.26 Several comparable issues with regard to the duties
of prelates (and the lamentable neglect of such duties by many church
dignitaries) would also be raised in Guibert’s Collectio de Scandalis
Ecclesie of 1273, written in preparation to the Council of Lyon.27
Franciscan friars continued to produce instructory manuals for the
lower clergy throughout the later medieval period. These works range
from personalised spiritual letters (as we shall see elsewhere) to struc-
tured treatises. Some of these treatises strictly limited themselves to
basic liturgical instruction, as was the case with the Expositio Divini
Officii Missae by Martin von Wien, which he wrote at Salzburg in 1345.
Others were more ambitious. Hence, the popular Tractatus de Dignitate
Sacerdotis (also known as the Stella Clericorum) by the Franciscan Erfurt
lector and canonist Hermann Topelstein von Mühlhausen (fl. ca. 1335)
is a much more comprehensive booklet,28 using simple terms to
explain all the major obligations of priests and how they have to
discharge their various liturgical, pastoral and penitential functions.
59–90; Idem, ‘Evangélisme et franciscanisme chez Louis d’Anjou’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux

8 (1973), 375–401; Christian Humbert, ‘Saint Louis d’Anjou, un évêque mal connu’,
Petite Bibliothèque de l’Association Les amis des archives de la Laute-Garonne 85 (1997);
Michael Henry, ‘Saint Louis d’Anjou à Marseille’, Lettres des Amis des archives de la
Haute Garonne 149 (dec. 1997), 9–11.
26
De Officio Episcopi et Ecclesiae Caeremoniis (Cologne, Adolphus Rostius, 1571 &
1618); De Officio Episcopi et Ecclesiae Caeremoniis, in: Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum
(Lyon, 1677) XXV, 401–420.
27
Cf. E. Bellone, ‘Cultura e studi nei progetti di Riforma presentati al II Concilio
di Lione (1274)’, Atti della Academia delle Scienze di Torino 3 (1977), 297–318.
28
Tractatus de Dignitate Sacerdotis/Stella Clericorum: a.o. MSS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
cod. theol. F. 157 ff. 1–8; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 2955; Metz, 484. For
more manuscripts and the incunable editions, see Bonmann, FrSt 21 (1934), 331–335;
Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, no. 15060–15080; Copinger, Supplement, no. 5632–5659.
I have not been able to take a look at De Officio Cherubyn ascribed to Rudolf von
Biberach (ca. 1270–1326). That work seems to stand midway between a work of
liturgical instruction and a penitential manual, and includes information on current
fertility rites and magical practices in later medieval society. See: MS Leipzig,
Universitätsbibliothek 639 (14th cent.), ff. 1r–18v. Extracts and a commentary can
be found in A. Franz, ‘Des Frater Rudolphus Buch De Officio Cherubyn’, Theologische
Quartalschrift 88 (1906), 401–436.
In fact, this works stands in the tradition of religious instruction for

parish priests that started with the famous Oculus Sacerdotis, compiled
in the 1320s by (the secular priest or Dominican?) William of Pagula.29
The same holds true for Francesc Eiximenis’ Pastorale, written at
the end of the fourteenth century at the request of Miguel de Miracle
(parish priest of Penáguila) and Hugo de Llupiá y Bages (bishop of
Valencia). The Pastorale is an ambitious Latin work in four parts and
167 chapters, discussing the clerical state, the episcopal dignity, the
pastor’s many obligations, and his supernatural compensation, should
the performance of his task find mercy in the eyes of God. Its bulk
notwithstanding, the Pastorale has survived in a considerable number
of manuscripts and came out in print as early as 1495.30
More strictly concerned with liturgical issues is the famous Expositio
Mysteriorum Missae/Tractatus de Expositione Missae by the Dutch Observant
friar Willem Tergouw (Willem van Gouda, c. 1455–c. 1490), which
was printed at least 32 times after 1484.31 With this compact work,
29
MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale lat. 3150, which contains the Compendium
Pauperis by the early fourteenth-century French friar Jean Rigaud, repeatedly states
that this Franciscan also produced an Expositio Missae: ‘In fine autem tractatus seu
lecturae quam ordinavi De Expositione Missae invenies xxiiii mirabilia per ordinem in
hoc sacramento’ (f. 79r); ‘Nota quod vestis episcopalis et sacerdotalis plenius indi-
cant quales esse debent qui hoc sacramentum ministrant. Et, licet de hoc dictum
sit in tractatu deordinato Super missam, tamen ut aliquid hic dicatur . . .’ (f. 79v);
‘Circa missae officium, licet de hoc impletius dicatur in tractatu quem feci De
Expositione Missae, aliqua sunt sub brevitate recitanda’ (f. 80r). All my information
on this is based on the remarks by Valois, ‘Jean Rigaud, frère mineur’, 297–298,
who suggests that maybe the anonymous De Significationibus Missae found in MS
Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek Theol. A 55 ff. 123–129 should be ascribed
to Jean Rigaud (this same manuscript contains Jean’s Formula Confessionum on ff.
344–364).
30
The Liber Pastoralis/Pastorale can be found for instance in MSS Madrid, Biblioteca
Nacional 444 ff. 1–77v; Toulouse, Bibliothèque Municipale 293 (394? an. 1457);
Barcelona, Biblioteca Central 463; Valencia, Biblioteca Metrololitana 261; Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 3188; London, British Library Add. 17365; Rome, BAV
Rossiniana 213; and Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana H. 87 sup. Its first edition came
of the printing press of Pedro Posa at Barcelona in 1495.
31
Expositio Mysteriorum Missae et Verus Modus Ritae Celebrandi/Tractatus de Expositione
Missae Editus a Fratre Guilhelmo de Gouda Ordinis Minorum de Observantia (Cologne, ca.
1484). Many more editions followed. In some of these, the Expositio is followed by a
series of ‘Orationes devotissime ante et post missam dicende.’ For a more or less com-
plete overview of the various editions, see especially P. Schlager, ‘Ueber die Meßer-
klärung des Franziskaners Wilhelm von Gouda’, FrSt 6 (1919), 323–336; B. De
Troeyer, ‘Guillaume de Gauda’, DSpir VI, 1208–9; Idem, Bio-bibliographia Franciscana
Neerlandica, Ante Saec. XVI I, 124–7; Idem, ‘Bio-bibliografie van de minderbroeders
vóór het jaar 1500. Voorstudies (nieuwe reeks) VII. Guilelmus de Gouda’, Franciscana
29 (1974), 21–26.
366 chapter six
Willem first of all intended to provide parish priests and other simple
clerics with a manual enabling them to perform the liturgy of the
Mass correctly, to gain a proper understanding of all its elements,
and to engage in its celebration with the right mental disposition
(‘digne conficere et fructuose immolare sacramentum eucharistie’).
On top of this, the Expositio insists on a proper catechistic instruction
of the faithful by the celebrant, so that eventually all participants in
the religious service will gain a proper understanding of the mysteries
of Christ’s life and sacrifice, which are represented allegorically by
the various elements of the Mass. The work exhibits some local tra-
ditions from the Cologne area during the closing decades of the
fifteenth century, when Willem was active as a student and preacher.
On the whole, however, it faithfully follows the major Mass exposi-
tions of the later Middle Ages (such as those of John Beleth, Sicardo
da Cremona, Innocent III, Hugues de St. Cher, and Gaullaume
Durandus, and William of Middletown’s Opusculum super Missam).
B. Instruction manuals for the laity
The friars’ involvement in pastoral care and catechistic tuition quickly

gave rise to a connected genre of literature: the liturgy explication
booklets for the laity, either as part and parcel of the catechistic pro-
gramme put forward in their sermons and catechisms, as we have
seen elsewhere,32 or separately, in liturgical handbooks specifically
written for lay penitents and spiritual pupils.
32
Many catechisms contain information on the ways in which to participate in
the Mass and on how to respond to its various elements in the proper way. Many
surviving Franciscan catechistic sermons focus on the Mass and the Eucharist as
well. Good examples are 1.) Berthold von Regensburg’s sermon Die Zeichen (Bezeichenunge)
der heiligen Messe, found in Berthold von Regensburg. Vollständige Ausgabe seiner deutschen
Predigten, ed. F. Pfeiffer & J. Strobl, 2 Vols (Vienna, 1862–1880/Berlin 19652), II,
683ff. (and also in A. Schönbach, Studien zur Geschichte der altdeutschen Predigt VI (Vienna,
1906/Hildesheim, 1968), 124f.); 2.) Marquard von Lindau’s sermon De Corpore Christi,
which has survived in eight manuscripts (among which MSS Dillingen, Studienbibl.
Cod. XV 125 ff. 15v–39r and Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek cod. Cent. VI, 60 ff.
79r–106v). This sermon discusses the six excellent properties of the Eucharist sacra-
ment, the six miracles of this sacrament, the six human weaknesses to which God
answers through this sacrament with six signs of love, and the six fruits of this
sacrament that pertain to the salvation of mankind. For more information, see
Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, 99.
These liturgical handbooks themselves fall apart in two categories.

On the one hand, we come accross texts attempting to instruct lay
people and, more in particular, members of confraternities and pen-
itents associated with the order, on how to lead a more regulated
life by following the liturgical hours and by learning the psalms and
the prayers of the various offices found in the breviary.33 Throughout
the later medieval period, convents of friars and sisters furnished lay
benefactors and clients with vernacular breviaries and books of hours
to this purpose, and Franciscan constitutions for confraternities and
tertiary communities almost always included regulations about the
33
It could be argued that, here too, a few of Francesco d’Assisi’s early initia-
tives had already pointed the way. See for instance his Laudes ad Omnes Horas Dicendae,
in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 183–187; François d’Assise, Écrits,
Sources Chrétiennes 285 (Paris, 1981), 282–285. These are a kind of liturgical lau-
dations with additional prayers, meant to be sung at all liturgical hours of the day
and night: ‘Incipiunt laudes quas ordinavit beatissimus pater noster Franciscus et
dicebat ipsas ad omnes horas diei et noctis et ante officium beatae Mariae Virginis
sic incipiens: Sanctissime pater noster qui es in caelis etc. cum Gloria. Deinde dicantur
laudes: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus Dominus Deus omnipotens . . .’ Another liturgical
text that comes to mind is Francesco d’Assisi’s Officium Passionis Domini (Psalmos quos
Ordinavit b. Franciscus), in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (1978), 188–222; François d’Assise,
Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes 285 (Paris, 1981), 286–331. This is a more or less
autonomous and extended Psalm office for all the liturgical hours. The introduc-
tion clarifies its content and function: ‘Incipiunt psalmi, quos ordinavit beatissimus
pater noster Franciscus ad reverentiam et memoriam et laudem passionis Domini.
Qui dicendi sunt per quaslibet horas diei et noctis unum. Et incipiunt a comple-
torio feriae sextae Parasceve, eo quod in illa nocte traditus fuit et captus Dominus
noster Jesus Christus. Et nota, quod sic dicebat istud officium beatus Franciscus:
Primo dicebat orationem, quam nos docuit Dominus et Magister: Sanctissime pater
noster etc. cum laudibus, scilicet: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, sicut superius continetur.
Finitis laudibus cum oratione incipiebat hanc antiphonam, scilicet: Sancta Maria.
Psalmos dicebat primo de sancta Maria; postea dicebat alios psalmos quos elegerat,
et in fine omnium psalmorum, quos dicebat, dicebat psalmos passionis. Finito psalmo
dicebat hanc antiphonam, scilicet: Sancta Maria virgo. Finita antiphona expletum erat
officium.’ See also Oktavian von Rieden, ‘Das Leiden Christi im Leben des hl.
Franziskus von Assisi’, CF 30 (1960), 5–30, 129–145, 241–243, 353–397; L. Gallant,
‘Dominus regnavit a ligno’, L’‘Officium Passionis’ de saint François d’Assise. Édition critique et
étude (Paris, 1978). Following the example of Francesco d’Assisi, many friars also
engaged in the writing of comparable texts for specific paraliturgical devotional pur-
poses. See for instance Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s Officium de Passione Domini, in:
Idem, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 152–158 & in: Idem, Decem Opuscula ad
Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia, in textu correcta et notis illustrata a PP. Collegii
S. Bonaventurae (Ad Claras Aquas, 1965), 343–363. Bonaventura composed this
office for King Louis IX of France, to give him spiritual exercises for all the litur-
gical hours of the day, complete with prayers, contemplations, hymns and psalms
to be sung, readings from the Gospels etc. It is not an official liturgical office, but
a means for the King to organise his day with prayer and religious exercises.
368 chapter six
adherence to the canonical hours, also comprising rudimentary pre-

scriptions on the psalms and prayers to be read and sung at various
occasions.34
On the other hand, we encounter a variety of essentially cate-
chistic instruction booklets aiming at familiarising the laity with the
various elements of the Mass and the divine office. An early example
of this is Marquard von Lindau’s Meßerklärung/Eucharistie-Traktat, which
in actual fact is a reworking of his sermon De Corpore Christi, transform-
ing it into a master-pupil dialogue. As such, the Meßerklärung became
one of the most successful late medieval Eucharist explications in
Southern Germany, especially among religious and lay women. It
has survived in several versions and is frequently found together with
Marquard’s catechistic Dekalogerklärung.35
Marquard’s contemporary Andalo da Imola, who obtained the
doctorate in theology at Bologna in 1380, wrote an explanatory
omnibus concerning the words of Christ present in the missal (Verba
Salvatoris Nostri Domini Iesu Christi in Missali Posita), for a mixed audi-
ence of lay friars and aristocratic lay people.36 This should famil-
iarise those listening to the Gospel readings with the latter’s evangelical
message and direct the former’s religious response towards the con-
tents of the religious service.
It is particularly in the closing decades of the fifteenth and the
first half of the sixteenth century, a time-span that also saw an
upswing in more general catechistic works, that a whole series of
liturgical handbooks for the laity began to appear. From the end of
34
I have not yet been able to find out whether the Reglas y Arte Para Aprender a
Rezar el Oficio Divino, según la Orden de la Santa Iglesia Romana (Sevilla: Juan Cromberger,
1534/Sevilla: Juan Cromberger, 1543) by Juan de Argumanes (d. before 1535)
catered to the same public or was primarily directed at adolescent clerics in training.
35
Der Eucharistie-Traktat Marquards von Lindau, ed. Annelies Julia Hofmann, Hermaea
7 (1960). Cf. the review of Kurt Ruh, ZdAdL 73 (1961), 13–24. No less than 67
manuscripts contain the full German text, whereas four contain a Latin version and
an additional two contain a mixture of both. In addition, several manuscripts con-
tain excerpts of the text. For an overview, see Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’,
99–100. See also Blumrich, Marquard von Lindau. Deutsche Predigten-Untersuchungen und
Edition, 5*.
36
Verba Salvatoris Nostri Domini Iesu Christi in Missali Posita quae per Anni Circulum in
Ecclesia Leguntur: MS Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana 542 (sec. XIV fin.). The work is
dedicated to Astorre I Manfredi, Lord of Faenza (1377–1404). Inc: ‘Yesus discipu-
lus sic premonebat . . .’ Expl: ‘Et ponitur in missis mortuorum.’ B. Pergamo, ‘I
francescani alla facultà teologica di Bologna (1364–1500)’, AFH 27 (1934), 23; I
codici medioevali della Biblioteca Trivulziana, cur. Caterina Santoro (Milan 1965) 121
(no. 198).
the fifteenth century dates Wilhelm von Lenzfried’s Ler von der Mess,
a work that apparently was not widely disseminated, yet offers inter-
esting meditative guidelines to the attentive church goer (the ‘andaechtig
mensch der da hinder der mess staet’) for a proper appreciation of
the various parts of the Mass (Introitus, Kyrie, Epistle and Gospel
readings, the canones, the elevation of the Host, Communion and
Blessing).37 From roughly the same period stems Iñigo de Mendoza’s
Tratado breve y muy provechoso de las ceremonias de la Misa cun sus con-
templaciones, a text in thirteen chapters that seemingly had a compa-
rable objective, and likewise was primarily directed at attentive but
‘uncultured’ lay people in need of meditative guidance in their con-
frontation with the Mass and, more in particular, the Eucharist: sign
of Christ’s passion and sacrifice.38
Undoubtedly, one of the most important explanatory manuals of
this kind is Gerrit vander Goude (Gerard van Gouda)’s Boexken vander
missen,39 a work that should not be confused with the slightly older
Expositio Mysteriorum Missae/Tractatus de Expositione Missae by Willem
Tergouw (Willem van Gouda) written for simple clerics. Gerrit’s
Boexken, written and published in Dutch during a homiletic sejourn
at Gouda (The Netherlands) in 1506, explains the Mass to lay people
in three books, each of which contains 33 chapters or articles (cor-
responding with Christ’s years on earth). The first book explains the
37
Ler von der Mess: MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 496 ff. 111r–114r (late fifteenth
cent.). See Konrad Kunze, ‘Wilhelm zu Lenzfried’, VL2 X, 1111–1112.
38
Tratado breve y muy provechoso de las ceremonias de la Misa cun sus contemplaciones
(Sevilla: Tres Compañeros Alemanes, 1499/Alcalá de Henares, 1519/Alcalá de
Henares, 1541). See K. Whinnom, ‘The Printed Editions and the Text of the Works
of Iñigo de Mendoza’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 39 (1962), 137–152.
39
Boexken van der missen (a.o. Gouda: Collaciebroders, 1506/Antwerp: Adriaen van
Berghen, 1507/Antwerp: Henrick Eckert van Homberch, 1508/Antwerp: Hendrick
Eckert van Homberch, 1510/Antwerp: Hendrick Eckert van Homberch, 1511/Antwerp:
Hendrick Eckert van Homberch, 1512). For more information on old editions, see
L. Mees, ‘Het “Boexken vander Missen” van Gherit vander Goude (1506)’, Franciscana
10 (1955), 93–100 & Franciscana 11 (1955), 1–16, 51–58; Idem, ‘Franciscaanse leer-
meesters en voorbeelden. Gherit vander Goude’, Alter Christus 14 (1959), 148–97;
Idem, ‘A Newly Discovered Edition of Gerrit vander Goude’s ‘Boexken vander mis-
sen’’, Quaerendo 6 (1976), 64–65; B. De Troeyer, ‘Gerrit vander Goude’, Franciscana
20 (1965), 6–13; Idem, Bio-bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica, Saeculi XVI I, 7–13 &
II, 105–115. A modern edition appeared as: Dat boexken vander missen door broeder
Gherit vander Gouden, minderbroeder vander observanten, ed. L. Mees, 2 Vols. (Louvain,
1946). Gerrit’s Boexken quickly was translated and adapted into Latin, French and
English, with titles as Libellus de Missa Devotissimus (Gouda, 1512); L’interpretation et
signification de la messe (Antwerp, 1529 & 1538).
370 chapter six
origin of the Mass and its various parts. Book two offers catechistic
guidelines on how to follow the Mass in a fruitful fashion, creating
allegorical correspondences between the parts of the Mass and piv-
otal moments in the life of Christ. The third booklet, in its turn,
deals with communion and the proper preparation for it (esp. con-
fession). In various editions of this Boexken, the second part is adorned
with 33 woodcuttings, depicting as many pivotal moments in the life
of Christ (and their corresponding elements in the Mass). Through
these woodcuttings, as the author says, even the illiterate can fruit-
fully contemplate the life and death of Christ and the proper
significance of the Mass, both at home and in church.40
Probably written for female religious is the Declaratione devota et utile
de tutte quelle cose che se fanno et dicono nella Messa by Gabriele da Perugia,
first the confessor of the Monteluce Poor Clares (between 1511 and
1515), and thereafter of the Poor Clares at Santa Lucia (Foligno). Like
the works of many of his Franciscan colleagues, Gabriele’s Declaratione
devota explains the Mass as a mystical allegory on the life and death
of Christ, and is completely focused on instilling the correct devo-
tional attitude in those participating in and hearing the service.41
Roughly the same approach is apparent in La passion de Notre-Seigneur
Jésus-Christ représentée dans les cérémonies de la messe42 by Jean Glapion,
40
‘. . . so mach hi devoteliken overdencken dat leven ons heren ende lesen op
elcken artikel een Pater noster ende Ave Maria.’ The modern editor of the text,
L. Mees, remarks that this second part draws heavily on the Biga Salutis (a sermon
collection on the Eucharist and the Mass) written by an anonymous Hungarian
Franciscan friar (Anonymus Hungarus/Michael of Hungary?). Like the author of
the Biga Salutis, Gerard allegorises parts of the life of Christ to explain the Mass to
all and sundry.
41
Declaratione devota et utile de tutte quelle cose che se fanno et dicono nella Messa parata
et solempne con le cerimonie e con le loro significatione et interpretatione in breve recolte da diverse
doctori et sancti ad utilità de li legenti overo audienti: MS Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale
993. This work seems heavily indebted to an exposition of the Mass found on pp.
78–88 in Volume VII of the 1596 Roman Opera Omnia edition of Bonaventura da
Bagnoreggio (Christus Assistens Pontifex). The Declaratione devota has been edited in an
appendix to the unpublished doctoral dissertation of M. Gabriella Rossi: Il sim-
bolismo liturgico in alcuni autori francescani del Quattrocento, Diss. (Perugia, 1970). For more
information, see M. Faloci Pulignani, ‘Fra Gabriele da Perugia, Minore Osservante,
scrittore francescano del 1500’, MF 1 (1886), 41–45; Giuliana Perini, ‘Un “Libro
di Vita” di Gabriele da Perugia composto tra il 1496–1503’, CF 41 (1971), 60–86;
Cl. Schmitt, ‘Gabriel de Pérouse’, DHGE XIX, 562; DBI LI, 52–53. Gabriele’s
works of passion devotion are mentioned elsewhere in this volume.
42
MS Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale 231 ff. 75r–145v. On f. 75r we can
read: ‘Pour ce que la messe a este ordonnee quant a sa premiere institution de
Nostre Saulveur et Redempteur pour rememorer sa douloureuse passion, il ma
and in the larger and better known Mass explications of Glapion’s

Observant colleagues Francisco de Osuna (fl. c. 1530), Ludolf Nicolai
from Zwolle (The Netherlands, d. 1541), Adriaan van Mechelen
(fl. c. 1545), and Frans Titelmans (d. 1537).
Francisco de Osuna, a member of the Spanish Recollect Observance
and the author of catechistic texts, sermons, and the multi-volume
Abecedario Espiritual, published a treatise on the Eucharist, called Gracioso
Convite de las Gracias del Santo Sacramento del Altar, in 1530. In this
rather meditative text, which is as much a work of Eucharist devo-
tion as a manual of liturgical instruction, Osuna presents the Eucharist
as the moment at which the believer is able to attain a mystical
union with Christ. As this union is a privileged moment of access
to the Divine and an experience of spiritual love of the highest
importance to one’s personal salvation, it is highly recommendable
that believers should try to receive communion frequently and hence
should not hesitate to confess their sins at regular intervals.43
The importance of frequent communion is also central in two
books by the Dutch Observant friar Ludolf Nicolai, whose career
can be traced in the Franciscan convents of Kampen (1530) and
Brussels (1540). His work on the meaning and significance of the
Mass, Die beduydinghe der missen, dating from 1530, is a detailed ver-
nacular Mass explanation, independent from and more thorough
than the famous Boexken vander missen by Gerrit van Gouda, and draws
on a wealth of patristic theology.44 In one of his shorter treatises on
semble que on ne poulroit trouver signes plus expressement representatifs de laditte

passion que laditte messe. Et pourtant que aujourdhuy Dieu devant avons a declarer
la passion de nostre Saulveur suys delibere de proceder selon les misteres que nous
voyons estre celebres et faicts es messes parochiales principalement selon lusaige
roman.’ This manuscript was described by H. Lippens, in AFH 45 (1952), 64–65.
He characterises Jean’s text as a series of ‘. . . méditations pieuses sur le symbol-
isme de la liturgie de la Messe’. Jean’s explanation clearly is a reworking of the
passion sermons he delivered at Nancy during the passion week of 1520.
43
Francisco de Osuna, Gracioso Convite de las Gracias del Santo Sacramento del Altar
(Sevilla: Juan Cromberger, 1530/Sevilla: Bartolomé Pérez, 1531/Sevilla: Martín
Montesdoca, 1554/Burgos: Juan de Junta, 1537/Burgos: Juan de Junta, 1543/Sevilla:
Juan de Robertis, 1544/Venice: J.G. Ciotti, 1599 (Italian translation by G. Zanchini)).
44
Die beduydinghe der missen nae die meyninghe der heyliger Apostelen, ende der discipulen
Christi, ende van die oude ende eerste Doctoren der heyligher kercken. Ende die drie oeffeninghen
der missen. Waerom die Misse ende dat ambacht der missen alder eerst vanden heyligen Apostelen
ingheset is, ghenomen wt die oudste doctoren der heyliger Kercken, te weten: Dionisius, Origenes,
Chrysostomus, Augustinus, Gregorius, Gelasius, Rupertus, ende meer andere. Ghemaect vanden
Eerwaerdighen Pater Broeder Ludolphus (Antwerp, 1530/Antwerp, 1551/Antwerp, 1554/
Louvain, 1568 etc.)
372 chapter six
the four works performed by Christ on the cross (Een tractaetken van
vier wercken der liefden dye Christus aent cruyce volbracht heeft)—namely the
reconciliation of the world with God, the healing of spiritual illness,
the sanctification of the Church, and the fulfillment of spiritual desire
(Versoeninghe van die heel werelt; Gesontmakinge van alle geeste-
like crancheden; Heilichmakinghe van die heel kersten kercke; Een
versadinghe van alle goddelijcker begheerten)—Ludolf wants to ensure
that the faithful use the Mass as a training ground for spiritual
growth, taking the works of Christ crucified as a point of departure
for their own journey towards spiritual fulfillment.45
More elementary but not essentially different in emphasis is the
‘teaching’ (Onderwijsinghe ende instructie) on the reception of the host
that was published in 1550 by Adriaan van Mechelen. This ‘teaching’,
which is complementary to Adriaan’s confession manual mentioned
elsewhere (Een salich ende profitelijck onderwijs vander Biechten), starts with
a short dogmatic explanation of the transsubstantiation doctrine and
the place of the Eucharist in the Mass. Yet it is first and foremost
a guide to the proper mental preparation for communion and the
proper way to receive it. The author makes it clear that it is of the
utmost importance to receive Christ’s body in thankful remembrance
of His passion and death (‘in een dancbaerheit der passie ende der
doot Christi Jesu’).46
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the learned but not
overly academic Tractatus de Expositione Mysteriorum Missae (1528) by
Franciscus Titelmans from Hasselt (Limburg), who in 1535 was to
exchange his Observant habit for a Capuchin one. Titelman’s Tractatus
aims at focusing the believer’s mind when preparing for and expe-
riencing the religious services on Sun- and weekdays. Titelmans ham-
mers on the necessity to allow the Holy Spirit to enter one’s soul,
45
Een tractaetken van vier wercken der liefden dye Christus aent cruyce volbracht heeft daer
hem oock een kersten mensche dicwil in sal oeffenen bisonder onder die misse ghemaect ende ghep-
reect vanden selven Pater Ludolphus vice-gardiaen van de minderbroederen van Brussele (Antwerp:
Weduwe van Hendrik Petersen, 4 April, 1551/Antwerp: Weduwe van Hendrik
Petersen, 24 April, 1554/Louvain: Jan Bogaerts, 1568). For more information, see:
J. Nouwens, De veelvuldige H. Communie in de geestelijke literatuur der Nederlanden vanaf het
midden van de 16e eeuw (Bilthoven-Antwerpen, 1952), 18–20; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia
Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 118–121.
46
Onderwijsinghe ende instructie hoe hem een yeghelijck sal bereyden ter taferelen Gods te gane
ende te ontfanghen dat weerde heylighe Sacrament, ghecolligeert uuter heyliger Scriftueren, ende ander
gheapprobeerde doctoren (Louvain: Hugo Cornwels, 1550).
and to ask for its presence in continual prayer. The core of the
Tractatus is devoted to the reception of the Eucharist. One should
prepare for this pivotal moment with a thorough contemplation of
Christ’s virtues, His suffering, and His glorious resurrection, which
is a promise to mankind.47
47
Tractatus de Expositione Mysteriorum Missae. Sacri Canonis Missae Duplex Expositio.
Tractatus Sanctarum Meditationum (Antwerp, 1528); Espositione del R.P. Frate Francesco
Titelmano dei misteri e cerimonie, le quale si osservano nel santissimo sacrificio della messa,
secondo l’ordine delli nostri santi e antichi Padri (Venice, 1548). Written during Titelman’s
Observant years as a theologian at Louvain, the Tractatus was well received among
the early Capuchins. For that reason parts of the preface and fragments of the text
(distinctions three, four, seven, and the conclusion) of the 1548 Italian edition can
be found in: I Frati Cappuccini III/1, 250–264.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WORKS OF RELIGIOUS EDIFICATION
There is a smooth overflow between the various novice training man-

uals and catechistic texts mentioned before and a large bulk of more
wide-ranging works of religious edification. Many of these edificatory
works were written first and foremost to foster the spiritual forma-
tion of friars. Others were expressly geared to the alleged spiritual
needs of the other gender, viz. Franciscan nuns (and/or female ter-
tiaries). With the passing of time, an increasing number of Franciscan
texts of religious edification cast their net wider, aiming to domes-
ticize or transform the (literate) populace into docile and pious reli-
gious subjects, a goal that this literature had in common with the
large body of catechistic literature.
By the later fifteenth century in particular, this same objective
gave rise to more ambitious Christian handbooks, written to accom-
pany and steer the socioreligious behaviour of lay people of all walks
of life, from the cradle to the grave. Several such manuals built on
the instructory schemes found in the bulk of the surviving Franciscan
catechistic texts, diverging from the latter by expanding the treat-
ment of the edificatory themes. Others had much in common with
the novice training treatises presented before—exhibiting a compa-
rable mix of disciplinary, ascetical and devotional elements—and stop
short of a training in outright participatory mysticism. Some Franciscan
texts of spiritual edification crossed the thresholds of mysticism,
offering their readers a complete road map leading them from basic
disciplinary techniques, via prayer guides and meditative exercises,
to more rarefied contemplatory experiences that should lead to a
mystical unification with the Divine.
As is the case with nearly all the texts dealt with in this volume,
these manuals of religious edification can not easily be divided into
neatly delineated generic corpora. They have a subject matter and a
goal or causa finalis in common rather than shared morphological or
stylistic identificatory characteristics. Their aim was edification (Erbauung).
Hence, the bulk of these texts will be presented in the first para-
works of religious edification 375
graph under this common denominator. Some definitely have a

homiletic background, whereas others originally were conceived as
treatises for meditative reading. Quite a few have the format of the
spiritual letter, addressed to a specific spiritual pupil, a colleague, or
a lay aristocratic benefactor. Although many such letters were implic-
itly meant for a wider audience, their literary form and the partic-
ular occasion that gave rise to them could give them a special flavour,
for which reason I have decided to present a group of them in a
separate paragraph.
A separate paragraph likewise is devoted to treatises of passion
devotion. Nearly all Franciscan texts of religious edification empha-
sise the passion of Christ (and tend to instil in their readers an evoca-
tive emotional response to the suffering of Christ and his mother,
the Virgin Mary). Yet a subset of such texts focused more singularly
on the life and death of the Son of God, and in their own right did
much to shape the character of late medieval lay and religious spir-
ituality. Therefore, they too deserve a separate paragraph.
The other manuals of religious instruction mentioned in this chap-
ter are more difficult to differentiate. For reasons of legibility, I have
chosen to devote separate paragraphs to the voluminous, compre-
hensive handbooks aiming for the total mental overhaul of the lay
religious conscience, and to the manuals that encroach on the genre
of the ‘prince’s mirror’, combining moral and religious edification in
an attempt to shape the political outlook of Christian rulers.
A. Edificatory manuals
From early on, many texts addressed at friars aimed at a mental

transformation, so that the outward conversion to the evangelical life
would go hand in hand, or at least would be followed by a spiritual
reconfiguration of the inner self, leading to a true understanding of
God’s universal plan and of one’s position in it, to a total and joyful
identification with God’s will at every occasion, and to a total peace
of mind.
Several writings of Francesco d’Assisi of course immediately come
to mind in this context. Apart from his rules and the writings directed
at the Poor Ladies of San Damiano, both Francesco’s Epistolae
ad Fideles and his Admonitiones, as well as various Laudes and Canti
376 chapter seven
mentioned in other contexts are early influential texts of Franciscan

religious instruction.1
Francesco’s close companions were rather productive issuers of
meditative works of spiritual edification. Frequently, such works were
shaped as a direct expression of religious experience as felt during
periods of retreat. Possibly the most important samples of these are
the Detti or Dicta Aurea by friar Egidio di Assisi (c. 1190–1262), one
of Francesco d’Assisi’s very first disciples. These ‘Golden Sayings’
are a group of religious aphorisms rather than a manual of religious
instruction properly speaking.
After many years of itinerant preaching in and outside Italy, Egidio
settled down in the hermitage of Monteripido, near Perugia, where
he augmented his reputation for spiritual wisdom and for his incor-
poration of the pristine Franciscan tradition of evangelical perfection.
Egidio’s memories of the early Franciscan brotherhood in themselves
were to become a major source of information for Franciscan hagio-
graphers, both those involved with the ‘official’ hagiographical rep-
resentation of Francesco in the order, and those who cherished the
ideals of the primitive fraternity and increasingly found fault with
the direction in which the Order was developing. Likewise, Egidio’s
Detti became an icon for the budding spiritual movement, yet con-
tinued to inspire a larger Franciscan audience, due to their wide-
ranging character and the strong applicability of their spiritual advice
for different groups of readers.2
The Franciscan tradition of Detti/Dicta was to continue through-
out the thirteenth century (and beyond), especially among friars of
a strong ascetical spiritual bend, such as Jacopone da Todi (ca.
1
Another of these is the less well-known De Vera et Perfecta Laetitia. See Franciscus
Assisiensis, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 324–328.
2
Dicta Beati Aegidii Assisiensis, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi (Quaracchi,
1905/1939). Modern editions and translations have appeared in I Mistici. Scritti dei
mistici francescani secolo XIII, ed. L. Iriarte et al. (Assisi, 1995) I, 65–169; Aegidius
von Assisi, Die Weisheit des Einfachen, ed. A. Rotzetter & E. Hug (Zürich, 1980); Egidio
di Assisi, I Detti, ed. & trans. Taddeo Bargiel (Padua, 2001). In 33 little ‘chapters’,
the Detti discuss a variety of spiritual issues. See A. Briganti, Il b. Egidio d’Assisi
(Naples, 1898); L. Hardick – P.A. Schluter, Leben und ‘goldene Worte’ des Bruders Aegidius
(Werl, 1953); A. Ghinato, ‘Prega e lavora’, Vita Minorum (1962), 220–249; V. Gamboso,
Il beato Egidio compagno di San Francesco (Padua, 1962); J. Cambell, ‘Gilles d’Assise’,
DSpir VI, 379–382; R.B. Brooke, Scripta Leonis, Rufini et Angeli sociorum S. Francisci.
The writings of Leo, Rufino and Angelo companions of St. Francis (Oxford, 1970), 308–317;
E. Mariani, La sapienza di frate Egidio compagno di Francesco con i detti, LIEF (Vicenza,
1982).
1228–1306), the famous Franciscan joculator who, due to his alle-

giance to the spirituals, was kept in confinement for some time (until
his release by Benedict XI in 1303, allowing Jacopone to retire near
the Poor Clares of San Lorenzo at Collazzione, near Todi). Jacopone is
most famous for his 92 to 102 vernacular Laude spirituali and for other
songs and poems, which we have come across in an earlier chapter.
Yet he also is the probable author of several Latin prose works,
namely a Tractatus Utilissimus—which by some scholars is ascribed to
Rizzerio di Muccia3—and a set of Dicta or Verba that later received
3
Trattatus Utilissimus: a.o. MSS Assisi, Biblioteca della Chiesa Nuova 16 (13) XV
ff. 88r–90v (15th cent.); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Theol. Q 196 ff. 92r–95v; Cambrai,
Bibliothèque Communale. A 261 (251) ff. 15r–17r (15th cent.); Bologna, Biblioteca
Universitaria 152 (129) ff. 90v–93r (14th cent.); Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana
2959 ff. 115v–118r (15th cent.); Sankt Florian, Stiftsbibliothek XI, 148 ff. 78vb &
80ra–82ra; Rome, Biblioteca del Collegio di S. Isidoro 1/73 ff. 147r–152r (14th
cent.); Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Laur. Gadd. Plut. 90 inf. 29 ff.
169r–172v (15th cent.); Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana It. IX, 244 (7001)
ff. 70v–73v (14th cent.); Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Conv. Soppr.
C.2.608 ff. 71r–73v (14th cent.); Wroclaw, Universitätsbibliothek Rehdiger 271 ff.
296r–297va (15th cent.); Magdeburg, Stadtbibliothek XII 2.154 (12) ff. 83va–84vb
(15th cent.); Budapest, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Med. Aev. Lat. 77 ff. 67rb–
68va (14th cent.); Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 4354 ff. 138v–141r (14th cent.); Rome,
BAV Vat.Lat. 7824 ff. 184r–189r (15th cent.). The vernacular version of the text
has survived in MSS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale 1037 ff. 135r–141r; Florence,
Biblioteca Riccardiana 2627 ff. 23v–30r; Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 1467 ff.
41r–48v ; Assisi, Biblioteca della Chiesa Nuova 8 ff. 50v–58v; Rome, BAV Cappon.
207 ff. 35r–38r; Rome, BAV Cappon. 8909 ff. 109r–113r; Florence, Biblioteca
Nazionale Conv. Sopp. I.1.47 ff. 35r–39r; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Conv.
Sopp. C. 2. 2822 ff. 1r–5v; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Pal. 54 ff. 33v–37v;
Todi, Biblioteca Comunale 195 ff. 663–665v. Tractatus utilissimus et sufficientissimus
qualiter homo potest cito pervenire ad cognitionem veritatis, ed. E. Menesto, in: Le prose latine
attribuite a Jacopone da Todi (Bologna, 1979), 75–86. The work saw three printed edi-
tions in the sixteenth century (Venice, 1537; Venice, 1543 & Louvain, 1554) and
a series of modern editions prior to that of Menestò, albeit that it was frequently
attributed to other friars, such as Rizzerio di Muccia (1190–1236) from Camerino,
who was studying law at Bologna University when he was accepted into the order
by Francesco in the summer of 1220. Menestò makes a strong case for Jacopone’s
authorship of the Latin Tractatus, pointing at the strong parallels with the Laude.
The major theme of the Tractatus, which is heavily inspired by the Mystica Theologia
of (Pseudo) Dionysius, puts full emphasis on the love for God, and stresses the need
for abandoning all attention and love for intermediate objects (ed. Menestò, 75ff.):
‘Quicumque vult ad veritatis cognitionem brevi et recto tramite pervenire et pacem
perfecte in anima possidere, oportet quod totaliter se expropriet ab amore omnis
creature et etiam sui ipsius, ut totaliter se in Deum proiciat, non reservans sibi ali-
quid, nec etiam tempus, ut nihil per proprium sensum sibi provideat, quin semper
sit dispositus et subiectus et paratus ducatui divino et vocationi ipsius.’ (. . .) ‘Sed
postquam anima se totaliter expropriat ab omni amore creato et habet veram pau-
pertatem spiritus cordaliter, quia non delectatur in aliqua creatura, tunc trahitur et
378 chapter seven
vernacular reworkings.4 In these latter Verba, Jacopone deals with the

early or preliminary ‘negative’ stages of the soul’s journey towards
or union with God, when it is necessary to flee the world, fight one’s
sinful nature and withstand the improper inclinations of the will, so
that the soul can become a receptacle of Divine love.5
impletur ab amore divino, in quem se totaliter proiecit. Et si postea redeant ad

animam ista media que reliquerat, non possunt eam intrare, quia plena est domus
et hospitium iam captum est ab ipso divino amore et ligati sunt omnes affectus.’
(. . .) ‘Igitur utillimum valde ac saluberrimum est ut omnia media eiciamus de anima
et expropriemus nos et moriamur omnibus rebus creatis et totaliter desperemus de
nobis, et de omnibus creaturis et proiciamus nos confidenter in Deum, qui benigne
nos suscipiet, amorose gubernabit et perducet ad finem beatum.’ The work later
received an Italian adaptation (possibly by Feo Balcari). This vernacular version
also saw several editions, a.o. by E. Boehmer, in ‘Iacopone da Todi. Prosastücke
von ihm, nebst Angaben über Manuscripte, Drucke und Uebersetzungen seiner
Schriften’, Romanische Studien 1 (1871), 123–162.
4
Verba Fratris Iacobi de Tuderto: a.o. MSS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Theol. Q 196
ff. 90v–92r; Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria 152 (129) ff. 88r–90v; Florence,
Biblioteca Riccardiana 2959 ff. 18r–120v; Sankt Florian, Stiftsbibliothek XI, 148 ff.
76ra–78vb; Oxford, Bodleian Canon. Misc. 525 ff. 181r–184r. For a full overview
of the manuscript tradition, see, Menestò, Le prose latine attribuite a Jacopone da Todi,
121ff. The medieval vernacular version (Detti ), which is based on the Latin text,
can be found in fourteen manuscripts. A.o. MS Rome, BAV Ottob. 681 ff. 168v–182r.
For a complete overview, see Menestò, Le prose latine attribuite a Jacopone da Todi,
115, note 68. The Dicta/Detti can be found in some of the modern laude editions,
such as Laudi, trattato e detti, ed. F. Ageno (Florence, 1953) and in Verba Fratris Iacobi
de Tuderto, ed. E. Menestò, in Idem, Le prose latine attribuite a Jacopone da Todi, 173–183.
A partial Italian translation by Francesco Costa of the Laude, the Tractatus and the
Verba can be found in: Mistici Francescani. Secolo XIV, II (Assisi-Bologno, 1997), 33–170.
The Latin text of the Verba was in circulation shortly after the death of Jacopone.
In 1385, Bartolomeo da Pisa incorporated them in his Liber de Conformitate. See AF
IV (1906), 236–299. Several versions of the Latin text, as well as some vernacular
adaptations appeared thereafter (a.o. in the Franceschina, and in the works of Mariano
da Firenze, Marco de Lisbon and Lucas Wadding). See for these texts in hagio-
graphical accounts on Jacopone Le vite antiche di Iacopone da Todi, ed. Enrico Menestò
(Florence, 1977). The medieval vernacular versions have also received several early
modern and modern editions, a.o. by E. Boehmer (Iacopone da Todi, 1871) and Arrigo
Levasti (Mistici del Duecento e del Trecento, 1935).
5
See for instance the Verba or Dicta II, III, IV, and V (ed. Menestò, 175ff .): ‘(III)
Sicut amor sui est causa et radix omnium vitiorum et malorum et enervatio omnium
virtutum, sic et odium sui est origo et fundamentum omnium virtutum et deletio
vitiorum. Unde deberet homo non tantum se odire, sed deberet velle ab omnibus
odiri. (. . .) Et quia ex hac cognitione sui ducitur in cognitionem veritatis, incipit
amare veritatem, non tantum in se, sed in omnibus. (. . .) Ex hoc etiam acquiritur
despectus sui et omnis virtus et omne bonum: nam per hoc senties in anima radi-
cari prudentiam, fortitudinem, temperantiam et iustitiam et ceteras virtutes et maxime
triplicem patientiam. Unde per hoc venitur ad quietem anime.’; ‘(IV) Tres sunt
anime status. In primo habet anima cognitionem suorum peccatorum et lacrimas
compunctionis que ducunt eam prope desperationem. In secundo transit ad con-
siderandam redemptionem Salvatoris, in quo habet lacrimas compassionis ad Christum.
The works of Jacopone almost automatically bring to mind those

of the slightly younger Tuscan friar Ugo Panziera da Prato (d. ca.
1330), whose Laude and Trattati Spirituali are discussed elsewhere (in
the sections of this book devoted to poetry and to spiritual letters
respectively). Jacopone and Ugo were renowned for their strong
adherence to the pristine Franciscan ideal of poverty and for their
sympathies for the spiritual cause. In Jacopone’s case, this repeatedly
brought him into conflict with his superiors. Jacopone shared these
sympathies with two other compilers of edificatory Dicta or Detti,
namely Conrad da Offida (1237–1306) and Giovanni Firmano della
Verna (1259–1322). Both these friars combined a strong call for the
austere contemplative live with bouts of intensive penitential preach-
ing during Lent. This enhanced their reputation with the spiritual
wing of the order and with the populace at large. Although both
friars faced antagonism from their superiors, they were able to neu-
tralise this through their lack of polemical stamina and their sub-
mission to authority in line with their vow of obedience.
When Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu) expressly ordered
him to uphold the order’s unity, in the wake of the retreat from
office of Pope Celestine V (1295), Conrad kept his distance from the
most schismatic spiritual groups around Angelo Clareno and was
able to clear himself before the minister general Giovanni di Murro.6
In tertio transit ad amorem, et iste status habet tres partes: in prima, scilicet in sui
principio, incohat amare et habet lacrimas devotionis; in secunda parte id est in
perseverantia huius status, augetur amor et habet lacrimas simplices, quia sunt sine
violentia et nescit quare sibi obveniunt; in tertia parte, que dicitur status consum-
matus, stat anima in atriis Domini et gustat de vita eterna et perdit lacrimas.’; ‘(V)
Anima habet quattuor pugnas, scilicat extra se, iuxta se, intra se et supra se. Primam,
que est extra se, habet cum mundo. Hec vincitur non amando res mundi (. . .)
Secundam pugnam, que est iuxta se, habet cum sensibus corporis (. . .) Tertiam
pugnam, que est intra se, habet anima cum affectionibus sive passionibus suis, que
sunt gaudium, spes, timor et dolor (. . .) Quartam pugnam, que est supra se, et est
maior omnium predictarum, habet anima cum Deo hoc modo: quia assumit mag-
nam et arduam sollicitudinem tenere se cum Deo. Et considerans se factam ad eius
imaginem et similitudinem et quod Deus vult hospitari in ea, toto suo conamine
cavet ne aliquid in se recipiat quod offendat oculos maiestatis divine, et etiam ne
exeat ad aliquid quod displiceat Deo.’
6
See for an edition of Olivi’s admonitory letter: Livarius Oliger, ‘Petri Iohannis
Olivi. De renuntiatione papae Coelestini V, quaestio et epistola [ad Conradem de
Offida]’, AFH 11 (1918), 307–373. For Conrad’s meditative sayings, see Verba Fr.
Conradi, ed. P. Sabatier, in: Opuscules de critique historique, I (Paris, 1903). Information
on Conrad can also be found in the Fioretti. For his vita, see Vita Fr. Conradi, AF
III (Quaracchi, 1897), 422–428.
380 chapter seven
Throughout his adult life, Giovanni Firmano della Verna, who had
entered the order at the age of 13, three years after he had become
an Augustinian regular canon, likewise combined a strict observance
of the Franciscan command for poverty with a strong sense of obe-
dience to religious authority. He did maintain close relations with
some spiritual friars, notably Jacopone da Todi, whom he assisted on
his deathbed. After 1289, Giovanni was given permission to indulge
his strong meditative leanings. He retreated to La Verna, where he
lived in a small hut in the woods, spending the day in prayer and
meditation and sharing his evening meal with the local Franciscan
community. Renowned for his asceticism and his visionary ecstasies,
he also took his pastoral obligations seriously, embarking on preach-
ing tours in Tuscany and Umbria during Lent.7
The Detti and Trattati written by these friars had strong autobio-
graphical overtones. This is even clearly seen in the Franciscan ‘auto-
biographies’ that begin to appear from the mid-thirteenth century
onwards.8 An early specimen of this kind is the Denarius sive Decacordum
by the lector Helwicus von Magdeburg (d. 28 September 1252), who
is probably better known for his versification of Peter Lombard’s
Sentences (written during his teaching assignments at the Erfurt Studium).
The Denarius sive Decacordum, a product dating from his Magdeburg years,
is a pious text of auto-formation reminiscent of Hugues de St. Victor’s
Soliloquium de Arrha Animae. Helwicus structured his life’s spiritual
Werdegang around the ten benefices that God had granted (and hope-
fully would continue to grant) him in this life and in the life to come
(these were: predestinatio, nativitas, baptismus, conservatio usque ad annos dis-
cretionis, clericatus, confirmatio, religio, sacerdotium, mors bona, vita eterna).9
7
Verba Fratris Johannis de Alverna, ed. L. Oliger, SF, n.s. 1 (1914), 312–315. See
also Chronica XXIV Generalium Ordinis Minorum, in: AF III (Quaracchi, 1897), 439–447;
Lucas Wadding, Annales Minorum VI (Quaracchi, 1931), 435–474; Bibliotheca Sanctorum
VI, 919–921; Giacomo V. Sabatelli, ‘Jean della Verna’, DSpir. VIII, 782–784;
L. Oliger, ‘Il B. Giovanni della Verna (1259–1339)’, La Verna 11 (1913), 196–235;
L. Bernardini, ‘Le fonti biografiche del B. Giovanni della Verna’, MF 80 (1980),
183–194; A. Quaglia, ‘Spigolature sul b. Giovanni della Verna’, SF 82 (1985),
133–145; A.L. Fischer, ‘A reconsideration of the Fioretti, the Little Flowers of St.
Francis’, CF 57 (1987), 5–24; J. Sabatelli, ‘Jean de l’Alverne’, Catholicisme VI, 416–417;
J. Schlageter, ‘Johannes v. Alverna’, LThK V (1996), 879.
8
In a way, Francesco d’Assisi’s Testament can also be seen as an autobiographi-
cal statement, in that it presents Francesco’s own view of his life and ambitions in
a nutshell.
9
Denarius sive Decacordum: MSS Münster, Paulinische Bibliothek 149 (367) ff. 112v–
121v (15th cent.); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preuß. Kulturbesitz cod. theol. lat. fol. 501
Such autobiographies were first of all means with which their

authors steered the religious building of the self, whether or not in
response to a specific assignment by their confessors or in response
to a experienced religious crisis. Yet they could function very well
as matrices for the spiritual constitution of the religious subject among
fellow friars in their community or among a wider public. The lat-
ter certainly is true of the famous Vita Coaetanea, written in or around
1311 by the missionary, pedagogue and alleged Franciscan tertiary
Ramon Llull.10
In the later fifteenth and early sixteenth century, the stylised spir-
itual autobiography was to become a vehicle of spiritual edification
and self-representation among the Observant Poor Clares. One of
the most important texts in this regard is the autobiographical yet
highly programmatic Vita Spiritualis by Camilla Battista da Varano
(1458–1524), finished in or around 1491.11 Of comparable import are
ff. 200r–202v (1473/74); Munich, Antiquariat J. Rosenthal 36 ff. 29r–31v (14th

cent. Current location unknown). The Denarius has been edited by F. Doelle, in:
Idem, ‘Beiträge zum Studium und zu wissenschaftlicher Tätigkeit der Franziskaner
zu Erfurt I’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Sächsischen Franziskanerprovinz vom heiligen Kreuz
1 (1908), 87–96. It saw a modern translation as: Das Büchlein von den göttlichen Wohltaten,
trans. W. Meyer, in: Franz von Assisi. Aus dem religiösen Geistesleben seiner drei Orden,
Reihe deutscher Texte, 2 (Werl i. Westfalen, 1926), 7–23, 27–66. See also Doelle,
‘Beiträge zum Studium und zu wissenschaftlicher Tätigkeit der Franziskaner zu
Erfurt I’, 65–86; Meier, Die Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt, 11, 41; Christine Stöllinger,
‘Helwicus von Magdeburg’, VL2 III, 9822–984.
10
Vita Coaetanea, ed. B. de Gaiffier, Analecta Bollandiana 48 (1930), 146–175; Ramon
Llull, Obras literarias (Madrid, 1948), 41–77; Raimundi Lulli, Opera Latina, ed. F.
Stegmüller et al., Vol. VIII, CCCM, 34 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1980), 259–309. The
Vita Coaetanea was translated into Spanish by P. Gimferrer, in: Ramón Llull, Obra
ascogida (Madrid, 1981), 1–22. Other modern translations can be found in the Llull
anthologies of Sala-Molins and Bonner: Selected Works of Ramon Llull (1232–1316),
trans. A. Bonner 2 Vols. (Princeton, 1985); Lulle, Choix de textes, ed. L. Sara-Molins
(Paris, 1967).
11
The Vita Spiritualis can be found (together with the I dolori mentali di Gesù nella
sua passione) in: Le opere spirituali della b. Battista Varani, ed. M. Santoni (Camerino,
1894); Battista da Varano, Opere Spirituali, ed. G. Boccanera (Iesi, 1958). See also the
English translation of the Vita Spiritualis: Camilla Battista da Varano, My Spiritual Auto-
biography, trans. J. Berrigan (Saskatoon, 1986). For more information, see B. Feliciangeli,
‘Notizie e documenti sulla vita della B. Camilla Battista Varano’, PS 15 (1915),
581–621 & 721–741; G. Boccanera, ‘Biografia e Scritti della B. Camilla/Battista
da Verano, Clarissa di Camerino (1458–1524)’, MF 57 (1957), 64–94, 230–294,
333–365; Idem, ‘L’Osservanza francescana nella vita e nelle opere della B. Camilla
Battista da Varano (1458–1524)’, PS 12 (1975), 138–159; Paul Lachance, ‘Tout
commença par une petite larme . . .’, in: Claire d’Assise. Féminité et spiritualité, ed. Jean-
Marc Charron (Paris, 1998), 185–204; Silvana di Mattia Spirito, ‘Una figura del
Francescanesimo femminile tra quattrocento e cinquecento: Camilla Battista da
382 chapter seven
the Denkwürdigkeiten of the Nuremberg abbess Caritas Pirckheimer (1467–

1532). For a long time scholars interpreted this work as a personal
diary in the modern sense of the word. The latest scholarship and
particularly the 2003 article of Susanne Beate Knackmuß concludes
that instead it should be seen as a collective effort (albeit steered by
the abbess Caritas) of the Nuremberg community at self-representation
in the face of outside pressure from Lutheran reformers.12 Generically
speaking, the work might even be closer to forms of Poor Clare his-
toriography (of which there are many more intriguing examples) than
to the kind of stylised ego-documents such as those written by Camilla
Battista Varano.13
These spiritual autobiographies were just a small subset of the
mass of texts used for the spiritual edification for friars, nuns and
associated fellow travellers. From early on, many novice masters and
lectors engaged in the production of manuals of religious edification,
at times as a direct continuation of their novice training treatises
which, after all, contained many elements that could be elaborated
upon in more detail. Already David von Augsburg’s famous novice
training treatises had offered more than just elementary forms of
religious instruction. As we recall, his De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione
Hominis did not solely contain a Formula de Compositione Hominis Exterioris
ad Novitios, but also a Formula de Interioris Hominis Reformatione ad
Proficientes, and a De Septem Processibus Religiosorum. These latter two
works were meant to guide the spiritual growth of young friars after
their noviciate.14 Many other writings by David, both Latin texts for
Franciscan friars and German texts written for a wider audience,
likewise aimed at a more ambitious goal than elementary religious
instruction. Cases in point are his prayer guides mentioned else-
where, and his treatises on the cultivation of virtues, the imitation
of Christ and the proper ways to meditate (such as Die sieben Vorregeln
Varano (Problemi e Richerche)’, in: Cultura e società nell’Italia medievale. Studi per Paolo
Brezzi, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo Studi Storici, Fasc. 184–187, 2
Vols. (Rome, 1988) I, 295–314.
12
Susanne Beate Knackmuß, ‘Die Äbtissin und das schwarze Schaf oder zur Vox
Ipsissima einer Inutilis Abatissa. 500 Jahre Äbtissinenjubiläum der Nürnberger Klarisse
Caritas Pirckheimer’, CF 73 (2003), 93–159.
13
The historiographical output of Franciscan nuns, which until recently suffered
from severe neglect by scholars (including myself ) working on monastic and men-
dicant chronicles in general, now is finally receiving more attention. Yet the first
satisfying book-length study on the subject still remains to be written.
14
See my chapter on novice training manuals.
der Tugend, Der Spiegel der Tugend, Kristi Leben unser Vorbild and Die vier
Fittige geistlicher Betrachtung).15
In these works it is made abundantly clear that man’s ultimate
goal is complete rest in and a complete union with God. The road
towards this goal can only be found through a process of purification
of the soul. Sin and attachment to the world have weakened the
soul’s powers and destroyed its inner harmony, thus preventing man’s
spiritual ascent. The primordial tool with which to overcome sin and
attachment to the world and to redress the soul’s inner balance is
a life of profound asceticism and prayer. The closer a human being
gets to God, through relentless asceticism and prayer, the closer God
will draw to his creature, through the bestowal of mystical graces,
which will finally lead to the soul’s full transformation into God.
Most of David’s works are directly concerned with issues of asceti-
cism and prayer necessary to make the soul worthy and ready for
this transformation. In the last instance, therefore, they are meant
to facilitate mysticism, even when they do not give a central place
to mystical union itself.16
The literature of the Augsburg and Regensburg circles, of which
David’s treatises and the sermons of Berthold von Regensburg form
15
Die sieben Vorregeln der Tugend, Der Spiegel der Tugend, Kristi Leben unser Vorbild, Die
vier Fittige geistlicher Betrachtung, have been edited together with his works Von der
Anschauung Gottes, Von der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit, Von der unergründlichen Fülle Gottes,
Betrachtungen und Gebete, and Die sieben Stapheln des Gebetes (version A) in: Deutsche Mystiker
des 14. Jahrhunderts, ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1845), I, 309–397. The Kristi Leben
unser Vorbild has also been edited together with Von der Offenbarung und Erlösung des
Menschengeschlechtes by F. Pfeiffer, in Zeitschrift für das deutsches Altertum 9 (1853), 1–55.
A work that probably should not be ascribed to David himself, but originates from
the wider Augsburg and Regensburg ‘circles’ of Franciscan educators, namely Aus
dem Baumgarten geistlicher Herzen, directly geared to the ‘Erbauung’ of Franciscan nuns,
can also be found in Franziskanisches Schrifttum I, 148–154 and separately as Geistlicher
Herzen Baumgart, ed. Helga Unger, MTU, 24 (Munich, 1969).
16
See on this especially Ruh, ‘David von Augsburg und die Entstehung eines
franziskanischen Schrifttums in deutscher Sprache’, 71–82; Idem, ‘Zur Grundlegung
einer Geschichte der franziskanischen Mystik’, in: Altdeutsche und altniederländische Mystik,
ed. K. Ruh (Darmstadt, 1964), 240–274; W.J. Einhorn, ‘Der Begriff der “Innerlichkeit”
bei David von Augsburg’, FrSt 48 (1966), 336–76; Schwab, David of Augsburg’s
‘Paternoster’ and the Authenticity of His German Works, 175–180 (which also establishes
the ‘canon’ of David’s authentic German works as opposed to those works by other
friars inspired by David’s teachings); Kurt Ruh, ‘David von Augsburg’, VL2 II (Berlin-
New York, 1980), 47ff., and Georg Steer, ‘David von Augsburg und Berthold von
Regensburg. Schöpfer der volkssprachigen franziskanischen Traktat- und Predigt-
literatur’, in: Handbuch der Literatur in Bayern vom Frühmittelalter bis zum Gegenwart, ed.
Albrecht Weber (Regensburg, 1987), 99–118.
384 chapter seven
the core, was not solely directed at friars and nuns. There is evi-
dence that several of these works were written with a lay public in
mind, which should also be guided to a more fulfilling religious life.
Comparable concerns lay behind the spiritual guides of several of
the most highly educated Franciscan friars of the thirteenth century.
A good example of this provides the spiritual oeuvre of the
Franciscan theologian and pedagogue Guibert de Tournai (ca. 1210–ca.
1284), whose ad-status sermons we have come across before. In his
substantial pedagogical work De Modo Addiscendi, which had been
issued as an autonomous work for the benefit of Jean de Dampierre
(the son of the Count Gui de Dampierre of Flanders),17 but was in
fact one of the four component parts of his gigantic Erudimentum
Doctrinae (ca. 1259–1268), Guibert had unfolded a general programme
of learning, discussing the respective requirements and obligations of
teachers and students alike. At the very end of De Modo Addiscendi,
Guibert discussed the highest grades of the mystical life, which circled
around lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio. Yet he considered this
part of the doctrina claustralium et virorum perfectorum: meant for those
religious persons who were well-advanced in their spiritual quest for
the union with the Divine. The bulk of De Modo Addiscendi, as was
indeed the bulk of his Erudimentum Doctrinae throughout, was meant
for those religious and lay people who, ideally speaking, were at a
certain stage on their way to the final goal of mystical union, but
were in need of ‘rudimentary’ assistance in their quest for appro-
priate learning along the way. This also holds true for Guibert’s
smaller texts of religious edification written for a diverse audience,
like his spiritual letter De Virginitate from the early 1250s, which will
be dealt with separately (in the paragraph on spiritual letters), his
Tractatus de Pace et de Tranquilitate, and his Tractatus de Morte non Timenda.
Whereas De Modo Addiscendi was dedicated to Jean de Dampierre,
the Tractatus de Pace et de Tranquilitate (ca. 1275) was dedicated to
Jean’s sister: the Cistercian nun Marie de Dampierre, who was living
17
Thus, Guibert fulfilled a wish of Jean de Dampierre’s tutor, Michel de Lille
(an old colleague of Guibert’s from his days at Paris). De Modo Addiscendi. Introduzione
e testo inedito, ed. E. Bonifacio, Testi e studi sul pensiero medioevale, 1 (Turin, 1953).
For a review of this edition, see A. Matanic, Antonianum 32 (1957), 431–433. Cf.
also A. De Poorter, ‘Un traité de pédagogie médiévale, le “De modo addiscendi”
de Guibert de Tournai, O.F.M., notes et extraits’, Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie
24 (1922), 195–228.
in the community of Flines. With recourse to Augustine and Richard

de St. Victor, Guibert in this meditative treatise defines the various
kinds of peace attainable in this world and beyond. Real peace is
only to be found in the soul’s mystical union with God. Yet this
union can only be attained through acquiring the peace of mind
that can relinquish worldly matters, and even worldly friendships.
Rather than a full-blown work of mysticism, the Tractatus de Pace is
a didactic guide, aiming at shaping the religious personality in such
a way that spiritual friendship with God (which eventually will open
the road towards fruitful mystical contemplation) becomes possible.18
The Tractatus de Morte non Timenda, written before 1259 at the
request of some of Guibert’s fellow friars, is a reworking of sermons
probably held before an audience of friars and clerics (and some of
its themes can also be found in the sermons ‘For those who mourn
for dead friends’ collected in Guibert’s Sermones ad Varios Status). In all,
the Tractatus de Morte non Timenda consists of eight chapters or sermons
on death, all of which build on the same biblical verse (II Kings 14,
14: ‘Omnes morimur et quasi aquae dilabimur in terram, quae non
revertuntur’).19 Central issues throughout the Tractatus are the penal
and necessary character of death, the causes that make it such a
difficult experience, its omnipresent character, and the difference
between death itself and the state of the soul of the dying (giving
rise to an exposition on the mors iustorum, mors purificandorum, mors
reproborum, mors beatorum). Guibert makes out that a saintly death
depends first of all on the spiritual mortification during life through
a thorough training of the virtues (the workings of which are com-
pared with the phenomena that precede, accompany and follow bod-
ily death). Furthermore, he explains that a vicious life leads to the
death of the soul, and that the symptoms of deadly disease leading
18
Tractatus de Pace Auctore Fr. Gilberto de Tornaco, ed. E. Longpré, Bibliotheca
Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi, 6 (Quaracchi, 1925). It saw an Italian translation
by Ottaviano Maurizi in: I mistici. Scritti dei mistici francescani saeculo XIII, I, ed. L. Iriarti
et al. (Assisi-Bologba, 1995), 591–726, and a French translation as Guibert de Tournai
et le traité de la paix, trans. A. Curvers (Brussels, 1944).
19
Tractatus de Morte non Timenda, MSS Douai, Bibliothèque Municipale 374 ff.
108–137; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouv. Acq. 480 ff. 1–37; London, British
Library Stowe 36 ff. 1–296 De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Ante
Saeculum XVI I, 15–43 (33–34). It was edited several times among the sermons of
Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, such as in the Sermones Sancti Bonaventurae de Morte
(Paris, 1495/Paris: Antoine Chappiel, ca. 1500). See: Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke
(Leipzig, 1930) IV, nos. 4802 & 4803.
386 chapter seven
to the death of the body can be seen as analogous to the deadly

diseases of the unrepentant soul. In short, the Tractatus de Morte non
Timenda develops nearly all the themes that are to be found in late
medieval Artes Moriendi, and it clearly fits into the overall mendicant
penitential programme.
Guibert’s colleague Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, minister general
between 1257 and 1273, was very much concerned with the welfare
of the friars in his care. To further their welfare he wrote a series
of instruction manuals for the spiritual edification of the friars. Cases
in point are his hagiographical works, which do not concern us here,
his writings for novices (such as the Regula Novitiorum) and his medita-
tions on the passion of Christ (such as the Lignum Vitae), which are
listed elsewhere in this book. On top of these, Bonaventura wrote a
few other spiritual manuals to guide his fellow friars and sisters, as
well as other religious and lay people, on the path of evangelical
perfection. Most important among these seem to have been the
Soliloquium de IV Mentalibus Exercitiis (dating from 1257), the De Triplici
Via alias Incendium Amoris (composed between 1259 and 1260 for a
diocesan priest), and the De Regimini Animae (written sometimes after
1264 for Queen Bianca of Navarra).20
Chronologically the last of these works, Bonaventura’s De Regimine
Animae is a relatively high-brow manual to help the devout Queen
and her entourage to evaluate the state of their soul via a series of
mental exercises, and to support them in their efforts at disciplining
their souls—through the relentless practice of humility, devotion,
purity, the remorse over sins and a desire for Divine grace—so that
they might remain fully focused on the path to spiritual perfection.21
It shows that Bonaventura did not want to make amends for the lay
status of his primary intended audience.
The other two works, viz. the Soliloquium and the De Triplici Via, are
frequently treated as works of mysticism. Yet they unfold a complete
20
Another edificatory work, the Compendium de Virtute Humilitatis, used to be ascribed
to Bonaventura as well. Now it is ascribed to an unknown Franciscan friar, who
used a sermon of Bonaventura as his point of departure. The concise text has been
edited in Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII Appendix (Opusculum V),
658–662.
21
De Regimine Animae, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII,
128–130; Seraphici Doctoris S. Bonaventurae Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia
(Quaracchi, 1965), 275–282. A modern Italian translation by Bernardino Garcia
can be found in I Mistici. Scritti dei Mistici Francescani Secolo XIII, I (Assisi-Bologna,
1995), 467–478.
programme of spiritual growth, in which mystical contemplation is

but the apex. As a matter of fact, De Triplici Via shows the three-
fold way (of meditation, prayer and contemplation) towards spiritual
perfection, but stops short of the ultimate forms of mystical con-
templation possible in that final state.22 The slightly older Soliloquium,
in many ways the practical counterpart to the De Triplici Via—fleshing
out in greater detail the exercises with which to prepare the soul for
mystical contemplation—likewise contains many spiritual lessons meant
to bring the soul towards the threshold of mysticism. It does so via
a proper contemplation of sin and the work of redemption (chapter
one), the vanity of worldly splendour (chapter two), the inevitability
of death, the moment of judgement and the pains of hell (chapter
three). Only the fourth and last chapter moves on towards the supe-
riora and the mystical contemplation of the Divine by the beati, sug-
gesting at once that true contemplation is granted those in heaven
rather than the viatores in this life.23
22
De Triplici Via has been edited in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898)
VIII, 3–18, as well as in the anthology Seraphici Doctoris S. Bonaventurae Decem Opuscula
ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia (Quaracchi, 1965), 1–34. For modern translations
and studies, see J.Fr. Bonnefoy, Une somme bonaventurienne de théologie mystique, le ‘De
triplici via’ (Paris, 1934); I Mistici. Scritti dei Mistici Francescani Secolo XIII, I (Assisi-
Bologna, 1995), 343–374. Bonaventura’s text contains three chapters: Cap. I. De
meditatione, qua anima purgatur, illuminatur et perficitur (§ 1 De via purgativa et triplici
eius exercitatio; § 2 De via illuminativa et triplici eius exercitatio; § 3 De via per-
fectiva et triplici eius exercitio; § 4 Corollarium); Cap. II. De oratione, qua deploratur
miseria, imploratur misericordia, exhibitur latria (§ 1 De triplici deploratione miseriae; § 2
De triplici imploratione misericordiae; § 3 De triplici exhibitione latriae; § 4 De sex
gradibus dilectionis Dei; § 5 Recapitulatio); Cap. III. De contemplatione, qua pervenitur
ad veram sapientiam (§ 1 Praeambulum; § 2 De septem gradibus, quibus perveni-
tur ad soporem pacis; § 3 De septem gradibus, quibus, pervenitur ad splendorem
veritatis; § 4 De septem gradibus, quibus pervenitur ad dulcorem caritatis; § 5
Recapitulatio; § 6 Alia distinctio novem graduum proficiendi; § 7 De duplici con-
templatione rerum divinarum).
23
Soliloquium, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 28–67; Seraphici
Doctoris S. Bonaventurae Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia (Quaracchi,
1965), 35–133. For the very strong German and Dutch reception of this Bonaventurian
work in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, see Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch, 295
and passim. The work is structured as follows: Cap. I. Quomodo anima per mentale
exercitium debeat radium contemplationis reflectere ad interiora sua, ut videat, qualiter sit formata
per naturam, deformata per culpam et reformata per gratiam (§ 1 Praeambulum; § 2 Quam
generose a summo Artifice formata sit anima per naturam; § 3 Quam vitiose a vol-
untate deformata sit anima per culpam; § 4 Quam gratiose a divina bonitate refor-
mata sit anima per gratiam); Cap. II. Quomodo anima per mentale exercitium debet radium
contemplationis convertere ad exteriora, ut cognoscat, quam instabilis sit mundana opulentia, quam
mutabilis mundana excellentia, et quam miserabilis mundana magnificentia (§ 1 De triplici
rerum mundanarum vanitate; § 2 De ratione, quare multi mundani excaecantur;
388 chapter seven
With his Soliloquium, Bonaventura reached back to an older monas-

tic tradition of personalised meditative writings, namely the Meditationes
and Soliloquia ascribed to the circles of Jean de Fécamp, Anselm of
Canterbury, and the Victorines. The same is true for the Soliloquia or
the Liber Soliloquiorum by the Regensburg lector Werner von Regensburg
(d. after 1290). Like Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s product, Werner’s
Liber Soliloquiorum aims to direct the reader towards God. Yet, looking
at the content of the various chapters, Werner’s Soliloquia show even
stronger the characteristics of an Anselmian meditative handbook of
theology, complementing, as it were, Werner’s more scholastic teach-
ings in the studium context, and giving friars a tool for their spiritual
development.
In eleven chapters (according to the existing edition), Werner’s
Liber Soliloquorum invites the reader 1.) to look for God (heavily depen-
dent on Anselm of Canterbury’s prayer ‘Eia nunc homuncio’), 2.) to
search for the Trinity (elaborating on Anselm’s Monologion 39–40,
the works of Hilary de Poitiers, and Augustine’s De Trinitate), 3.) to
contemplate the workings of the Holy Spirit, 4.) to discern that God
is everywhere and invisible (referring to the Proslogion and the Confes-
siones), 5.) to grasp the nature of angels (describing the nine choirs
of angels and their respective roles and qualities), 6.) to ponder the
marvels surrounding the creation of the first human being (in any
case partly based on Bonaventura’s Breviloquium II, 9–11, and pro-
viding a rather positive interpretation of Eve’s creation as man’s
equal: ‘nec dominam nec ancillam parasti sed sociam.’), 7.) to remem-
ber the great deeds performed by God before the coming of Christ
(with some references to the patriarchs, kings, and prophets, but pre-
§ 3 De consolatione divina et de dispositione ad eam obtinendam); Cap. III. Quomodo

anima per mentale exercitium debeat radium contemplationis convertere ad inferiora, ut intelligat
humanae mortis inevitabilem necessitatem, iudicii finalis formidabilem aequitatem, poenae infernalis
intolerabilem asperitatem (§ 1 Primo, de mortis inevitabili necessitate; § 2 Secundo, de
iudicii finalis ineffabili aequitate; § 3 Tertio, de poenarum infernalium intolerabili
asperitate); Cap. IV. Quomodo anima per mentale exercitium debeat radium contemplationis
reflectere ad superiora, ut videat duodecim gaudia caeli orta ex contemplatione vel inferiorum, vel
exteriorum, vel interiorum, vel superiorum (§ 1 De gaudio caelesti in genere; § 2 De gau-
dio caelesti in specie, et primo de triplici gaudio orto ex conversione contempla-
tionis ad ea quae infra sunt; § 3 Secundo, Beati convertunt radium contemplationis
ad ea quae iuxta se sunt, et triplici obiecto gaudent; § 4 Tertio, Beati convertunt
radium contemplationis ad ea quae intra se sunt, et tripliciter gaudent; § 5 Quarto,
Beati convertunt radium contemplationis ad ea quae supra se sunt, et in summo
Bono perfecte et secundum tres animae vires gaudent).
dominantly focusing on Mary, using Anselm’s Oratio ad S. Mariam),

8.) to consider the great deeds of redemption that Christ and his
body performed, 9.) to reflect on the wonders of the Eucharist (empha-
sising the transubstantiation doctrine), 10.) to think through the final
judgement (affirming the resurrection doctrine, based on I Cor. 15,
and describing the qualities of the resurrected bodies of the blessed
and the ‘corpora mortaliter viva, quae sic moriuntur ut numquam
permoriantur’ of the damned), and 11.) to ruminate on the presence
of God in man’s memory (based almost completely on Augustine’s
last chapter of the Confessiones).24
Whereas Guibert’s treatises for the aristocratic laity did aim at
strengthening the virtues and the Christian identity of their implied
audience in general, they were not deeply concerned with teaching
their recipients the road towards a specifically Franciscan form of
evangelical perfection. The same can also be said for the Liber Solilo-
quiorum by Werner von Regensburg. This seems to have been a marked
difference between their spiritual works and those of Bonaventura
da Bagnoreggio. Convinced of the salvation-historical importance of
Francesco d’Assisi’s search for the evangelical life, the seraphic doctor
Bonaventura more clearly and consistently felt the need to emphasise
in his oeuvre the Franciscan imitation of Christ as a privileged path-
way towards spiritual fulfilment. Even more urgent in this regard
are the anonymous yet Bonaventurian Meditatio Pauperis in Solitudine
(ca. 1282–1284) and the various Latin and Provençal spiritual works
of Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu, d. 1298), which should
be seen in the context of the latter’s eschatological beliefs and his
vision of the true evangelical life.
The Meditatio Pauperis in Solitudine, a product by a learned anony-
mous (French?) friar, who in any case had been influenced by the
Canticum Pauperis pro Dilecto attributed to John Pecham, as well as by
the spiritual and hagiographical works of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio,
24
Soliloquia: MSS Regensburg, Stadtbibiothek cod. 731, ff. 49–62; Munich, Staats-
bibliothek Clm. 13102 (14th cent., from the Prüfening monastery); Munich, Staats-
bibliothek Clm. 8496 (15th cent.); Regensburg, Kollegialbibliothek U.L. Frau (an.
1475, copy by Johannes Weissenbergen). It received an edition in the eighteenth
century: Liber Soliloquiorum, ed. B. Pez, Bibliotheca Ascetica Antiquonova, 4 (Regensburg,
1724). For more information, see O. Bonmann, ‘Werner von Regensburg und sein
Liber Soliloquorum’, Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik 12 (Innsbruck, 1937), 294–305;
A. Solignac, ‘Werner de Ratisbonne (Wernherus, Wirnherus, Bernherus)’, DSpir XVI
(1994), 1369–71.
390 chapter seven
elaborates the cherished conformity of Francesco d’Assisi with Christ,

and the special form of evangelical perfection acted out by Francesco
and his disciples. The work identifies Francesco with the second angel
carrying the sign of the living God (Apocalypse VII), and discusses
at length the virtues of the elect and of the true Franciscan follow-
ers and imitators of Christ, namely the virtues of evangelical poverty,
charity and humility.25
Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu), a prolific and inno-
vative theologian and exegete, whose academic works receive ample
scholarly attention nowadays, left behind an impressive oeuvre of
spiritual works with a pastoral bend, predominantly directed at lay
Beghini in Southern France in search of a life of evangelical perfection.
So far, it has been possible to distinguish the following texts along-
side of a set of treatises completely devoted to prayer and mystical
contemplation of the Christ’s passion (such as the Exercens Se Sacris
Orationibus et Meditationibus sive Sacris Affectionibus, the De Oratione Vocali,
the De Septem Sentimentis Christi Jesu,26 and the Visionis Mystice Narratio),
namely the Informatio ad Virtutum Opera, the Modus Quomodo Quilibet
Potest Referre Gratias Deo de Beneficiis ab Eo Receptis, the De 14 Gradibus
Amoris Gratiosi,27 the De Conditionibus et Proprietatibus Amoris Dei, the
Brevis Monitio ad Amorem Divinum Obtinendum,28 the Miles Armatus,29 the
De Septem Tentationibus,30 and the Remedia Contra Tentationes Spirituales
Huius Temporis.31
25
Meditatio Pauperis in Solitudine: a.o MSS Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 422 ff.
61a–128; Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale 439 ff. 1r–49b (both of these manuscripts also
contain spiritual works of Bonaventura). Meditatio Pauperis in Solitudine, ed. Ferdinand
Delorme, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi (Ad Claras Aquas, 1929);
Meditazione del Povero nella Solitudine, trans L. Temperino, in: I Mistici. Scritti dei mis-
tici francescani secolo XIII, I, ed. L. Iriarte et al. (Assisi-Bologna, 1995), 883–987.
26
MS Siena, Biblioteca Comunale U.V. 5 ff. XIr–13r. See: Dionisio Pacetti, ‘I
codici autografi di S. Bernardino da Siena della Vaticana e della Comunale di
Siena’, AFH 29 (1936), 215–241, 501–538 (233). With thanks to David Flood, who
showed me this reference.
27
MSS Capistrano, Bibliotheca Fratrum Minorum 211 ff. 114–115; Florence,
Biblioteca Nazionale Conv. Soppr C. 8. 1165 ff. 13v–15v; Siena, Biblioteca Comunale
U.V. 6 ff. 286v–288r. See: Pacetti, ‘I codici autografi di S. Bernardino da Siena’, 525.
28
MS Siena, Biblioteca Comunale U.V. 5 ff. 110v. See: Pacetti, ‘I codici autografi
di S. Bernardino da Siena’, 239.
29
MS Capistrano, Bibliotheca Fratrum Minorum 21 ff. 115b–121b.
30
MS Siena, Biblioteca Comunale U.V. 5 ff. 13v–15v. Pacetti, ‘I codici autografi
di S. Bernardino da Siena’, 233.
31
MS Siena, Biblioteca Comunale U.V. 5 ff. 15v–16v. Pacetti, ‘I codici autografi
di S. Bernardino da Siena’, 233. For general information on most of these works,
Not all of these works have as yet been edited. Most accessible
at present are the Miles Armatus, the Modus Quomodo Quilibet Potest
Referre Gratias Deo de Beneficiis ab Eo Receptis,32 the Informatio ad Virtutum
Opera,33 and the Remedia contra tentationes spirituales hujus temporis.34 The
first of these describes the armaments of the true religious soldier;
armaments necessary to evade the latter-day perils (namely the fer-
vour of faith, the renunciation of self-confidence, and the confidence
in Christ).35 The second text is an intense meditative thanksgiving
for the wonders of creation and the gifts of divine love, modelled
stylistically on the creed, and ending in an invitation to imitate the
life of Christ through a proper training of the virtues (especially the
evangelical virtues of poverty and humility). The third of these works,
the Informatio ad Virtutum Opera, lists fourteen considerations to per-
severe in the cultivation of the love of God and in the cultivation
of the virtues (presenting Christ in His earthly life and His bodily
see Raoul Manselli, ‘Les opuscules spirituels de Pierre Jean-Olivi et la piété des
béguins de langue d’oc’, in: La Religion populaire en Languedoc du XIII e siècle à la moitié
du XIV e siècle, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 11 (Toulouse, 1976), 187–201; Pietro di Giovanni
Olivi, Scritti Scelti, trans. Jacques-Guy Bougerol, Caspare Mura & Paolo Siniscalco,
Fonti Cristiane per il Terzo Millennio, 3 (Rome, 1989), 145ff.
32
Modus Quomodo Quilibet Potest Referre Gratias Deo de Beneficiis ab Eo Receptis, ed. in:
Raoul Manselli, Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza (Rome, 1959), 274–278. A Provençal
version has been edited by D. Zorzi, ‘Testi inediti francescani in lingua proven-
zale’, in: Miscellanea del Centro di Studi Medievali, Serie Prima, Pubblicazioni dell’Università
Cattolica del S. Cuore. Nuova Serie, 58 (Milan, 1956), 269–272.
33
Informatio ad Virtutum Opera, edited in: Manselli, Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza,
278–281. A Provençal version of the Informatio has been edited in C. De Lollis,
‘Trattato provenzale di penitenza’, Studi di filologia romanza 5 (1890), 293–298.
34
Edited in Manselli, Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza, 282–287 (on the basis of MS
Voltera, Biblioteca Guarnacciana 5230, which contains several other, as yet unedited
spiritual works of Olivi). The Informatio was also edited by D. Pacetti, ‘Un trattatello
ascetico-mistico dell’Olivi conservato in un codice della Biblioteca Nazionale di
Firenze’, SF 52 (1955), 73–86 (on the basis of MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale
Conv. Soppr. C.8.1165 ff. 11v–13v.). One medieval Provençal version of the Remedia
has been edited in De Lollis, ‘Trattato provenzale di penitenza’, 285–293. A mod-
ern Italian translation can be found in Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, Scritti scelti, trans.
Paolo Vian, Fonti cristiane per il terzo millennio, 3 (Rome, 1989), 160–166. This
was reprinted in I Mistici Francescani Secolo XIV, II (Assisi-Bologna, 1997), 559–587.
35
It is an early example of the miles christianus topos in Franciscan circles. Olivi
also used this simile in his letter to the children of Charles II of Anjou. Miles Armatus,
ed. R. Manselli, in: Idem, Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza, 287–291; for Provençal ver-
sions, see: Ingrid Arthur, ‘Lo Cavalier Armat, version provençale du Miles armatus
attribué à Pierre Jean Olivi’, Studia Neophilologica 31 (1959), 43–64; Raoul Manselli,
‘Lo Cavalier armat (texte provençal édité d’après le ms. 9 de la Bibl. conv. Chiesa
Nuova d’Assise)’, in: La Religion populaire en Languedoc du XIII e siècle à la moitié du XIV e
siècle, Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 11 (Toulouse, 1976), 203–216.
392 chapter seven
and mental suffering on the cross as man’s primordial example).

Finally, the Remedia contra Tentationes Spirituales Hujus Temporis warns
against the search for visions or revelations (a caution we also find
in some texts of Hugues de Digne), arguing that it is better to show
humility in prayer and contemplation, and to evade all motivations
alien to the evangelical faith. It provides a full programme of prayer,
confession, communion, fasting, good works, and teaches that, even
without direct signs of divine goodwill, one should never despair but
trust in God’s love for those who try to follow the life of evangeli-
cal perfection as best as they can.
Nearly all these works have survived in Latin and in a Provençal
vernacular. Sometimes, as is the case with the Miles Armatus, it is not
altogether clear whether the Latin or the Provençal version is older.
Although the Beghini of Southern France constituted these works’ pri-
mary implied audience, the Informatio and especially the Remedia trans-
gressed this circle of devotees, and became highly valued reading
matter among late medieval authors, such as Venturino da Bergamo,
Landulfus von Sachsen, Jean Gerson and Vincent Ferrer.36
More in line with the tone of the spiritual works of Guibert de
Tournai37 was the Speculum Dominarum (ca. 1297–1300) by Durand
de Champagne, whose confession handbooks we have already come
across. This ‘Women’s Mirror’ was not only meant to facilitate the
‘edification and erudition’ of Queen Jeanne de Navarra, to whom
the text is dedicated, but supposedly was meant to be of use for all
women, so that they would know how to direct themselves towards
God and His wishes, how to govern their own behaviour and that
of others, how to converse properly, and how to attain the merits
36
A. Sisto, ‘Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, il beato Venturino da Bergamo e san
Vincenzo Ferreri’, Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 1 (1965), 268–273; P. Vallin,
‘Note à propos du “De remediis contra temptationes spirituales”’, Revue d’ascétique
et de mystique 45 (1969), 453–455; J. Vennebusch, ‘Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte des
Traktates “De remediis contra temptationes spirituales” (Petrus Johannis Olivi,
Venturinus de Bergamo, Ludolphus de Saxonia, Johannes Gerson)’, Scriptorium 33
(1979), 254–259.
37
And, for that matter, with the edificatory works of John of Wales, whose ency-
clopaedic handbooks for novices, young friars and confessors have been pointed out
before. Among his major works of religious edification should be mentioned the
Breviloquium de Quatuor Virtutibus Cardinalibus Antiquorum Philosophorum et Principum (Venice,
1498/Lyon, 1511/Paris, 1516), the Breviloquium de Tribus Virtutibus Theologicis (Venice,
1496/Lyon, 1511), and the Summa de Regimine Vite Humane seu Margarita Doctorum, ed.
Pietro Arrivabene da Canneto (Venice: Giorgio Arrivabene, 1496).
that would grant them eternal life.38 The Speculum consists of three
rather independent treatises: one lengthy treatise in three chapters
on the state of woman as conditioned by nature, by fortune and by
grace;39 one shorter treatise in 32 chapters or paragraphs on the
properties and advantages of proper wisdom;40 and a third treatise
in four sections on the exterior, interior, inferior and superior abodes
or spiritual chambers that the queen and every other lady should
build within and for themselves and others.41 It seems that the Latin
38
The text has seen a preliminary study by L. Delisle, Histoire littéraire de la France
30 (Paris, 1888), 311–333. The prologue (as found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale Lat. 6784 f. 1 and transcribed by Delisle on p. 311) reads as follows:
‘Ad honorem et gloriam summi regis et reginae gloriosae Virginis, matris ejus, ali-
qua verba et exempla salubria de scripturis sacris et libris santorum in hoc libello
compendiose studui compilare, ad aedificationem et eruditionem excellentissimae
dominae Johannae, Dei gratia illustrissimae reginae Franciae et Navarrae, necnon
ad utilitatem omnium dominarum, ut sciant qualiter ad Deum et ad ea quae Dei
sunt debeant ordinari, qualiter in regimine sui et suorum habere se debeant utiliter
et prudenter, qualiter eas deceat cum omnibus irreprehensibilter conversari, tandem
quibus meritis mereantur ad aeterni regni gloriam sublimari.’
39
The Latin headings of this treatise are 1.) Quid sit mulier ex conditione natu-
rae; 2.) Quanta sit mulier ex additione fortunae; 3.) Qualis debeat esse regina ex
infusione gratiae (by far the longest individual part of the work as a whole, cover-
ing ff. 27v–150v in MS Paris BN Lat. 6784). The first chapter relates woman’s mis-
erable condition after the Fall. The second expounds on the prerogatives of the
queen, and explains that this lofty position should be matched by the right behav-
iour and proper actions: this prerogative comes with obligations with regard to com-
posure, alms giving, and visits to monasteries and hospitals. The queen should
alleviate the plight of the poor, listen to the supplications of the innocents, and
repair the damage and the injuries done by the great of the realm. Just as others
humble themselves in her presence, so she should humble herself before God. The
third chapter (Qualis debeat esse regina ex infusione gratiae) deals at length with
the effects of divine grace on women and on queens in general, and intersperses
theological observations with behavioral exhortations concerning proper reading and
action, and concerning proper comportment during all hours of the day, condemning
the luxuries of palaces and the buffoonery of court jesters.
40
It is made clear that proper wisdom results from proper instruction. Examples
are given of the fruits of wisdom for people in all kinds of professions. It is shown
that the instruction of wisdom in itself is an unquenchable well of proper pleasure,
which is contrasted with the material pleasures frequently sought after at the courts
(like games and hunts). This treatise also includes a plea for reading good books,
for the written word stays in the mind (verbum enim auditum transit, littera scripta
manet), and ends with the statement that a country led by well-instructed leaders
is a happy country.
41
This third treatise (De domo multiplici quam aedificare debet regina, vel quae-
libet alia domina) explains that the queen should receive her guests in her exterior
abode in an appropriate manner. Although the queen should take this very seriously,
far more important is the comportment in the queen’s interior abode, namely her
conscience, which she likewise should adorn with the utmost care. The inferior
abode is the place where the queen suffers and is tested, whereas the superior abode
394 chapter seven
original of the Speculum Dominarum had but limited success. It was

more widely disseminated (among the high French and Burgundian
nobility, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) in a French
translation, probably made by another Franciscan, at the request of
Queen Jeanne herself, to whom the Latin original had been offered.42
Durand’s Speculum is a cross between a princess’ mirror properly
speaking (and as such it bears a resemblance to the mirrors for
princes discussed in a separate paragraph) and a general pedagogical
handbook of (aristocratic) female education; a genre that was to
assume enormous proportions in the late medieval and Renaissance
period, culminating in the humanist educatory treatises for women
by Vittorino, Gregorio Corraro and Leonardo Bruni, and of course
in the De Institutione Feminae Christinae of Juan Luis Vives. The Francis-
cans were to make their own contributions to this body of literature.
Most important in this respect is probably the lengthy and influential
Llibre de les Dones by Francesc Eiximenis,43 itself a major influence on
is heaven, where every Christian should aspire to earn a place by leading a virtu-
ous life.
42
See a.o. MSS London, British Library Additional 29986 (made at the request
of Jean, Duc de Berry); Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale 9555 (made at the request
of Jean, Duc de Berry); Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Français 610 (early 15th cent.).
There are also several copies in existence of a rather deficient Renaissance rework-
ing of the text by Ysambert de Saint-Léger (between 1526 and 1531). Cf. L. Delisle,
Histoire littéraire de la France 30 (Paris, 1888), 318–319.
43
Llibre de les Dones: MSS Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 1797; 1984; Madrid,
Biblioteca Nacional 4030 ff. 226–241; Barcelona, Biblioteca Universitaria 79; Barcelona,
Biblioteca Central 461; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Esp. 57; Chantilly, Instituto
de Francia 534. For manuscripts of the Castilian versions, see Rodríguez, ‘Autores
espirituales españoles en la edad media’, 264. The first editions and printed Castilian
reworkings stem from the 1480s: Llibre de les dones (Tarragona, 1485/Barcelona: Juan
Rosembach, 1495/Valladolid, 1542). On the 1542 Spanish adaptation of the Llibre
de les Dones, entitled Carro de las Donas, which was produced by an anonymous
Franciscan at the behest of Pope Adrian VI, see: J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, ‘Vives and
the “Carro de las Donas”’, Revue Hispanique 81/1 (1933), 530–544; J. Meseguer
Fernández, ‘El traductor del “Carro de las donas”’ de Francisco Eximénez, familiar
y biógrafo de Adriano VI’, Hispania 19 (1959), 230–250); Carmen Clausell Nácher,
‘Una obra de espiritualidad franciscana del siglo XVI: el anonimo “Caro de las
Donas”’, Bol. Soc. Castell. Cultura 71 (1995), 81–94; Idem, ‘El P. Carmona, confe-
sor de Adriano VI y probable traductor del “Llibre de les dones” de Francesc
Eiximenis’, AFH 89 (1996), 287–305. For modern editions of the Llibre de les Dones,
see Llibre de les dones, ed. Frank Naccarato & Curt Wittlin, et dir. Joan Coromines,
2 Vols., Biblioteca Torres Amat, 9–10 (Barcelona, 1981). Some extracts have appeared
in the Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 46 (1885), 10–137. On the influence of this
work of Eiximenis, see C. Carme & T. Vinyoles, ‘La culture des femmes en Catalogne
au Moyen Age tardif ’, in: La Femme dans l’histoire et la société méridionales (IX e–XIX e s.)
(Montpellier, 1995), 129–150; Carmen Clausell Nácher, ‘Francesc Eiximenis en
the pedagogical works of Vives.44 Eiximenis’ Llibre de les Dones, written

in 1396 and dedicated to the countess of Prades, at length discusses
the proper Christian conduct and appropriate women’s learning in
five stations of life: as a young child, as a girl, as a spouse, as a
widow, and as a member of a religious community. Although Eiximenis
adhered to most of the common patriarchal Christian prejudices con-
cerning women, he nevertheless was able to suggest that woman by
nature is pious, reserved, loving and gracious, and as such an impor-
tant pillar of Christian society.
Connected with the Llibre de les Dones is another work by Eiximenis,
namely the Scala Dei o Tractat de Contemplació (ca. 1405), a relatively
concise but extremely dense manual of piety. It was originally des-
tined for queen Maria d’Aragon (Maria de Luna), but it was also
written for the spiritual edification of the cultivated laity at large.45
The Scala presents its readers with a series of spiritual reflections
that, like steps of a ladder (inspired by the Jacob’s ladder described
in Genesis 28, 12 and in the famous work of John Climacus), would
enable them to climb up towards God.
The first part of the Scala fosters piety and the cultivation of the
virtues, and is supplemented with considerations concerning the Pater
Noster (depicting it as the prayer par excellence for gaining the friend-
ship and help of Christ, and explaining its parts in a catechistic fash-
ion), with litanies on the life and suffering of Christ and Mary (replete
with devotional prayers), with an explanation of the virtues of the
Psalms in the Psalterium for those bent on living a spiritual life, with
considerations concerning the things that should always be foremost
in our thoughts, and with techniques to help contemplative and active
people with keeping their heart fixed on good and advantageous
meditations. In the context of all these considerations, this first part
Castilla I: Del “Llibre de les donnes” al “Carro de las donas”’, Boletín de la Real
Academica de Buenas Letras de Barcelona 45 (1995–1996), 439–464.
44
David J. Viera, ‘Influjó el Llibre de les dones de Francesc Eiximenis en la De
institutione foeminae Christianae de Luis Vives?’, Boletín de la Sociedad Castellonense de Cultura
54 (1978), 145–155; Jan Papy, ‘Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) on the education of
girls. An investigation into his Medieval and Spanish sources’, Paedagogica Historica
31/3 (1995), 739–765.
45
Scala Dei o tractat de contemplació (Barcelona: Diego Gumiel, 1494/Barcelona,
1501/Barcelona, 1523). Extracts of the Scala Dei and the Llibre de les Dones appeared
under the title Confessionale in Valencia (1497, 1502, 1507, 1906). A partial modern
Italian translation of the Scala by Lazaro Iriarte has appeared in I Mistici Francescani
Secolo XIV, II (Assisi-Bologna, 1997), 1003–1040.
396 chapter seven
also includes instructions for confession, penitence, and alms giving.

The complementary second part of the Scala is a highly structured
manual of mystical contemplation, in which Eiximenes presents the
three ways leading to perfection. This latter part is directly inspired
by Richard de St. Victor’s Benjamin Major, the Theologia Mystica by
Hugh of Balma, and Bonaventura’s De Triplici Via, but is mainly
based on materials already dealt with in the Llibres de les Dones.
Throughout the fourteenth century, the Franciscan production of
spiritual manuals for religious and lay people continued unabated.
Many of these were rather sophisticated. This sophistication was not
limited to works with an outright mystical bend, such as the lofty
but immensely popular De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis by Rudolf von
Biberach (ca. 1270–1326), which stands in the Bonaventurian Itinerarium
Mentis in Deum tradition.46 Comparable levels of sophistication can
46
Aside from the De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis, Rudolf is the attested author of
a series of Sermones super Canticum Canticorum (a.o. MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale
VII.G.51 f. 87; Basel, Universitätsbibliothek B.IX.25, ff. 2ra–41vb; Breslau, Dom-
bibliothek 10 (Liber Virginum in Stregovia), ff. 1r–128v; Cracow, Staatsbibliothek 2347
(an. 1463), ff. 1–63; Salzburg, St. Peter Cod. a. IV. 35, ff. 1r–54ra), as well as the
De excellenti Praerogativa Benedictae Virginis (Wroclaw (Breslau), Universitätsbibliothek I
2 & deg 148 (20148[?]), Bl. 6v), and the Bonaventurian De Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti
(a.o. MS Padua, Bibl. Priv. Antoniana, Scaff.XIX.N.410). This latter work can for
instance be found in S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, ed. A.C. Peltier (Paris, 1866), VII,
583–652. Rudolf ’s De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis describes in a systematic fashion
the ascent of the soul in seven steps to the intrinsecum secretum of God (recta inito/inten-
tio; studiosa meditatio; limpida contemplatio; caritativa affectio; occulta revelatio;
experimentalis praegustatio; deiformis operatio), which altogether should restore the
destroyed imago Dei within the human soul. The De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis, which
like the De Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti frequently was ascribed to Bonaventura (and
confused with the De Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti of the latter), survives at least in
109 manuscripts. The Latin version of the work was more popular among Carthusians,
Augustinian Canons and secular clercs than among mendicant friars. This Latin
version has seen several editions: S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia, ed. A.C. Peltier (Paris,
1866) VII, 393–482; De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis, ed. M. Schmidt, Mystik in
Geschichte und Gegenwart. Texte und Untersuchungen, I (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt,
1985). A full fourteenth-century German translation of the De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis
has survived under the title Dis sint die siben Strassen die in Gott wisent in MS Einsiedeln
278 ff. 3a–147b. This translation (dating from ca. 1346–1360), which apparently is
very accurate and gives creative vernacular renderings of the Latin theological con-
cepts, was probably made in the neighbourhood of Basel. This version has been
edited as Die siben Strassen zu Got, ed. M. Schmidt, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum,
VI (Quaracchi, 1969) & Die siben Strassen zu Got, ed. & trans. M. Schmidt, Mystik
in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Texte und Untersuchungen, I, 2 (Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt, 1985). See also: Rudolf von Biberach, Die siben Strassen zu Got, Microfilm
edition by M. Schmidt (Nürnberg, 1989) & Rudolf von Biberach, Die siben strassen
zu Got, ed. M. Schmidt, Index verborum zum althochdeutschen Sprachschatz, V/VI
also be discerned in smaller works, like Konrad Spitzer’s not widely

disseminated but intriguing Büchlein von der geistlichen Gemahelschaft (writ-
ten between 1365 and 1380), which he directed at the Viennese
court of Duke Albrecht III and Duchess Beatrice.47 This latter versified
‘booklet’, probably intended to be read aloud before a (courtly) lay
public at the Habsburg court of Vienna, thus to provide the ‘cristen-
lewt’ and the ‘christensel’ in this courtly environment with a moral
guide for living a proper Christian life, artfully elaborates the theme
of the soul’s spiritual marriage with God after death (reworking the
well-established theological theme of the spirituale coniugium inter Deum
et iustam animam per animi charitatem), as a completion of the spiritual
union that had started with baptism.
More systematic are the German edificatory works of Otto von
Passau (d. 1396), known for his activities as reading master or lector
at the Franciscan convent of Basel and as visitator and reformer of
the community of Poor Clares at Königsfelden. Otto’s compilatory
(Amsterdam, 1980), as well as: K. Rahner, ‘La doctrine des sens spirituels au Moyen
Age, en particulier chez S. Bonaventura’, RThAM 14 (1933), 263–299; É. Longpré,
‘L’eucharistie et l’union mystique selon la spiritualité franciscaine’, RThAM 25 (1949),
306–333; Th. Mertens, ‘Hendrik Mande and the Middle Dutch Transmission of
“De septem itineribus”’, OGE 58 (1984), 5–29; Margot Schmidt, ‘Spiritualität als
Hermeneutik, dargestellt aan den Begriffen fides-intellectus bei Rudolf von Biberach’,
FrSt 56 (1974), 283–309; Idem, ‘Rodolphe de Biberach’, DSpir XIII (Paris, 1988),
846–850; Idem, VL2 VIII, 312–321; Idem, ‘Zur Bedeutung der Weisheit bei Rudolf
von Biberach’, in: Mystik in den Franziskanerorden, ed. J.-B. Freyer (Düsseldorf, 1993),
96–116.
47
This Büchlein has survived in one early fifteenth-century manuscript copy, made
by the reformed Benedictines of the Viennese Schottenstift: MS Vienna, Schottenstift
295 ff. 1r–67v. This manuscript also contains Marquard von Lindau’s Das Puch von
dem zehen Gepoten Gots (ff. 74r–189r), and a full German translation of the Jubilus
Rythmicus de Nomine Jesu (ff. 68r–70r). A modern edition appeared as Konrads Büchlein
von der geistlichen Gemahelschaft. Untersuchungen und Text, ed U. Schülke, MTU, 31
(Munich, 1970), 87–256. Between 1418 and 1430, a prose reworking was made by
a Benedictine monk from Melk. This prose version, which tempers some of the
more Franciscan theological elements present in the original (but also reveals that
more copies of the versified version circulated in the early fifteenth century and
that the surviving manuscript copy of the versified original is not fully complete),
has survived in two versions in several other manuscripts (MSS Melk, Stiftsbibliothek
235 ff. 189va–206vb & 1730 ff. 1r–87vb; Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 775 ff.
172r–264v & 5942 ff. 273r–346v; Munich, Universitätsbibliothek 4° cod. ms 483
ff. 256r–369v; Munich, Universitätsbibliothek 4° cod. ms 485 ff. 1r–87r; Klosterneuburg
1153 ff. 80r–208r). This prose version saw independent reworkings and was printed
several times. For more information, see A. Klecker, ‘Das Büchlein von der geistlichen
Gemahelschaft in Cod. 295 des Wiener Schottenstifts’, in: Festschrift D. Kralik (Horn,
1954), 193–203; Ulrich Schülke, ‘Konrad (Spitzer)’, VL2 V, 111–114.
398 chapter seven
Die vierundzwanzig Alten oder der goldene Thron der minnenden Seele, finished
on 1 February 1386 in Basel and based on over a hundred sources
(ranging from classical authors and patristic sources to medieval the-
ological authorities) in 24 chapters and through 24 themes or roads
(each of which ‘delivered’ by one of the 24 elder of the Apocalypse)
provides an evocative doctrine of Christian life, enabling the soul
yearning for love to reach the golden throne reserved for it in
Paradise, through spiritual exercises, meditations and prayer. The
registers and cross references present in its oldest surviving manu-
script copies suggest that from the outset the work was meant both
for meditative reading and for consultation purposes. Otto intended
it to function as a spiritual guide for all the friends of God, religious
and lay, noble and common, male and female (for ‘alle gotz frunde,
geistlich und weltlich, edel unde (un)edel, frouwen und man.’). Probably
due to its emphasis on the power of spiritual love, it became par-
ticularly popular among female monastic and female mendicant com-
munities in the Rhine valley.48
Many late medieval German manuscripts that contain the Die
vierundzwanzig Alten by Otto von Passau also contain edificatory works
by Marquard von Lindau, Otto’s contemporary and, like him, a friar
with teaching assignments in the Upper Germany province. Marquard,
whose catechistic works and sermons have been remarked on in
other chapters, probably was reading master or lector at the Studium
Generale of Strasbourg (1372/1373), as well as lector in Würzburg.
Probably, one work resulting from these teaching activities was his
48
Die vierundzwanzig Alten oder der goldene Thron der minnenden Seele can be found in
more than a hundred manuscripts and in a rather large number of early printings
from 1480 onwards. For a modern edition, see Die vierundzwanzig Alten Ottos von
Passau, ed. Wieland Schmidt, Palaestra, 212 (Leipzig, 1938). The seventeenth ‘chap-
ter’ (Der subenzehende alte) on prayer has been edited in Franziskanisches Schrifttum
im deutschen Mittelalter Band II: Texte, 183–198. In this chapter the loving soul is taught
by the seventeenth elder ‘. . . was betten si und wa und wen man betten sol und
wie vil es kraft het und waz es grosses nuczes bringet (. . .) Aber ich subenczehen-
der alte sol dich, minnende sel, gar ain nuecze lere wisen, die hailikait und sailikeit
bringet dez ewigen lebens, und daz ist die kunsteriche lere die unser herre Jhesus
Cristus leret sin usserwelten iunger nach aller volkumenhait, do su zu im sprachen:
‘Herre, lere uns betten!’ Do lert er su daz hailig pater noster, dar inne beslossen
sind die aller besten suben gebette, damit er uns versehen wolt umb alle unser not-
druft (. . .).’ For more information, see Mees, Bio-bibliographia franciscana neerlandica
ante saec. XVI II, 140–141 & III, 216–221; Jérôme Poulenc, ‘Otton de Passau’, DSpir
XI, 1066–1067; André Schnyder, in: VL2 VII, 229–234; G.J. Jaspers, ‘Otto van
Passau in de Nederlandse handschriften’, OGE 60 (1986), 302–347.
main Latin work, the De Reparatione Hominis (finished in or shortly

after 1374). It is a full-blown theological work, in which man’s orig-
inal state before the fall (articles 1–6), the subsequent fall (articles
7–10), the road to the new life in the time of grace (paved by Christ’s
acts of salvation, articles 11–27), and the new life of the redeemed
(articles 27–30) are elaborated on with recourse to many venerable
authorities of the medieval theological tradition (Augustine, Anselm,
Hugues de St. Victor, Bonaventura, Eckhart, Nicholas de Lyre). The
structure and content of the work suggest that it was composed first
of all for preachers. Yet, aside from the many allegorical and typo-
logical interpretations useful for homiletic practitioners, the De Reparatione
Hominis has a strong eschatological subtext, complete with a full-scale
theology of history (for which Marquard could fall back on the exeget-
ical and theological concepts developed by Bonaventura and Nicholas
de Lyre).49
Among Marquard’s manifold works—aside from his surviving ser-
mons and ‘Lesepredigten’50—several larger, more independent trea-
tises of more advanced religious instruction stand out, namely the
Auszug der Kinder Israel, the Hiob-Traktat, De Nabuchodonosor, De Throno
49
De Reparatione Hominis, ed. H.-J. May (Frankfurt-Bern-Las Vegas, 1977). Thus
far, I have not found an edition of the German version. In all, there are ca. 24
known Latin manuscripts, as well as three manuscripts containing the German ver-
sion (the oldest manuscript of which dates from 1402). See Palmer, ‘Marquard von
Lindau’, 107–108. De Reparatione Hominis would have functioned in late medieval
Franciscan studia settings, alongside of the Sentences by Lombard. In any case, the
work was used by Conrad Bömlin and Ulrich Horn. Some elements of De Reparatione
Hominis re-appear in other works of Marquard. Hence the ‘Lesepredigt’ De Anima
Christi, which deals with Christ’s poverty, character, and suffering, is a reworking
of articles 21–23, whereas Marquard’s treatises De Quinque Sensibus and De Paradiso
Spirituali are heavily based upon articles 2–4. The close connection of De Reparatione
Hominis with several other Latin works of Marquard is also confirmed by the man-
uscript transmission. Cf. Blumrich, Marquard von Lindau. Deutsche Predigten-Untersuchungen
und Edition, 4*–5*.
50
An initial list of Marquard’s work was made by the Franciscan friar Hermann
Sack (d. 1444). This list (MS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 2928 f. 45v) has been
edited by Bonmann, ‘Marquard von Lindau und sein literarischer Nachlaß’, 328–332,
who added a lot of manuscript information on the works listed. Wadding and
Sbaralea have totally ignored Marquard. This may be because he wrote so many
of his works in German. The most complete survey of his Latin and vernacular
works (including exhaustive listings of manuscripts and editions) is found in Palmer,
‘Marquard von Lindau’, 81–126. See also Palmer’s study: ‘Latein, Volkssprache,
Mischsprache. Zum Sprachproblem bei Marquard von Lindau, mit einem Hand-
schriftenverzeichniss der Dekalogerklärung und des Auszugs’, in: Spätmittelalterliche
Geistliche Literatur in der Nationalsprache I, Analecta Cartusiana, 106/1 (1983), 70–110.
400 chapter seven
Salomonis, and De Nobilitate Creaturarum & de Nobilitate Anime Rationalis.

Both hese and other spiritual treatises by Marquard not treated here
are not easy to classify, not only in the generic sense,51 but also in
the sense that they frequently vacillate between ‘catéchisme popu-
laire’ and outright mystical contemplation.52
The Auszug der Kinder Israel is frequently found together with
Marquard’s catechistic text Die zehe Gebot, showing that for many of
Marquard’s readers, the Auszug, notwithstanding its mystical over-
tones, functioned as a framework within which the catechistic teach-
ings of Die zehe Gebot gained their proper significance. The Auszug is
an allegorical and at times mystical elucidation of the history of the
Israelites, more or less along the lines of the Benjamin Minor of Richard
de St. Victor. It points the way (via stages of retreat from the world
and the right spiritual exercises) to the ultimate visio beatifica.53
The Hiob-Traktat, probably Marquard’s most important spiritual
work next to his catechistic texts, uses the history of God’s testing
of Job to explore the positive spiritual meaning of suffering, endurance
51
Blumrich, Marquard von Lindau. Deutsche Predigten-Untersuchungen und Edition, 3*:
‘Eine Einordnung der Werke nach Gattungen ist problematisch. Prinzipiell sind
keine Unterschiede zwischen Traktaten und Predigten festzustellen, wie Eckhart
Greifenstein am Beispiel des “Hiob-Traktates” gezeigt hat. Die Überlieferungs-
geschichte bestätigt, daß Gattungsbegriffe wie tractatus, bredy, sermo oder vita aus-
tauschbar sind.’
52
This ambivalence had an impact on the scholarly valuation of Marquard’s
oeuvre. Hence Clément Schmitt can inform us that: ‘En fait, on retrouve dans son
oeuvre l’essentiel de la doctrine chrétienne concernant les vérités de la foi, le mys-
tère de la Rédemption, l’Eucharistie, la messe, les vertus théologales, les fins dernières,
les dix commandements, etc. Elle constitue comme une ébauche d’un catéchisme
populaire.’ Clément Schmitt, DSpir X, 647. Other scholars have pointed at the
points of contact between the works of Marquard and those of Ruusbroeck, Eckhart,
Johannes Tauler, and Heinrich Seuse, stressing Marquard’s importance as a German
mystic. See: A. Ampe, ‘Marquard von Lindau en de Nederlanden’, OGE 34 (1960),
374–402 (espesially on Marquard’s use of Ruusbroeck); Fr.W. Wentzlaff-Eggebert,
Deutsche Mystik zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Berlin, 1969), 359–363; Hermann Josef
May, ‘Marquard von Lindau “De praemio patriae”’, in: Mysterium der Gnade. Festschrift
J. Auer (Regensburg, 1975), 342–349; Jacobus W. van Maren, ‘Zitate deutscher
Mystiker bei Marquard von Lindau’, Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Älteren Germanistik 20
(1983), 74–85; R. Blumrich, ‘Die deutschen Predigten Marquards von Lindau. Ein
franziskaner Beitrag zur “Theologia Mystica”’, in: Albertus Magnus und der Albertismus,
ed. M.J.F.M. Hoenen & A. de Libera (Leyden-New York, 1995), 155–172; Freimut
Löser, ‘Rezeption als Revision. Marquard von Lindau und Meister Eckhart’, Beiträge
zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprachen und Literaturen 119 (1997), 425–458.
53
For a lengthy manuscript listing and additional information, see Palmer,
‘Marquard von Lindau’, 91–93. The oldest known manuscript is MS Zürich, Zentral-
bibliothek Cod. C 95 ff. 146r–196r.
and patience. It has been noted by its modern editor that the Hiob-
Traktat had more success outside the Franciscan order than inside.
Many German versions of the text predominantly functioned in
Cistercian and Dominican nunneries (with a minority presence in
convents of Poor Clares and Franciscan tertiaries). Among the users
of the Latin versions, Dominican and Carthusian monks dominate.54
Marquard’s smaller De Nabuchodonosor is an allegorical explication
of the Book of Daniel 1–3, presenting the king as the contempla-
tive subject, with Daniel and the three youngsters as the virtues of
the soul. Just like the Auszug der Kinder Israel, this smaller work of
Marquard may have been inspired by Richard de St. Victor (this
time his De Eruditione Hominis Interioris). This would imply that Victorine
spiritual traditions were still very much alive in late fourteenth-cen-
tury German Franciscan circles.55 Marquard’s likewise allegorical De
Throno Salomonis depicts the six steps of Salomon’ throne as stages of
the soul’s ascent towards God through a cultivation of the virtues.
Starting with virginity, the soul’s ascent is subsequently guided by
discipline, knowledge (scientia), obedience, exultation, and humility.56
Marquard’s De Nobilitate Creaturarum et de Nobilitate Anime Rationalis
finally amounts to a praise of the creatural world and is an almost
neoplatonic narrative of the soul’s mystical union with the Divine.
54
Der Hiob-Traktat des Marquards von Lindau, ed. E. Greifenstein, MTU, 68 (Munich,
1973); See esp.: Nigel F. Palmer, ‘Der Hiob-Traktat des Marquards von Lindau in
lateinischer Überlieferung’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Pauls
und Braunes Beiträge) 104 (1982), 48–83. Thus far, 31 manuscripts have been identified.
The oldest might be MS St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek cod. 595 pp. 539–576. The
work was probably begun in Latin, and later reworked in German by Marquard
himself. This German reworking became wide-spread and was in turn translated
into Latin by the Franciscan friar Dietrich Struve von Hildesheim (MS Wroclaw
(Breslau), Universitätsbibliothek cod. I F 243 ff. 182r–192v). Dietrich was lector secun-
darius at Erfurt (1413–1415) and translated the Hiob-Tractat during a sejourn at
Hildesheim in 1414. Aside from this, Dietrich probably translated a part of Marquard’s
Die zehe Gebot into Latin (found in the same manuscript on ff. 235v–238v). On these
works of translation and on other literary productions connected with Dietrich’s
teaching activities, see Nigel F. Palmer, ‘Struve, Thidericus OFM’, VL2 IX, 460–461.
55
De Nabuchodonosor, ed. Ronald Horwege, Diss. Indiana University (Michigan,
1971). This is an edition of the German version, of which at least twelve manu-
scripts still survive. To my knowledge, there is no edition of the Latin version,
which can be found in MS Trier, Stadtsbibliothek, cod. 783/828 8° ff. 256r–288r.
For more information, see Horwege’s dissertation, as well as Palmer, ‘Marquard
von Lindau’, 95.
56
See MS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 8987 ff. 192r–199v, as well as Palmer,
‘Marquard von Lindau’, 116–117.
402 chapter seven
It owes much to Bonaventura’s Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, and moves

from disciplinary and ascetical teachings to outright mystical con-
templation.57 It also brings to mind De Investigatione Creatoris per Creaturas
by the Franciscan friar Bertram von Ahlen (lector theologiae at the
Franciscan studium of Münster between 1307 and 1315),58 a work
that later was expanded by the Lübeck Franciscan lector Berthold
Kule (fl. later fourteenth century), who in addition wrote several spir-
itual works of his own.59
The works of Bertram, Otto, Marquard and Berthold show that
the Franciscan lectorate frequently gave rise to the production of
57
It can be found in at least 14 manuscripts. See Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’,
111.
58
Bertram’s De Investigatione can be found in MSS Magdeburg, Stadtsbibiothek
Codex XII; Erfurt, Öffentliche Bibliothek Amplonius Ratinck 2°, 172; Erfurt,
Stadtbibiothek 2° (in-folio) 21; Prague, Universitätsbibliothek IV C 8 (15th cent.)
ff. 183vb–198va; Prague, Bibliothek des Metropolitankapitels 1579 (Alias N. LV,
15th cent.) ff. 49r–76r; Görlitz, Stadtbibliothek B.A.27 (15th cent.); Trier, Stadtsbücherei
704 (15th cent.) ff. 288–303; Hanover, Stadtsbibiothek 4°, 40 (6) (15th cent., an
expanded version made by friar Berthold Kule). Bertram’s major work, De Laude
Domini Novi Saeculi, is a full-blown mystical treatise, dedicated to his provincial min-
ister Gerard Van den Boomgaard (Gerardus de Pomerio), and has been described
as ‘eine kleine, fromme, innige und manchmal auch affektbewegte, mystische Schrift
ueber die Erkenbarkeit und Erkenntniss Gottes, mit der Ziele der Gottesschau.’
M. Bihl, ‘Fr. Bertramus von Ahlen, O.F.M. Ein Mystiker und scholastiker, ca. 1315.
Vorab über dessen Schrift ‘De Laude Domini Novi Saec.’, AFH 40 (1947), 3–48.
See MSS Strasbourg, Bibliothèque de l’Université Lat., 122 & 125 ff. 4r–56v;
Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 1368 (893–98); Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek 79;
Prague, Bibiothek des Metropolitankapitels 1580; Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale Lat
18211. A third surviving work of his is the Excerpta Bertrami ex Operibus Henrice
Gandavensis, Godefridide Fontibus et Iacobi de Viterbo, an alfabetically ordered series of
abbreviated quodlibetal questions, derived from the 15 Quodlibeta and the Summa
Theologiae by Hendrik van Gent (Henry of Ghent, d. 1293), the Quodlibeta V–XIV by
Geoffrey de Fontaines (d. after 1303) and the Quodlibeta I–III by Giacomo da Viterbo
(d. 1308). It is a sort of theological dictionary beginning with Abbas and ending
with Imago. See MSS Rome, BAV Vat Lat 12995 (14th cent.?); Oxford, Balliol
College 58.
59
Berthold’s expansion of Bertram von Ahlen’s De Investigatione Creatoris per Creaturas,
as well as some of his other works, such as the Tractatus de Pulchritudine Anime et eius
Deformatione, the De Peccatorum Nocumentis, and the De Tempore Mortis eiusque Incertitudine
(itself divided into the Tractatus de Extrema Hora Mortis and the De Tempore Mortis
Secundus Tractatus) can be found in MS Hanover, Stadtbibliothek Mag 6 (respectivily
on ff. 128r–177v, ff. 1r–65r, ff. 65r–66v, ff. 66v–127v). His Novem Gladii Dolorum B.
Virginis seu Tractatus de Compassione B.M.V can be found in MSS Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei,
Theol. 2° 70 ff. 161va–175rb; Trier, Stadtbibliothek 693 ff. 13–41; Trier Stadtbibliothek
529 ff. 213–233; Giessen, Universitätsbibliothek 696 ff. 238r–248v; Berlin, Preuss.
Staatsbibliothek Lat. 4° 648 [lost?]; Edinburgh, University Library 113 ff. 1–30. See
M. Bihl, AFH 40 (1947), 3–31; Meier, Die Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt, 72; Handschriften
der Ratsbücherei Lüneburg II: Die theologischen Handschriften 1: Folioreihe, ed. Irmgard Fischer
(Wiesbaden, 1972), 134–135.
important ‘secondary’ texts of religious edification, filling the gap

between the hard-core theological handbooks (such as the Sentences
by Lombard and its commentaries and abbreviations), the outward-
oriented penitential and homiletic adjutory works, and works to fos-
ter spirituality within and outside the Franciscan community. Lectors,
with their multifarious obligations—they had to train the friars under
their care for their apostolate and to help prepare them for living
a fruitful religious life, but also had to provide allied confraternities,
nunneries and tertiary communities with adequate edificatory mate-
rials—were standing, as it were, on the crossroads between the world
of scholastic learning and the world of affective piety and devotion.
This intermediary context makes sense when we look at the spir-
itual works of Giovanni Quaia di Parma (d. ca. 1398), an Italian
lector with humanist tendencies, several of whose works for the class-
room and for novice training have already been mentioned. Interesting
examples of his spiritual output are his De Civitate Christi 60 and, more
in particular, his Rosarium, which Giovanni apparently wrote at the
request of several lay people who wanted a guide for living a saintly
life. In the Rosarium, Giovanni in fourteen small chapters discusses
the different conditions under which people live, and how, in spite
of practical hurdles, they can all aspire to a life of evangelical per-
fection, showing in an additional 37 concise chapters how they can
move from a condition of sin to a state of virtue, and from there
may hope to move onwards to blessedness and glory.61
60
See MSS Gratz, Universitätsbibliothek 195 ff. 43v–86v (an. 1387, a copy made
by Giovanni’s contemporary Bartolomeo di Mantua); Assisi, Biblioteca del Sacro
Convento (Biblioteca Comunale) 181 ff. 1r–61r; Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenz.
Plut.XX.30; Eichstatt, Seminarbibliothek 283; Mainz, Offenbare Bibliothek Carth.
117 (LXXII); Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana A.117 inf. 2; Florence, Biblioteca
Medicea Laurenz. Plut. XX. 30; Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 5057. It was repeatedly
printed in the early sixteenth century: a.o. De Civitate Christi (Reggio Emilia,
1501/Rome, 1523). See Teetaert, ‘Quaglia Jean-Genès’, 1431–1436 (lengthy overview
of life and works) & Pergamo, ‘I francescani alla facoltà teologica di Bologna
(1364–1500), 5–20.
61
See MSS Gratz, Universitätsbibliothek 195 ff. 3r–43v; Assisi, Biblioteca Comunale
440 ff. 61r–81r; Sevilla, Biblioteca Columbiana BB. 145.3; Bologna, Biblioteca
dell’Archiginnasio A. 942; Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria. 2391; Florence, Biblioteca
Medicea Laurenz. Plut.XIX.29; Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana D.44.sup; Brussels,
Koninklijke Bibliotheek 21826 ff. 1r–48r; Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana XX.439;
Padua, Museo Civ. C.M. 206; Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale 1392 (H.V.40); Rome,
Biblioteca Angelica 522 ff. 1–63; Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 7633; Serrasanquirico,
Biblioteca Comunale 7 (40). In most manuscripts, the incipit runs as follows: ‘Factus
404 chapter seven
A comparable ad-status approach can be discerned in the Zwolf

zeichen do by du maht mercken obe du die gobe und kraft und genode des ewigen
almehtigen gottes empfangen hast: a small treatise on the twelve signs
revealing the reception and beneficial influence of the Holy Spirit
on the lives of individual people, ascribed to the Strasbourg lector
and preacher Conrad Ströber, and presented to the Strasbourg com-
munity of ‘Deutschherren’ at Easter 1437. It distinguishes between
married people, widows and virgins, delineating for all of these ‘states’
three stages of increasing spiritual perfection, each of which is char-
acterised by four specific signs or manifestations of the Holy Spirit.62
As we have seen in earlier chapters, the religious instruction of
the Poor Clares quickly gave rise to the production of texts tailored
to the envisaged spiritual needs of Franciscan nuns. In this context,
we have already pointed out Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s De
Perfectione Vitae ad Sorores seu de Forma Perfectionis Religiosorum, various
works by Heinrich von Weissenburg, and the influential Sette armi
necessarie alla battaglia spirituale by Caterina Vigri.
Especially in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the Poor
Clares became the recipients of a large number of spiritual treatises.
Many such texts were written by convent preachers and confessors
assigned to Franciscan nunneries, not infrequently the same people of
whom we still have sermon cycles, novice training treatises, rule com-
mentaries and confession handbooks directed to Franciscan sisters.
Thus, Henry de Baume (d. 1439), collaborator and counsellor of
Colette de Corbie, wrote a set of spiritual treatises for the Colettine
sisters besides his Coletan constitutions and his works of passion devo-
tion (which also were meant to foster Colettine and Coletan spiri-
tuality and are discussed separately). Contrary to these constitutions
and passion devotion texts, Henry de Baume’s other spiritual works,
notably his Oraisons, the Exhortation de la vie religieuse, Les six grâces
est homo in animam viventem, Gen. 2 c. Quoniam ut ait Boethius, 2 de consola-

tione, prosa quinta, humane nature ista conditio est . . .’ Expl: ‘Qui probatus est in
illo et perfectus inventus est erit illi gloria eterna ad quam gloriam nos perducat
jhesus Xristus dei filius, qui vivit et regnat per omnia secula seculorum. Amen.’
62
Es sint zwolf zeichen do by du maht mercken obe du die gobe und kraft und genode des
ewigen almehtigen gottes empfangen hast: MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 266v–267v.
The manuscript mentions as its author the ‘wackalierer zue den barfuessen genant
der striber.’ For an edition, see Franziskanisches Schrifttum. Band II: Texte, 126–127.
Ruh identifies ‘der Striber’ with the lector Conrad Ströber. See also Hans-Jochen
Schiewer, ‘Der Striber OFM’, VL2 IX, 416f.
attachées à la récitation commune de l’office divin, a set of spiritual letters

and the Traité de la vie spirituelle have not yet been edited in full.63
The surviving spiritual works of the French Conventual friar Jean
Barthelemy (fl. ca. 1460)64 are connected with his role as counsellor
of the Longchamp Urbanist Poor Clares, providing them with a host
of devotional exercises and affective prayers on themes related to
the flight from the world, monastic enclosure, the passion, the sacred
heart, and the sacraments, all of which are firmly grounded in the
affective theological tradition of Bernard de Clairvaux and Bonaventura
da Bagnoreggio. Good examples are his Livret de la triple viduité (1453),
his Traité de la vanité des choses (1460) and Le livret de la crainte amoureuse
(1467). All these texts seem to have been directly addressed to the
nun Jehanne Gerande, apparently Jean’s most favourite spiritual
daughter in the Longchamp community.65
Heinrich Vigilis von Weissenburg, preacher and confessor of the
Poor Clares at Alspach and Nuremberg in the 1480s and 1490s—
as is revealed by his sermons and novice training manuals dealt with
elsewhere—produced at least one and possibly more than eight addi-
tional spiritual works for the nuns under his care. The Buch von
geistlicher Einkehr und Auskehr,66 in which religious people are called
63
Nearly all of these texts apparently can be found in the Recueil de traités spir-
ituels composés ou traduits par le P. Henri de la Balme, Cordelier, confesseur de sainte Colette,
MS Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale 257, together with his works of passion
devotion and the statutes of Colette de Corbie. See also Catalogue général des manu-
scrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, Départements, t. XXXII/I, ed. A. Castan (Paris,
1897), 178–180; Lippens, ‘Henry de Baume coopérateur de S. Colette’, 254–255;
Lopez, ‘Frère Henry de Baume’, 121.
64
His licentiate proceedings for the magisterium theologiae in 1451–52 were some-
what delayed, due to the protests of Raoul Rouselli (Archbishop of Rouen) against
Jean’s defense of mendicant preaching and confession privileges. Cf. CHUP IV, 708
no. 2680 & 709 no. 2682; MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 5657a f. 21v.
65
Le Livret de la triple viduité can be found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
français 9611 ff. 1r–39v. This same manuscript also contains Le livret de la crainte
amoureuse (ff. 39v–104v), Le traité de la vanité des choses (ff. 105r–140v), a Lettre sur les
défauts de la langue (ff. 162–165r), and a series of sermons (ff. 140–160r, 165r–191v).
Le livret de la crainte amoureuse can also be found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
français 1880 and, together with Le traité de la vanité des choses, in MS Paris, Bibliothèque
de l’Arsenal 2123. See A. de Sérent, ‘Les Frères Mineurs à l’Université de Paris’,
LFF 1 (1912), 303; DSpir, I, 1270; L. Beaumont-Maillet, Le grand couvent des cordeliers
de Paris (Paris, 1975), 198, no. 20; Martin, Le métier de prédicateur, 160, 169, 176,
225, 666, 697.
66
MSS Eichstätt, St. Walpurg cod. germ. 7 ff. 21r–64r; Munich, Staatsbibliothek
Cgm. 449 ff. 1r–70r, 81r–84v (1491); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 844 ff. 151r–200v
(16th cent.); Überlingen, Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek 1 ff. 193v–227vb (late 15th
406 chapter seven
upon to seek their inner self in order to find renewed strength for
charitable behaviour, may certainly be ascribed to him. In the attrib-
uted work Von dreierlei Abgründen, the oldest manuscript of which stems
from the Poor Clares of Gnadental in Basel, the sisters are given an
edificatory doctrine (Lehre) on three abysses: the abyss of evil (daz
erste abgrund der boßheit, created by the sins of man), the abyss of
Divine compassion (goetliche Barmherczikeit) that offers sinners hope of
eternal life, and the abyss of Christ’s suffering (daz drytte abgrund des
lidens cristi ), relating the bottomless love of Christ and the boundless
bitterness of His outward and inward suffering on the cross.67 Other
texts attributed to Heinrich and meant for the edification of nuns (both
original productions and German translations of Bonaventurian texts
like De Quinque Festivitatibus Pueri Jesu and De Triplici Via) elaborate
on a variety of themes pertaining to Franciscan spiritual perfection.68
cent., OP convent Zoffingen, Konstanz); Colmar, Bibliothèque de la Ville 274 ff.

2r–107v (Inc.: ‘Diß ist ein geistliche lerre und underwissung, wie sich ein mensch
sol inn und uß keren und het sy gesetzt der wirdige vatter und herre herr hein-
rich vigyllis von wissenburg . . .’ This manuscript was written by a Franciscan nun
from the Alspach convent.); London, British Library Add. 30936 ff. 155r–209v;
Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek Cent. VII 9 ff. 23r–89v; Stuttgart, Württembergische
Landesbibliothek cod. theol. et phil. 4° 81 ff. 2r–41v.
67
MSS Freiburg i. Br., Universitätsbibliothek 253; (1487; from the Poor Clares
of Gnadental, Basel); St. Gallen 976 ff. 176–313; St. Gallen 1003, pp. 206–339;
Prague XVI G 22 ff. 2r–56r; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 164. (= germ 4° 164)
ff. 62v–95v. For more information, see Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch, 286–292.
68
Von der Vollkommenheit des geistlichen Menschen, MSS Freiburg i. Br., Universitäts-
bibliothek 253 ff. 244r–258v (1487; from the Poor Clares of Gnadental, Basel);
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 164 ff. 29r–62v; Überlingen, Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek
1 ff. 227vb–242ra; a German reworking of Bonaventura’s De Quinque Festivitatibus
Pueri Jesu, MSS Freiburg i. Br., Universitätsbibliothek 253; (1487; from the Poor
Clares of Gnadental, Basel); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 164; Von den sieben Gaben
des Heiligen Geistes (German translation/reworking of Bonaventura, In III Sent., dist.
34 & 35), MSS Freiburg i. Br., Universitätsbibliothek 253; (1487; from the Poor Clares
of Gnadental, Basel); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 164. Cf. Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch
I, 209–216; a German reworking of Bonaventura’s De triplici Via, MSS Freiburg i.
Br., Universitätsbibliothek 253; (1487; from the Poor Clares of Gnadental, Basel);
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 164; Was das neugeborene Jesuskind von einer andächtigen Seele
begehrt, MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgq 164 ff. 268v–273v; Ein andehtige wedrachtung
lignum vite, MS Bamberg, Stadtbibliothek Msc. Lit. 178 (Ed. VIII.6) ff. 196r–199r;
Alphabetum Religiosorum, MS Bamberg, Stadtbibliothek Msc. Lit. 178 (Ed. VIII.6) ff.
199r–205r; Ein guter Einkehr, MSS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 452 ff. 83r–116v;
Munich, Universtätsbibliothek 4° cod. ms. 482 ff. 76v–88r. For more information,
see Kist, ‘Heinrich Vigilis, ein Franziskanerprediger am Vorabend der Reformation’,
144–150; Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch, 58ff, 77, 110–117, 127, 164, 283, 286ff; Steer,
Die Rezeption des theologischen Bonaventura-Schrifttums im deutschen Spätmittelalter, 146–156;
Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter Band II, Texte, 128–150; Uwe Ruberg,
Stephan Fridolin (c. 1430–1498), appointed convent preacher and

spiritual counsellor of the well-educated Poor Clares at Nuremberg
(until 1487 and after 1489) and Gnadental (between 1487 and 1489),
likewise produced a set of spiritual Andachtsbücher for the nuns under
his care. Stephan’s spiritual ‘season’ booklets, such as Der geistliche
Herbst and the Geistlicher Mai complement his sermons held before
the Nuremberg community and, as we will see below, concentrate
on imbuing the nuns with the proper emotional response to the pas-
sion of Christ. More concerned with the problems that could arise
from an overly scrupulous interpretation of the religious life and its
confessional and self-accusational propensities was his Lehre für ange-
fochtene und kleinmütige Menschen. This little manual helped nuns to put
their religious strivings in a proper perspective, to steer clear from
melancholy and overly zealous behaviour, and to overcome the ten-
dency in some to see a mortal sin looming behind every little lapse
of discipline or concentration, as all this would indeed cause an exag-
gerated and stifling fear of damnation.69
In addition, Fridolin embarked on an ambitious project of reli-
gious edification for the laity at large, by the 1491 publication of his
large ‘Treasure Keeper of Salvation,’ namely Der Schatzbehalter oder
Schrein der waren Reichtuemer des Hayls und der ewigen Seligkeit. This large,
richly illustrated volume of no less-than 352 folia, meant for the reli-
gious edification of educated lay people, was inspired by the so-called
Capistrano choir screen image cycle that Fridolin had probably wit-
nessed in his years as a convent preacher at Bamberg (in the years
1475–1477). By expanding the number of images in Der Schatzbehalter—
the 1491 edition contains 96 woodcuts, all of which had been pro-
duced in the ateliers of the Nuremberg artists Michael Wolgemut
and Hans Pleydenwurff—Fridolin hoped to present his readership
with a full-length text and a corresponding iconographical programme
of meditative exercises for all the days of the year. Text and image
‘Von dem heilgen swygenhalten’, VL2 III, 615–617; Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘Vigilis,
Heinrich, von Weißenburg’, VL2 X, 342–350; V. Honemann, ‘Vigilis’, DSpir XVI
(1994), 751–752.
69
Lehre für angefochtene und kleinmütige Menschen: MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Cgm. 4439 ff. 50v–54r. On ff. 48–50 of this manuscript we can we find a work
by Oliverius Maillard, who had visited the Nuremberg monastery in 1488. Fridolin’s
Lehre probably dates from the same period. For an edition of the text, see Lehre für
angefochtene und kleinmütige Menschen, ed. Ottokar Bonmann in: An heiligen Quellen 29
(1936), 367–373.
408 chapter seven
should re-enforce each other (even when in the printed version they
do not always correspond totally). Although Der Schatzbehalter dealt
with many devotional issues, the central theme throughout the work
is the passion of Christ, which the readers of the work were sup-
posed to internalise and make into the cornerstone of their religious
consciousness.70
As said in another chapter, the Poor Clares of Nuremberg repeat-
edly hosted the French Observant preacher Olivier Maillard. In the
context of these visits, Maillard composed sermons and spiritual let-
ters, several of which were translated into German by Stephan
Fridolin. Independently from these, Maillard wrote L’instruction et con-
solation de la vie contemplative, an amalgam of spiritual councils and ser-
mons, remarks on virtues and vices, instructions on the sacraments,
a meditative pathway to Paradise (‘sentier de paradis’), prayers, and
a passion devotion exercise (‘contemplation faicte sur les sept heures
du jour sur la Passion’). In short, it is a complete manual for the
female religious eager to embark on the road of spiritual perfection.71
Maillard’s L’instruction is but one of many spiritual manuals explic-
itly written for one nun or a particular community of nuns that saw
the light between the closing decades of the fifteenth and the early
sixteenth century. Other booklets written from a comparable angle
were produced by the Observant friars Hendrik van den Berghe
(Henricus Montanus, ca. 1420–1490), who was involved with the
reform of tertiary and Poor Clare convents in the Cologne order
70
Der Schatzbehalter oder Schrein der waren Reichtuemer des Hayls und der ewigen Seligkeit
(Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 8 November 1491). Cf. Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum,
no. 14507. For modern editions, see: Der Schatzbehalter. Ein Andachts- und Erbauungsbuch,
ed. R. Bellm, 2 Vols. (Wiesbaden, 1962) and Wolgemut-Fridolin: Schatzbehalter, ed.
Theodor Besterman, The Printed Sources of Western Art, 28 (Portland/Oregon,
1972). For a lengthy description of this as well as the other works by Stephan
Fridolin, see especially N. Paulus, ‘Der Franziskaner Stephan Fridolin, ein Nürnberger
Prediger’, Historisch-politische Blätter 113 (1894), 465–483 & 119 (1897), 545–548 &
120 (1897), 150–152; U. Schmidt, P. Stephan Fridolin. Ein Franziskaner Prediger des aus-
gehenden Mittelalters, Veröffentlichungen aus dem Kirchenhistorischen Seminar München
III, n. 11 (Munich, 1910); Ottokar Bonmann, ‘Fridelini (ou Fridolin; Étienne)’, DSpir
V, 1525–1528; Br. Degler-Spengler, Das Klarissenkloster Gnadental in Basel (Basel, 1969),
66–67, 102; Petra Seegets, ‘Das alles menschlich heyl an dem leiden Christi steet’. Stephan
Fridolin—ein spätmittelalterlicher Frömmigkeitstheologe zwischen Kloster und Stadt, Diss. (Tübingen,
1995); Idem, Passionstheologie und Passionsfrömmigkeit im ausgehenden Mittelalter. Der Nürnberger
Franziskaner Stephan Fridolin (gest. 1498) zwischen Kloster und Stadt, Spätmittelalter und
Reformation, Neue Reihe 10 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).
71
L’instruction et consolation de la vie contemplative (Paris, 1499). A copy can be found
in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Vélins n. 1769.
province, Gabriele dal Bambaso (fl. ca. 1520) from Reggio Emilia,
and Robert Le Messier (d. 1546), an esteemed academic theologian
and for many years a staunch partisan of Observant reform in the
French order province, before he ‘retired’ as confessor to the Poor
Clares of Longchamp.
After several assignments as a guardian at Antwerp and Hamm,
Hendrik van den Berghe was elected provincial vicar of the Observant
Cologne province four times. In 1486, Hendrik reformed the ter-
tiary convent of Gouda, making the tertiaries accept the 1253 rule
of Chiara d’Assisi. Hendrik’s interest in the reform of female Franciscan
communities throughout the Cologne province is apparent in a series
of statutes, Definitiones Poenitentiales and admonitory letters. In addition,
he wrote a set of cloister exercises for nuns, the Officia Claustralia/
Klösterliche Übungen. To my knowledge these exercises have escaped
all editory attention until now.72
Gabriele dal Bambaso, preacher and confessor of the Poor Clares
in the Corpo di Cristo convent in Cremona, around 1520 wrote a
meditative Scala del Paradiso Victoriosa for the sisters, using John
Climacus’ concept of the ladder of divine ascent to show Franciscan
nuns how to reach higher and higher levels of spirituality and purity.
Like some of the larger edificatory works that we will encounter
below, the Scala includes spiritual bibliographies of books recom-
mended for further reading. Moreover, in the Scala Gabriele included
an Alphabetum Maius et Minus Libri, which dealt with a variety of med-
itative themes in an alphabetical fashion, a commentary on the last
seven words of Christ on the cross, as well as a commentary on the
Pater Noster, all with due emphasis on the emotional participation of
the nuns in and identification with the suffering of Christ.73
72
Observant provincial constitutions produced under Hendrik’s responsibility, as
well as his Definitiones Poenitentiales have been published, in AFH 7 (1914), 717–719
and AFH 27 (1934), 394, respectively. His letters and other works dealing with reli-
gious reform and discipline (such as the Littera super Actu Reformationis, addressed to
the Duke of Cleve and the Paraeneticum Programma de Reverentia, Visitatione et Electione
Praelatorum) still await editorial initiative. For more information on Hendrik and his
works, see S. Dirks, Histoire littéraire et bibliographique des Frères Mineurs de l’Observance
(Antwerp, 1885), 15; St. Schoutens, Martyrologium Minoritico-Belgicum (Hoogstraten,
1902), 50 (20 March); Schlager, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kölnischen Franziskaner-
Ordensprovinz, 155–158, 229–233; Schmitz, Het aandeel der minderbroeders in onze Middeleeuwse
literatuur, 57; H. Ooms & A. Houbaert, ‘Lijst van de provinciale oversten der min-
derbroeders in België’, Franciscana 10 (1955), 34; Clément Schmitt, ‘Henri van den
Berghe’, DHGE XXIII, 1242; Dieter Berg, ‘Heinrich v. Berca’, LThK IV (1995), 1372.
73
Scala del Paradiso Victoriosa (Milan, 28 March, 1521). One Franciscan source
410 chapter seven
After his degree studies at Paris, the theology master Robert Le

Messier became involved in administrative duties at the convent of
Amiens. Probably, his transfer to the Observance dates from this
period. Opposition to Robert’s ambition to reform the Amiens con-
vent drew the attention of minister general Giles Delphini, who chose
Robert for the task of reforming all remaining non-Observant con-
vents in the French province. This was the beginning of a long
administrative career within the French province, culminating in two
terms as provincial minister (1523–1526 and 1529–1532). In between
his administrative duties, Robert also shone as a Lenten preacher.74
In the late 1530s or early 1540s, Robert ‘retired’ as confessor to the
Poor Clare monastery of Longchamp, where he had worked as spir-
itual counsellor as early as the 1520s. Following his death (23 July
1546), Robert was buried in the convent church, not far from the
grave of the convent’s founder Isabelle de France (for whom Robert
apparently had composed a commemorative liturgical office).75
Robert’s Adresse de Salut is addressed at the Poor Clare Marie de
Livres and her fellow sisters at the Longchamp community. In two
books, the Adresse deals with the roads of purgation and illumina-
tion. The road of purgation focuses on religious discipline and on
confession, and may be compared with a confession manual. In this
part of the work Robert describes how sinners can purge their spir-
itual senses by means of three ‘journeys’, namely contrition, confes-
sion and penitential satisfaction. Robert’s road of illumination thereafter
presents the gifts that God grants contrite human beings; gifts that
illuminate the senses, so that they can discern the way towards
sanctification. Among these gifts, Robert emphasises self-knowledge,
(Atti Capitolari della Minoritica Provincia di Bologna (Parma, 1901) I, 153) relates that
the provincial chapter of Carpi (1521) ordered the collection and burning of all
works of friar ‘Gabriel da Reggio’, as these works were supposed to contain sus-
pect teaching. It remains unclear whether this refers to Gabriele dal Bambaso or
not. See Juan de San Antonio, BUF (Madrid, 1732) II, 1–2; Sbaralea, Supplementum
(ed. Rome, 1908) I, 311; Clément Schmitt, ‘Gabriel dal Bambaso’, DSpir VI, 3.
74
See his Super Epistolas et Evangelia totius Quadragesimae Sermones (Paris: Cl. Chevallon,
15 Febr. 1525/Paris: J. Petit, 1531). Both editions contain a complete cycle of ser-
mons covering the period from Ash Wednesday to the Octave of Easter. Two ser-
mons directed at female religious found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Français
1888 ff. 137–146 may also be from his hand.
75
Robert is mentioned as the composer of this office in the Acta Sanctorum 31
August VI (Antwerp, 1743), 796–797 and in the Histoire de l’abbaye de Longchamp
(Paris, 1906), 8–9. See also Officium B. Isabellae, ed. L. Oliger, in: Miscellanea Giovanni
Mercati (Vatican City, 1946) II, 489–508.
the help of guardian angels, the redeeming work of the suffering

Christ, the efficacy of grace, the usefulness to ponder creation as an
image of the Divine, the wisdom of Scripture, and the sacraments.76
The edification of Franciscan nuns was not a male prerogative by
any means, albeit that male (Franciscan) confessors and spiritual
counsellors had a strong authoritative presence in the female Franciscan
communities, in line with the overall ecclesiastical concern to keep
female religious expression under strict control (the spiritual pendant
to physical enclosure). From the outset, and at times against all odds,
female religious were actively engaged in shaping the religious life
of their communities. We have seen this in the admonitions, constitu-
tions and spiritual testaments of Chiara d’Assisi, Colette de Corbie,
and other spokeswomen, such as Caterina Vigri, whose Le armi neces-
sarie alla battaglia spirituale mentioned before, as well as her other
recently edited works (Libro devoto, Rosarium Metricum, I Dodici Giardini,
Doctrina beatae Caterina and additional Trattati and Sermoni) may be
considered as attempts at fostering a christocentric spirituality among
the nuns of the Bologna convent.77
In the case of Bologna, Caterina Vigri’s literary endeavours initi-
ated a literary output that spanned several generations. Several col-
lections from the Corpus Domini monastery (kept in the Archivio
generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, in the dossier Archivio Beata
Caterina) combine works by Caterina Vigri with eulogies, prayers,
letters and spiritual treatises produced by her entourage, most of
which express a religiosity founded on prayer, liturgical and sacra-
mental practices (esp. focusing on the reception of the Eucharist
sacrament). One of the most important spiritual authors from this
period was sister Illuminata Bembo, Caterina’s successor as abbess
76
Adresse de Salut: MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Français 1888 ff. 1–136v.
This manuscript is a 1523 copy made by the Franciscan friar François Le Herice,
who at that time was confessor at Longchamp. See: Sbaralea, Supplementum III,
56–57; Antoine Béguet, ‘Nécrologie des frères mineurs d’Auxerre’, AFH 3 (1910),
535; B. Bughetti, ‘Manipulus pontificiorum diplomatum in conventualium defen-
sionem collectus’, AFH 19 (1926), 257–258; H. Lippens, ‘De modo celebrandi capi-
tulum deque observantia regulae in provincia Franciae post annum 1517’, AFH 37
(1944), 30; Hugues Dedieu, ‘Messier (Le Messier; Robert)’, DSpir X, 1092–1093.
77
See I dodici giardini. L’esodo al femminile. Con testo originale a fronte, ed. Gilberto
Aquini & Mariafiamma Maddalena Faberi, Mistica. Testi e Studi, 2 (Bologna, 1999);
Caterina Virgi, I Sermoni, ed. & comm. Gilberto Sgarbi & Enzo Lodi (Bologna,
1999); Caterina Vigri, Laudi, Trattati e Lettere, ed. Antonella Degl’Innocenti, SISMEL,
Edizioni del Galluzzo (Florence-Bologna, 2000).
412 chapter seven
of the Corpus Domini monastery, and author of the Specchio d’Illuminazione

(written between 1463–1469). Although this work was first and fore-
most composed to celebrate the life and death of Caterina Vigri, it
is more than a saints’ life. It rather aims to transmit, in short doc-
trinal statements, Caterina’s teachings on spiritual growth.78
For works produced by a later generation, we may point at the
Viaggio spirituale per la meditazione composed in the first half of the six-
teenth century by the Corpus Domini Poor Clares Dorotea Paleotti
and Bianca Maria Scappi. This ‘journey’ consists of a set of spiritual
exercises on the life and death of Christ (of which more specimen
will be presented in my paragraph on passion devotion treatises):
exercises that may be performed in different locations of the monastery,
thus inscribing the topography of the Holy Land and the Heavenly
Jerusalem onto the lay-out of the cloister.79 Comparable literary
endeavours saw the light at the Observant Santa Lucia convent and
at the Monteluce convent in Perugia,80 exemplified for instance in
78
The autograph manuscript of this work can still be found in the Corpus Domini
Convent. It was printed in 1679 in the Posizione written on the occasion of the
canonisation of Caterina Vigri. Subsequently, it was printed in: G. Melloni, Atti o
Memorie degli uomini illustri in santità nati o morti in Bologna, Classe I, Vol. III (Bologna,
1818), 441–483; Illuminata Bembo, Lo Specchio di Illuminazione, ed. Sergio d’Aurizio
(Bologna, 1983). This work, which was composed to celebrate the life and death
of Caterina Vigri da Bologna, originated as a spiritual letter describing the death
of Caterina, sent in 1463 by the new abbess of the Corpus Domini convent to other
communities of Poor Clares. Subsequently, the work was elaborated further into a
heterogeneous hagiographical account, as is revealed by a surviving manuscript now
found in Brussels. Cf. F. van Ortroy, ‘Une vie italienne de sainte Catherine de
Bologne’, Analecta Bollandiana 41 (1923), 386–416. Eventually it was reworked into
the spiritual treatise known as the Specchio d’illuminazione, addressed to a public of
Italian Observant Poor Clares and aiming to transmit the teachings of Caterina in
short doctrinal statements, dealing with themes like the love of God, the obligation
and practice of veritable charity, humility, obedience, the proper mental disposition
during the recital of the divine office and modes of efficacious prayer. For edificatory
purposes, the Specchio contains short pieces ready-made for memorisation, with titles
as ‘Fifteen ways to please God’ and ‘Seven ways to prepare oneself for prayer.’ See
A. Piromalli, ‘Cultura e religiosità di Illuminata Bembo’, in: Idem, Società, cultura e
letteratura in Emilia e Romagna (Florence, 1980), 25–33; Zarri, ‘Écrits inédits de Catherine
de Bologne et de ses soeurs’, 224ff.
79
This work is to be found in the Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna,
Archivio Beata Caterina, carton 28, Lode spirituale e Regole di San Gerolamo,
Libro 6, no. 2. Cf. Zarri, ‘Écrits inédits de Catherine de Bologne et de ses soeurs’,
229.
80
Katherine Gill, ‘Women and Religious Literature in the Vernacular, 1300–1500’,
in: Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy. A Religious and Artistic Renaissance,
ed. E. Ann Matter & John Coakley (Philadelphia, 1994), 64–104, 89, note 19,
remarks: ‘The scribal activity of Monteluce and Santa Lucia was accompanied by
the productions of Cecilia Coppoli,81 Battista Alfani,82 and the (lost?)

writings of Eustochia Calafato from Messina.83
As the Bologna example shows, not all of these spiritual texts have
been properly edited as yet. As a matter of fact, a considerable
amount of these materials still remains hidden in archival sources.
This is not only true for the Observant convents in Northern and
Central Italy, but also for Observant convents in the German lands
(such as the Bicken monastery under Ursula Haider, and the Nurem-
berg convent under the abbatiate of Caritas Pirckheimer),84 and for
much literary activity, compositions, and translations both by sisters and by Franciscan
friars with whom they had close ties. Both produced chronicles of their communi-
ties, wrote biographies of notable women within their communities and their order,
and composed spiritual writings and poetry.’
81
See Ciro Ortolani da Pesaro, Nell’Umbria verde. Un fiore serafico. Ossia La beata
Cecilia Coppoli (Rome, 1908); Antonio Fantozzi, ‘Documenti intorno alla beata Cecilia
Coppoli Clarissa (1426–1500)’, AFH 19 (1926), 206ff.
82
Cf. her vernacular reworking of the Latin Legenda Sanctae Clarae Virginis. See on
this work Lezlie Knox’s article: ‘What Francis Intended: Gender and the Transmission
of Knowledge in the Franciscan Order’, which will be publised in the forthcoming
volume Seeing and Knowing.
83
She is said to have written a Libro de la Passione, which is mentioned in her
Vitae and seemingy has connections with the Vita Christi by Ludolf von Sachsen.
See Il libro della Passione scritto dalla beata Eustochia Calafato Clarissa Messinese (1434–1485),
ed. F. Terrizzi (Messina, 1979); G. Intersimone, La beata Eustochia Calafato, clarissa
messinese (Rome, 1956); Clément Schmitt, ‘Eustochie Calafato (bienheureuse)’, DSpir IV,
1714–1715; F. Terrizzi, La beata Eustochia (1434–1485) (Messina, 1982); C. Costanza,
‘Ricerca bibliografica sulla vita di Eustochia Calafato, beata messinese’, Historica 36
(Reggio Calabria, 1983), 157–174; C. Costanza, ‘Ricerca bibliografica sulla beatifica-
zione di Eustochia Calafato, beata messinese’, Historica 37 (1984), 3–20; Gerardo
Cardaropoli, ‘Eustochia Calafato da Messina (1434–1485)’, in: Mistici francescani III,
Secolo XV, ed. Aristide Cabassi et al. (Milan, 1999) 819–836.
84
Ursula Haider, abbess and reformer of the Bicken convent near Villingen,
composed a series of Betrachtungen for her sisters, partly written by herself and partly
by a trusted nun. She also is known to have supervised the education and instruction
of novices and sisters, putting special emphasis on the quality of musical perfor-
mance in the context of the liturgy, by means of daily choir rehearsals. The remain-
ing archives contain accounts dealing with the purchase of musical instruments and
the maintenance of the organ. They also contain references to the performance of
religious plays in the Easter season. See: Alemania Franciscana Antiqua, 45–77; Chronik
des Bickenklosters zu Villingen 1238–1614, ed. Johann Glatz (Stuttgart, 1881), passim;
Hildegard Rech, Äbtissin Ursula Haider (St. Ursula, Villingen, 1952). A final exam-
ple from the German lands comes from the Poor Clares convent of Nuremberg,
which throughout the fifteenth century could lay claim to a high literary culture
with humanist overtones, culminating in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth cen-
tury under abbess Caritas Pirckheimer, known for her Denkwürdigkeiten, her polished
Latin letters and her christocentric spirituality, focusing on the love for the suffering
Christ and on the necessity to complement Divine love with human love, which
should be expressed in unmitigated prayer. Like Ursula Haider, Caritas herself held
414 chapter seven
the Colettine convents in Northern France and the southern Low

Countries. A case in point are the surviving dossiers with spiritual
letters, hagiographical sketches and meditations from the early Colettine
communities in Ghent and Amiens.85
What stands out in all these cases, both in the French Colettine
communities and in the German and Italian Observant monasteries,
the strict supervision by male spiritual counsellors notwithstanding,
is the nuns’ relatively autonomous artistic and literary initiative, and
their versatile attempts to create a viable textual community by means
of the individual and collective production of spiritual texts, paintings,
book illuminations, and textile works, with at its centre a strong cul-
ture of passion devotion and a shared commemoration of the religious
experience of their pristine beginnings (exemplified in the production
of convent chronicles (Memoriali) and convent-oriented hagiography).86
Sometimes these activities are reflected in more than average library
holdings, which in a few cases can be connected with veritable scrip-
toria that catered to the needs of the nunneries themselves, but also
produced for outside clients (Franciscan friaries and lay aristocratic
benefactors).87
Ansprachen in front of the nuns under her care: Ottokar Bonmann, ‘Eine unbekannte
Weinachts-Ansprache der Äbtissin von St. Klara, Nürnberg anläßlich einer Visitation’,
in: An heiligen Quellen. Religiöse Monatsschrift für Frauenklöster zur Pflege des innerlichen Lebens
30 (1937), 6–16; Idem, ‘Eine unbekannte Weihnachtsanprache der Caritas Pirckheimer’,
FrSt 24 (1937), 182–189. For more information concerning Caritas and her com-
munity of nuns, see especially my paragraph on spiritual letters.
85
More information will be given in the paragraph on spiritual letters.
86
See on this in general Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality. The genres of histo-
riography and hagiography can not be treated in this volume. On the commemo-
rative culture in the Monteluce convent, see especially the edition of the Memoriale
di Monteluce: Cronaca del monastero delle clarisse di Perugia dal 1448 al 1838, ed. Chiara
Augusta Laniati (Assisi, 1983), xxiii–xxxvi. See also Ignazio Baldelli, ‘Codici e carte
di Monteluce’, Appendix to Giuseppe de Luca, ‘Un Formulario di Cancellaria
Francescana tra il XIII e XIV secolo’, Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 1 (Rome,
1951), 387–393; P. Höhler, ‘Il Monastero delle Clarisse di Monteluce’, in: Il movi-
mento religioso femminile in Umbria nei secoli XIII–XIV, ed. Roberto Rusconi (Città di
Castello, 1984), 161–182; Stefano Felicetti, ‘Apetti e risvolti di vita quotidiana in
un monastero Perugino riformata: Monteluce, secolo XV’, CF 65 (1995), 553–642.
87
See Serena Spanò Martinelli, ‘La Biblioteca del ‘Corpus Domini’ bolognese:
L’inconsueto spaccato di una cultura monastica femminile’, La Bibliofilia 88/1 (1986),
1–23 (which shows that, aside from the Gospel, books of hours, devotional manu-
als and saints’ lives, the library of the Bologna Poor Clares also included works by
Church fathers (such as Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom) and a wide range of
medieval theologians); Gill, ‘Women and Religious Literature in the Vernacular’,
esp. 89 and note 19 (with information concerning the library holdings and scribal
activities in the Monteluce and Santa Lucia convents). On the symbiosis of female
Especially in Italy, in the wake of the fifteenth-century upswing

in pastoral literature, the production of catechisms was complemented
by a wide range of edificatory materials.88 Most impressive no doubt
are the large-scale handbooks addressed at the literate laity; teaching
lay people how to live a Christian life from the cradle to the grave.
The most important of these will be mentioned separately. Outright
mystical texts, which fall outside the scope of this book, were not
absent either.89 However, a variety of other, more intermediate
edificatory manuals and spiritual guides made their appearance as
well. These vacillated between meditative laudations of the Franciscan
religious life and practical works of spiritual edification meant for a
wider audience. Several such texts have come down to us anony-
mously, such as the mid fifteenth-century Liber Sapientiae Spiritualis and
the Tractatus de Hedificatione Domus Spiritualis, both of which can be
found in manuscripts of the Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples.90 Others
can be traced back to individual authors.
An author who took the spiritual needs of both friars and lay peo-
ple very much at heart was the Observant friar Niccolò da Osimo
(d. 1453) from the March of Ancona (whose confession handbooks
Observant scriptorial activities in Perugia and the male Franciscan Observant pro-
gramme of religious reform, see Ugolino Nicolini, ‘I Minori Osservanti di Monteripido
e lo “scriptorium” delle clarisse di Monteluce in Perugia nei secoli XV e XVI’, PS
9 (1971), 100–130.
88
A precursor to this was Tomasuccio da Foligno (d. 1377) ’s Visione de la festa
che fano li sancti in paradiso el di de ogni sancti. This is first and foremost a vision of
the saints in heaven, and as such beyond the scope of our work. However, at the
end it also describes how to undertake the devotional and sacramental journey to
heaven, starting with proper confession and purification. Hence, it shows a relationship
with the confession handbooks for penitents mentioned in another chapter. Insofar
as the Visione discusses the proper attitude towards the Eucharist, it comes close to
some of the other devotional texts dealt with in this chapter.
89
Good examples of these at times rather learned mystical texts can be found
among the works of Antonio da Moneglia (d. 1527), notably his In Divini Dyonisii
Misticam Theologiam Clarissima Commentaria, and the lengthy, multi-volume Sursum Corda,
which consists of three heavily allegorical treatises (Directorium Inflammandi Mentis in
Abissum Divini Luminis per Sacrarum Scripturarum Celitus Sensus Reseratos et Unguem Materiae
Applicatos (Bologna, 1522); Tropheum Israeliticum Triregium Mysticam Vitiorum Stragem
Significans (Bologna, 1526–1529); Tropheum Israeliticum Quadriregium (apparently never
printed). See: Provincia di Bologna (Parma, 1894), I, 164–171; G. Piccone, Serie crono-
logico-biografica dei ministri e vicari provinciali della minoritica provincia di Bologna (Parma,
1908), 40; Pierre Péano, ‘Moneglia (Antoine de)’, DSpir X, 1649–1650.
90
Liber Sapientiae Spiritualis: MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale XIII.AA.8, f. 1r–79v;
Tractatus de Hedificatione Domus Spiritualis: MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale XII.F.17
ff. 94b–103a. Cf. Manoscritti francescani della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, ed. C. Cenci,
Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, VII–VIII (Grottaferrata, 1971) II, 897 & 942.
416 chapter seven
and works on the rules of Francesco and Chiara d’Assisi I have men-
tioned before). His handbook on religion (Della Religione) is a concise
vademecum (in 24 little chapters, just like the Regula non Bullata) for
the search of evangelical perfection within the Franciscan religious
life. After a defence of the religious life and its merits, the booklet
expounds on the obligations and tasks of those who have chosen to
follow the path of perfection, and want to engage in spiritual battle
by negating the self, reflecting on death and the afterlife, foregoing
the securities of the world for a total trust in God, and commemorating
Christ and his passion.91 In his Quadriga Spirituale, Niccolò cast his nets
wider. As its name already suggests, this handbook for well-meaning
Christians, first issued in 1442 and repeatedly reprinted thereafter,
gives the faithful elementary instruction, in four parts, on the prop-
erties of faith, the works of charity, the confession of sins, and
efficacious methods of prayer.92 It would seem that a comparable
implied audience was envisaged for Niccolò’s less-successful Compendium
Salutatis.93
The Franciscan Observant preacher Antonio da Vercelli (ca. 1410–
1483) from Milan, known for his preaching at Orvieto (1460) and
Florence (1464), also wrote with the (urban) laity in mind. Aside
from model sermons and exempla, Antonio produced a Tractato utile
e salutifero degli consigli de la salute dello peccatore shortly before 1470.
Based on sermons held in 1466 at Borgo San Sepolcro, this treatise
consists of 13 evangelical councils for ordinary Christians in search
of salvation. The work received its first imprint by 1470, to be fol-
lowed by at least one other edition in 1492.94
91
For a general introduction to Niccolo da Osimo, see U. Picciafuoco, Fr. Nicolò
da Osimo, vita, opere, spiritualità (Monteprandone, 1980); Pierre Péano, ‘Nicolas d’Osimo’,
DSpir XI, 293–295; R. Avesani, ‘Cultura e istanze pastorali nella biblioteca di san
Giacomo della Marca’, in: San Giacomo della Marca nell’Europa del ’400, ed. S. Bracci
(Padua, 1997), 398–399; Gianfranco Berbenni, ‘Niccolò di Osimo (1370–1453)’, in:
Mistici francescani, III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 763–768.
92
Quadriga Spirituale (Iesi, 1475). For these and later editions, see Hain, Repertorium
Bibliographicum, nos. 2173–2175. The work has also come down to us in various
manuscripts: a.o. MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale XII.F.15 & XII.F.20 (see
Bonaventurianum, VII–VIII (Grottaferrata, 1971) II, 1093); Bergamo, Biblioteca
Comunale Angelo Mai MA 497 (an. 1445/6); Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek IV
513; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 3290 (an. 1447).
93
See MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.F.34 ff. 40v–44v; Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale XII.F.23 ff. 75r–85v.
94
Tractato utile e salutifero degli consigli de la salute dello peccatore/Consegli della salute del
The much-battered Conventuals did not leave the production of

spiritual guides totally in Observant hands. Hence, the Conventual
theologian Melchior Frizzolo da Parma (d. 1520), regent master at
the Franciscan studium of San Francisco al Prato in Parma (1470),
and for a short while provincial minister of the Bologna province
(1506–1508), wrote a catechistic handbook with additional doctrinal
teachings for Lodovico Maria Sforza (Duke of Milan), in the 1490s.
This work, the Dialogi de Anima, was repeatedly printed after 1499.95
More renowned are the spiritual works of Matteo Silvaggi, a friar
from a later generation, who had entered the order in Sicily, but
could be found as a lector in the custodial and provincial school
network all over the Italian peninsula in the 1530s and the 1540s.
Matteo was a reputed teacher of Aristotelian philosophy, and also
taught history and exegesis. Most accessible, however, were his works
of spiritual edification that came off the printing press at Palermo
and Venice between 1536 and 1542, such as his Modo di vivere secondo
la divina volontà,96 his De Nuptiis Animae cum Christo eius Sponso,97 the
Labyrinthi Duo de Mundano et Divino Amore, printed together with the
Apotheca Divini Amoris,98 and his rather peculiar Colloquia Trium Peregri-
norum.99 Among these, the De Nuptiis Animae cum Christo eius Sponso
peccatore (s.l., 1470/Modena: Domenico Roccociola (Rochozola), July 1492). See

Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke II, 505 (no. 2256–2257); R. Pratesi, ‘Antonio da Vercelli’,
DBI III (1961), 580–581.
95
Dialogi de Anima: MSS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Magl. XXXIV.50; Reggio
Emilia, Biblioteca Comunale Mss vari B. 113; Dialogi de Anima (Milan: Leonardo
Pachel, 1499). Cf. Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 246; C. Piana, Ricerche su le università di
Bologna e di Parma nel secolo XV, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, I (Quaracchi, 1963),
327–8.
96
Modo di vivere secondo la divina volontà/Disciplina Salutis (Palermo, 1536).
97
Opus Praeclarum et satis Utillissimum in Quatuor Libris Divisum/De Nuptiis Animae cum
Christo eius Sponso (Venice, 1542).
98
Labyrinthi Duo de Mundano et Divino Amore cum suis exordiis, differentiis et fructibus,
cumque suis semitis rite ordinatis usque ad centrales, ut vocant, terminos, vel inferni, vel felici-
tatis aeternae & Apotheca Divini Amoris seu de Apotheca Viridarii Labyrinthi quae est Sanctissima
Crux, ubi venditur Amor Dei (Venice, 1542).
99
Liber de Tribus Peregrinis seu Colloquia Trium Peregrinorum (Venice, 1542). This volu-
minous work deals with a large number of theological, exegetical and historical
issues. It discusses the divine perfections, the religious philosophy of saints, the ori-
gin and nature of the various languages, the various parts of the world and their
history (not unlike the Mappa Mundi tradition and reminiscent of the historical works
by the early fourteenth-century Franciscan Paulino da Venezia), the various peo-
ples of the world, the greatness of Rome and Jerusalem, and the meaning of sev-
eral biblical texts. Two of its parts are sometimes referred to as separate works,
namely the Chronicon Rerum Sicilarum usque ad Adventum Caroli V Imperatorem in Siciliam
418 chapter seven
probably was the most conventual and successful, teaching in eleven

chapters (divided over four books) how the individual soul could aim
to strive for a proper spiritual wedding with Christ.100
Contemporary with the texts of Matteo Silvaggi are the first
Capuchin texts that transgress the boundaries of basic catechism and
confession. Probably, the important among these are the various
Dialogi, seven in all, produced by the Capuchin general vicar Bernardino
Ochino. These spiritual dialogues, issued between 1536 and 1542,
are renderings of conversations between Bernardino and a group of
esteemed spiritual friends (the Duchess of Camerino (Catarina Cybo),
Vittoria Colonna, Pietro Martyro Vermigli, and others). Bernardino’s
first dialogue sets the tone, by indicating that the growth of divine
love in the human soul should be cultivated by regarding the created
world as a ladder towards the Divine, and by a proper diet of devo-
tional and hagiographical texts that support the contemplation of
Christ’s virtues, His perfections, and especially His passion, which is
the golden road towards a proper love of God. The other dialogues
continue to explore the theme of the love of God in the human
soul. This love will lead to penitence, proper happiness, self-control
and self-knowledge, and eventually to a life as a devout servant of
God in conformity with the evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty
and chastity.101
(pp. 46v–79v, dealing with the history of Sicily and related issues covering the
period from 624 to 1537), and the Expositio XIV Priorum Versuum Capitis I Evangelii
S. Ioannis (pp. 142v–147v).
100
The titles of the main chapters are 1.) De nuptiis animae cum Cristo eius
Sponso; 2.) De conviviis spiritualibus omnique apparatu; 3.) De persuasionibus falsis
Sathanae per epistolas diversisque tentationibus; 4.) De casu animae in peccatum;
5.) De lamentationibus Hieremiae cum declarationibus earumdem et oratione pro
spoliatione bonorum ipsius; 6.) De fletu animae et sua conversione; 7.) De gratia
et remediis peccatorum a Deo datis et de indumentis novis restitutis; 8.) De regimine
post conversionem; 9.) De preparatione ad mortem; 10.) De electione Dei et hominum
et praedestinatione sanctorum; 11.) Dialogus inter rempublicam et philosophum.
The seventh chapter (De gratia et remediis peccatorum) sometimes is designated a
separate work. For more information, see: S. da Campagnola, ‘Ranuccio I Farnese
(1569–1622). Fondatore della Biblioteca dei Cappuccini di Fontevivo (Parma)’, CF
38 (1968), 308–363 (357); A. Mongitore, Bibliotheca Sicula (Palermo, 1714) II, 60–61;
Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 232–233; G.M. Mira, Bibliografia Siciliana (Palermo, 1881)
II, 367–368; A. Teetaert, ‘Solvaggi Matthieu’, DThC XIV/2, 2064–2065; Clément
Schmitt, ‘Silvaggi (Matthieu)’, DSpir XIV, 860–861.
101
Dialogo in che modo la persona debbia reggere bene se stessa (Naples, 1536); Dialoghi
quattro del R. Fr. Bernardino da Siena detto il Scapuzzino, ove si contengono del Ladrone in
croce qual salvossi, del pentirsi presto, del peregrinaggio per andare al Paradiso, della divina pro-
fessione con un spirituale testamento (Venice: Niccolò Aristotile detto Il Zoppino, 1540).
Ochino’s defection to the Calvinist camp almost brought the new

Capuchin order to its knees. It was only with great difficulty that
total suppression was averted. Yet the Capuchins were temporarily
forbidden to engage in pastoral work. In this context of suspicion
and imminent spiritual crisis, it was not surprising that Capuchin
authors retreated into self-examination for a while, with the help of
more contemplative genres of religious writing.102
These two works were combined in the Dialoghi Sette del reverendo Padre frate Bernardino
Occhino Senese Generale de’ frati Capuzzini, dove si contiene: Nel primo dell’Innamorarsi di Dio,
nel secondo il modo di diventar felice, nel terzo di conoscer se stesso, nel quarto del latrone buono,
nel quinto del pelegrinaggio per andar al paradiso, nel sesto de la disputa di Christo con l’an-
ima, nel settimo et ultimo della divina professione con un spirituale testamento (Venice: Niccolò
Aristotile detto Il Zoppino, 1540 & 1542). The 1542 edition was reprinted by
K. Benrath in the fifth volume of the series Biblioteca della Riforma Italiana (Rome-
Florence, 1884). A new and critical edition of these texts appeared as: Bernardino
Ochino, I ‘Dialogi sette’ e altri scritti del tempo della fuga, ed. Ugo Rozzo (Turin, 1985).
The work (a corrected version of the 1542 edition) has also been included in I fratri
cappuccini III, testo VI (pp. 445–529) & sez. II, doc. 2. See also: B. Nicolini, ‘D’una
sconosciuta edizione di un dialogo dell’Ochino’, in: Idem, Ideali e passioni nell’Italia
religiosa del Cinquecento (Bologna, 1962), 143–146; R. Belladonna, ‘Bernardino Ochino’s
Fourth Dialogue (‘Dialogo del Ladrone in Croce’) and Ubertino da Casale’s “Arbor
vitae”: adaptation and ambiguity’, Bibliothèque de l’Humanisme et de la Renaissance 47
(1985), 125–165; Idem, ‘Motivi umanistici e ascetismo medievale nel Dialogo quarto
di Bernardino Ochino’, in: Validità perenne dell’umanesimo. Atti dei Convegni internazionali
del Centro di studi umanistici ‘Angelo Poliziano’, ed. G. Tarugi (Florence, 1986), 21–33.
102
It has been argued that the circulation of the Circolo dell’Amore Divino of Francesco
Ripanti da Jesi (d. 1549) should be seen in this light. Francesco had been made
general commissioner after Ochino’s flight to Zürich and Geneva in 1542. His
Circolo dell’Amore Divino, which first appeared around 1539 and develops an inward-
looking programme of spiritual reform, based on the conviction that a true renovation
of the Franciscan order and the Church at large has to be based on an illumina-
tion of the individual soul through contemplative experiences, was perfectly suited
to help the battered Capuchins to recover and resume their spiritual mission within
the Church. For a modern edition, see I fratri cappuccini III/1, testo III (pp. 46–47,
265–296). There are close links between the Circolo and the Dyalogo dell’unione spiri-
tuale de Dio con l’anima by the Observant friar Bartolomeo Cordoni, which had been
printed in Milan, in 1539 (thanks to the editorial labours of Girolamo da Molfetta),
and prior to that in Perugia, in 1538, due to the labours of Ilarione Pichi. As a
matter of fact, the Circolo can be found in Molfetta’s 1539 edition of Cordoni’s
Dyalogo dell’unione spirituale. Francesco apparently taught his method of contempla-
tion to Capuchin communities during his visitation trips as the order’s general com-
missioner. See: Lexicon Capuccinum (Rome, 1951), 626; I fratri cappuccini III, 265–266:
‘I discorsi del Ripanti vertevano tutti sull’amor di Dio, sull’abnegazione interiore e
totale povertà spirituale e sulla Regola francescana vista come finalizzata alla vita
contemplativa. Questo metodo di preghiera, elaborato con suggestiva originalità, è
un modo per apprendere l’atto d’amore perfetto che è lo scopo finale della vita
cristiana e religiosa. Ha per oggetto assoluto e totale Gesú Cristo considerato nella
sua divinità e umanità e contemplato nel segno della croce in quanto si comunica
a noi.’
420 chapter seven
In the German provinces, and particularly that part of the Cologne

province that roughly corresponds with the territories of the Southern
and Northern Low Countries, the upswing in catechistic literature
in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth century likewise went hand
in hand with more encompassing works of spiritual edification. Again,
a number of these had outright mystical objectives. A case in point
is the famous Spiegel der Volcomenheit by Hendrik Herp (d. 1477), the
origin and intricate reception history of which easily would fill a vol-
ume of its own.103
103
A precursor to the Spieghel has survived under the title Edenuym seu Eden
Contemplativum, which is still rather dependent on Willem Jordaens’ De mystieke mond-
kus, and can be found in MSS Cologne, Historisches Archiv cod. W° 8° 13x; Brussels,
Koninklijke Bibliotheek 21503–21504; Trier, Stadtbibliothek 281 ff. 41–160; Trier,
Stadtbibliothek 344 ff. 40–176. Cf. L. Moereels, ‘Jordaens en Herp. Een belangrijke
ontdekking’, OGE 48 (1974), 129–142. The Spieghel der Volcomenheit proper, originally
written in Dutch for a ‘spiritual daughter’, which drew on the Mirror of Simple Souls
by Margherite Porete and on a range of other late medieval mystical authors, con-
sists of four principal parts: ‘De XII stervingen’ (12 chapters); ‘Dat werkende leven’
(12 chapters); ‘Het scouwende leven’ (32 chapters); ‘Dat overweselic scouwende
leven’ (8 chapters). Aside from its presence in a large number of Dutch, German
and Latin manuscripts, the Spieghel der Volcomenheit can also be found in print: not
only in Dutch (Spiegel der Volcomenheit (Mainz: P. Schoeffer, ca. 1475); Dits die groote
en nieuwe spiegel der volcomenheit (Antwerp: Vid. Roelants van den Dorpe, May 1501)
etc.) and German, but also in Latin (a.o. in the translation by the Carthusian monk
Petrus Blomevenna from Leyden, printed as the Directorium Aureum Contemplativorum
(Cologne: J. Landen, 1509 & Cologne: J. Landen, 1513 (revised edition)/Antwerp.
1516)), Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese. A Latin collection containing the
Spieghel and related mystical works by Herp repeatedly appeared from the 1530s
onwards as the Theologiae Mysticae. A modern critical edition of the Dutch version
apeared as: Spieghel der Volcomenheit, ed. P.L. Verschueren, 2 Vols., Tekstuitgaven van
OGE, I & II (Antwerp, 1931). For the manuscript transmission and an overview of
the many editions and abbreviations in Latin and in the various European ver-
naculars, see: P.L. Verschueren, ‘De latijnse edities der “Theologia mystica”’, OGE
3 (1929), 5–21; Idem, ‘Herp-uitgaven in Frankrijk’, OGE 4 (1930), 183–195; Idem,
‘Leven en werken van Hendrik Herp’, Collectanea Neerlandica Franciscana 2 (1931),
345–393; P.D. Kalverkamp, Die Vollkommenheitslehre des Franziskaners H. Herp (d. 1477),
Franziskanische Forschungen, 6 (Werl, 1940); Kurt Ruh & J. Orcibal, in: Dr. Leonie
Reypens-Album (Antwerp, 1964), 371–375 & 257–268; St. Axters, ‘Nederlandse Mystieken
in het buitenland’, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en letterkunde. Verslagen en
Mededelingen 1965/5–8 (1965), 287–290; Etta Gullick & Optat de Veghel, ‘Herp
(Henri de; Harpius)’, DSpir VII, 346–366; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliografia Franciscana neer-
landica Saeculi XVI, II, no. 212–244; R. Lievens, ‘Hendrik Herps Eden in het
Middelnederlands’, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal en Letterkunde, 89 (1973), 1–11; De
Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica, ante Saeculum XVI I, 108–123 & II,
76–82; Mees, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Ante Saeculum XVI, Incunabula II
76, no. 57–63 & III 93–104; L. Moereels & H. Jordaens, OGE 48 (1974), 129–142,
225–252; Benjamin De Troeyer, ‘Herp, Hendrik’, VL2 III, 1127–1135; Georgette
Epiney-Burgard, ‘Henri Herp: de la dévotion moderne à l’observance franciscaine’,
Dietrich Colde (1435–1515), whose Christenspiegel and sermon-like

texts have been mentioned in the chapters on catechisms and Francis-
can preaching, produced several additional works of spiritual edification
for the laity. Some of these texts, such as the Die doernen Crone onses
heren Ihesu Cristi and Een corte oefeninghe vander Passien ons heeren Ihesu
Cristi are outright passion devotion treatises, as we will see later on.
Others constitute complementary exercises to his catechistic oeuvre.
In this light should be seen his ‘Handful of wisdom’ (Een hant vol
wysheyden),104 which reaches back to Der geistliche Hand of David von
Augsburg. It proposes guidelines for all occasions concerning religious
prayers, devotional acts, confession and the reception of the host, as
well as lessons in strengthening the virtues (Eene sonderlinge lesse om in
alle duechden toe te nemen),105 exercises for bolstering interior man
(Boechelgen van ynwendiger oeffnungen), and preparations for death (Das
Testament Eynes Waren Cristen Mynschen). The last two of these were
included in some of the late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century
editions of the Christenspieghel.106
Publications du Centre européen d’études bourguignonnes (XIV e–XVI e s.) 29 (1989), 89–96;
Jean Orcibal, ‘Les traductions du ‘Spieghel’ de Henri Herp en italien, portugais et
espagnol’, in: Idem, Études d’histoire et de littérature religieuses (XVI e–XVIII e siècles) (Paris,
1997), 661–672; Leonhard Lehmann & Gilberto Aquino, ‘Enrico Erp (d. 1477)’,
in: Mistici Francescani, III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 217–449; Kristina Freienhagen-
Baumgardt, Hendrik Herps ‘Spieghel der Volcomenheit’ in oberdeutscher Überlieferung. Ein
Beitrag zur Rezeptionsgeschichte niederländischer Mystik im oberdeutschen Raum, Miscellanea
Neerlandica, 17 (Louvain, 1998). On Adrianus van Mechelen’s 1552 Dutch rework-
ing of the Spieghel, which was published as the Spiegel der Volmaectheyt, see B. De
Troeyer, ‘Adriaan van Mechelen’, Franciscana 17 (1963), 3–7; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia
Franciscana Neerlandica Saec. XVI I, 188–191.
104
See for instance MS Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 15003–15048 ff. 364
(no. 43, 16th cent.). It would seem that it also survived in Latin, as the Doctrina
Salutifera. For modern editions, see: Een hant vol wysheyden, ed. Schlager (1907), 21–24
& ed. M. Verjans, OGE 7 (1933), 351–355.
105
Eene sonderlinge lesse om in alle duechden toe te nemen, edited in the anonymous
Wyngaert van Sinte Franciscus (Antwerp: Eckert van Homberch, 1518), f. 382. This
latter compilation, the product of an anonymous Franciscan, brings together in three
books and 856 pages the major hagiographical and legendary texts concerning
Francesco d’Assisi, his early followers, and the major saints of the order, using the
De Tribus Sociis, the Speculum Perfectionis, the Actus Beati Francisci, the Opuscula Beati
Francisci, the Liber de Conformitate, and related texts. See Bonaventura Kruitwagen,
‘Den Wijngaert van Sinte Franciscus’, Neerlandica Franciscana (1914), 43–72, 135–155;
Schmitz, Het aandeel der minderbroeders in onze Middeleeuwse Literatuur, 61–63; De Troeyer,
Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 43–46. The kernel of Dietrich’s
Eene sonderlinge lesse included in this large compilation is that man: ‘immer mit herz-
lichem Begehren verlangen soll, Gott zu gefallen, ihm treu zu dienen und mit ihm
ewig zu regieren.’
106
Boechelgen van ynwendiger oeffnungen, partial edition in: Der Kerstenen Spiegel (Cologne:
422 chapter seven
As I have said earlier, the sheer success of Dietrich Colde’s works

might have saturated the market for Franciscan catechistic initiatives
in the Low Countries for a while. This seems to be true for additional
edificatory works as well. It was a new generation of early sixteenth-
century friars that pursued these edificatory objectives with renewed
vigour. The first of these, the humanist Observant friar Martinus
van Gouda, guardian of the convents of Amsterdam (ca. 1510) and
Delft (1521), in 1521 published a devout booklet for all those who
wanted to obviate purgatory (Devoet Boexken voor alle Devote Personen die
gaerne sonder vegevier ten hemel comen souden). It is filled with devotional
exercises, stations of the cross and prayers (many of which meant to
be performed in the churches of Franciscan Observant convents)
with which believers could earn special indulgences. It gives a reveal-
ing insight into the pastoral practices frowned upon by Erasmians
and Lutheran reformers.107
Ludolf Nicolai from Zwolle (d. 1541), vicar at Kampen (1530) and
Brussels (1540), not only produced a set of works on the meaning
of and proper approach to the Mass and the Eucharist, but also
wrote a set of three additional texts with spiritual exercises aiming
at teaching lay believers an ‘authentic’ and ‘truthful’ way to serve
God, viz. the ‘Exercise and explanation of divine love’ (Oeffeninghe
ende verclaringhe van dat eerste en alder opperste ghebot der liefden Gods), the
‘Devout exercise showing how to serve God’ (Devote oeffeninge ende een
rechte conste omme God te dienen), and a ‘Treatise on the four works of
love performed by Christ on the cross’ (Een tractaetken van vier wercken
Johann Kolhoff, 1489). This provides three devotional exercises for each day of the
week. See also MS Brno (Brünn), Universitätsbibliothek 69 ff. 383r–419r (late
fifteenth cent., inserted in a book of hours); Das Testament Eynes Waren Cristen Mynschen
(Lübeck, before 1491?/Lübeck, 1492/ etc.). A modern edition can be found in Der
Christenspiegel, ed. Drees, 367–372. The latter work wants to help the reader to pre-
pare him- or herself for approaching death on a daily basis. Following the idea
that every person should make his spiritual testament in time, Das Testament argues
that the believer should testify that he or she wants to die in the faith, while being
prepared to confess all sins and willing to fulfill the appropriate penance and to
take the appropriate recompensation measures. This whole religious teaching is
grouped around parables in which Christ and the saints are central.
107
Devoet Boexken voor alle Devote Personen die gaerne sonder vegevier ten hemel comen souden
(Delft: Cornelis Henricz. Lettersnijder, ca. 1521). See M. Verjans, ‘De heilige
Kruisgang van Martinus van Gouda O.F.M.’, OGE 5 (1931), 499–502; Schmitz,
Het aandeel der Minderbroeders in onze Middeleeuwse Literatuur, 73; D. van Heel, ‘Pater
Martijn van der Goude’, De Minderbroeders te Gouda 1 (Gouda, 1947), 78–79; De
Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 19–23.
der liefden dye Christus aent cruyce volbracht heeft). In all these works the
emphasis is on the importance of loving God, the suffering Christ,
and one’s fellow Christians, and of pondering the significance of
Christ’s work of redemption (for the Versoeninghe van die heel werelt,
gesontmakinge van alle geestelike crancheden, Heilichmakinghe van die heel ker-
sten kercke, and a Versadinghe van alle goddelijcker begheerten), which friar
Ludolf presented as a gift of divine love to mankind.108
Ludolf ’s colleague Jan van Alen (d. 1541), confessor of the Poor
Clares at Mechelen (Malines, 1535) and Antwerp (1538), received
recognition for his Dutch reworking (at the request of friar Matthias
Weynssen) of the fourteenth-century Latin Contemplationes Idiotae (a
work ascribed to the Augustinian regular canon Raymond Jordanus,
and republished with stylistic corrections by the religious humanist
Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples). Jan van Alen’s Dutch reworking, entitled
Contemplationes in duytsche, mainly follows its Latin example: It offers
six ‘books’ or lessons on divine love, the Virgin Mary, religious
patience, the struggle between the flesh and the soul, the loss and
retrieval of spiritual innocence, and the proper way to undergo a
Christian death. At the end of the work, Jan van Alen exchanges
the biography of Christ found in his Latin example for an evoca-
tive passion meditation, which relies heavily on the contemporary
Franciscan Fasciculus Mirre (see below).109
108
Dit is een oeffeninghe ende verclaringhe van dat eerste en alder opperste ghebot der liefden
Gods (waer toe alle kersten menschen die tot haren jaren van discretien, oft tot volcomen gebruyck
der reden ghecomen zijn verbonden zijn somtiden metten wercken te volbrenghen). Het is ghemaect
eerst in latijn ende na in duytsche vanden eerweerdighen pater, broeder Ludolphus Nicolai van
zwol (Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman, before 1540); Een tractaetken van vier wercken der
liefden dye Christus aent cruyce volbracht heeft daer hem oock een kersten mensche dicwil in sal
oeffenen bisonder onder die misse ghemaect ende ghepreect vanden selven Pater Ludolphus vice-gar-
diaen van de minderbroederen van Brussele (Antwerp: Weduwe van Hendrik Petersen, 4
April, 1551/Antwerp: Weduwe van Hendrik Petersen, 24 April, 1554/Louvain: Jan
Bogaerts, 1568); Een devote oeffeninge ende een rechte conste omme God te dienen om door een
oprecht kersten leven te comen tot een salich sterven (Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman, after 31
October, 1530/Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman, ca. 1535). See Schmitz, Het aandeel der
minderbroeders in onze Middeleeuwse Literatuur, 75–76, 90–91; D. van Heel, ‘Het minder-
broedersklooster te Kampen’, Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis van de Provincie der Minderbroeders
in de Nederlanden 1 (1947), 213, 217–219; J. Nouwens, De veelvuldige H. Communie in
de geestelijke literatuur der Nederlanden vanaf het midden van de 16e eeuw (Bilthoven-Antwerpen,
1952), 18–20; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I,
118–121.
109
Contemplationes idiote in duytsche (Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman, s.a., probably late
1535/Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman, s.a., ca. 1536; Antwerp: Willem Vorsterman,
s.a., ca. 1538/Antwerp: Marten Huyssens, 1607). Cf. M. Verjans, ‘Rond het Fasciculus
424 chapter seven
Even more so than Nicolai’s texts, the spiritual exercises of Cornelis

Raven from Naarden near Amsterdam (d. 1548) emphasise the impor-
tance of charity as a resultant of and as a necessary response to
God’s unsurpassing love. This is most clearly expressed in Cornelis
Raven’s ‘Garden of love’ (Minnengaerd ), which presents divine love
as a tree that has to be planted, cared for, and the fruits of which
may be harvested.110 Yet the same theme keeps cropping up in sev-
eral of his other texts, nearly all of which can be found in manu-
scripts kept at the Plantijn Museum and the University Library of
Antwerp.111 The more outright catechistic works of two other Observant
friars from this generation, namely Franciscus Vervoort (d. 1555) and
Mirre’, OGE 7 (1933), 352–356; Schmitz, Het aandeel der minderbroeders in onze Middeleeuwse
Literatuur, 72–73; A. Houbaert, ‘Jan van Alen’, Franciscana 7 (1952), 17–20; B. De
Troeyer, ‘Jan van Alen’, Franciscana 21 (1966); Idem, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana
Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 123–128.
110
The prologue of the work says: ‘Ende wy zijn ghegaen inden boomgaert des
warachtigen Salomons, ende hebben daer uut ghehaelt desen eedelen noetdruftighen
boem des Charitaets, tot prophijt van allen ghelovighen menschen, beyde gheestelijck
ende waerlijck daer si of plucken moeghen die vruchten des salicheyts, met hulpe
der gracien Gods. Ende op dat si dit wel ende gherechtelijck sullen doen met alder
bequamheyt, soe is haer hier beduyt die warachtige Charitaet, beyde by figuer ende
schriftuer. Ende om dit wel te verstaen soe is dit boecxken ghedeelt in drie dee-
len. Inden eersten deel wert verclaert hoe dat hem een mensche tot deser Charitaet
bereyden sal. Ende hoe dat men desen Boem planten sal. Ende dit gaet an die
beghinnende menschen. Inden tweeden deel des boecx wert verclaert hoe hem een
mensche onder desen boem gheneren sal ende wat desen Boem is. End dit gaet
aen die voertgaende menschen. Inden derden deel des boecxs wert verclaert die
graden telgen ende vruchten des boems, ende hoe datmen die op climmen sal, om
die vruchten te plucken. Ende dit gaet aen die volmaecte menschen.’ Een seer schoen
devoet Boecxken gheheten der Minnengaerdt, daer ons in verclaert wert, die warachtighe duecht des
Charitaets oft der Liefden, wiens kennisse allen kersten menschen van noede is te weten, op dat
hy by valsche liefde niet bedroghen en werde, overmits datmen sonder die Charitaet ofte liefden
niet salich en mach werden (Amsterdam: Willem Jacobszoon, 1548/Amsterdam: Willem
Jacobszoon, ca. 1549). See W. Lampen, ‘Franciscaanse handschriften in Nederland’,
Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis van de Provincie der Minderbroeders in de Nederlanden 21 (1955),
421; B. De Troeyer, ‘Cornelis Raven van Naarden’, Franciscana 19 (1964), 1–12;
Idem, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 180–187.
111
See MSS Antwerp, Museum Plantijn-Moretus 8–334 (containing Der Minnengaerdt
on ff. 1–65v, the poem O Minnende ziel on f. 65v, the sermon Niemant en mach twee
heeren dienen on ff. 66r–99r, the Exempel van een goede maghet Machtelt hielt on ff. 99v–100r,
and Een schon suverlick ghebet on ff. 100r–101v); Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek Acc.
1353 (containing Een corte oefeninghe om te comen tot die liefde gods, on ff. 1r–4r, the ser-
mon Niemant en mach twee heeren dienen on ff. 5r–47r, Van een vrouken van XXIJ jaren
on ff. 47v–51r, In die verissenisse sullen wij wesen als enghelen, mathei xxij, 30 on ff.
51v–66r, and Die den menschen leert sonder mont on ff. 67r–71r (in fact a letter of spir-
itual guidance with advice on a proper inner life, confession and the daily exami-
nation of one’s conscience)).
Frans van Zichem (d. ca. 1559), have been touched upon in an ear-
lier chapter. The latter of these two, friar Frans van Zichem from
Brabant, was also involved in the production of outright passion
devotion treatises, as we will see later on.
At first sight, the harvest from other provinces in the German
lands during this period might seem less impressive. Yet we have
seen in Chapter I that these provinces abounded with homiletic prac-
titioners eager to present the fruit of their religious teachings in writ-
ing. In addition to these, I should also mention the spiritual works
of the Observant friar Kaspar Schatzgeyer (1464–1527) and the
Erasmian and anti-Lutheran satirist Thomas Murner (1475–1537) at
this point.
In between his sermons and polemical writings directed at the
Conventuals, the Coletans and the Lutherans, the Observant friar,
lector and provincial minister Kaspar Schatzgeyer, active in Bavaria
and the Upper Germany province, wrote an interesting Formula Vitae
Christianae at the turn of the century. This work, dedicated to the
abbot Heinrich Kunzer of the Tegernsee monastery, in 33 spiritual
instructions sketches how industrious Christians may aspire to a vir-
tuous life. For Schatzgeyer, the penitential and prayer exercises, so
prominent in the religious life of monks and friars, are only the sec-
ondary means to the end of spiritual perfection. Charity is by far
the most important tool, both as a genuine expression of Christian
love towards others and as a reflection of God’s inspiring love that
guides human actions and thoughts as soon as man opens his heart
to His commands. As a possible counterpart to this work, Schatzgeyer
wrote a more elevated guide on the contemplative life (De Perfecta
atque Contemplativa Vita). Language and literary form suggest that both
of these works first and foremost aimed at a well-educated audience
of religious people, scholars and urban professionals, and sought to
counterbalance the increasing criticism of Catholic devotional prac-
tices voiced by humanists of Erasmus’ generation.112
112
The first printed edition of the Formula Vitae Christianae apparently dates from
1534 (Antwerp). Both the Formula and De Perfecta atque Contemplativa Vita can be found
in Kaspar Schatzgeyer, Opera Omnia, ed. Johann Bachmann OFM (Ingolstadt:
Alexander Weisseborn, 1543). For information concerning Schatzgeyer’s theological
and ecclesiological positions, see the literature mentioned in my chapter on preach-
ing. On his spirituality, see especially Clément Schmitt, ‘Schatzgeyer (Gaspard)’,
DSpir. XIV, 403–404.
426 chapter seven
The Conventual friar Thomas Mürner from Obernehnheim in the

Alsace, whose studies and impressive teaching career resulted in a
sojourn at many different Franciscan studia in the Rhineland, Austria,
Poland and Bohemia, from ca. 1520 onwards was almost continually
engaged in polemics with Lutheran and Zwinglian protestants. Partly
through the process of these struggles with religious opponents, and
partly as a result of his popular concept of religious education
grounded in the didactics of his homiletic praxis, Thomas evolved
into a formidable satirist in the tradition of Sebastian Brant and
Erasmus. His texts combine popular satire with religious education
in a way that some scholars have deemed to characterise as ‘typical
Franciscan’: placing Mürner in a Minorite tradition that was supposed
to have started with Francesco d’Assisi and Jacopone da Todi and
eventually was to lead to the satirical novels of the Franciscan apos-
tate and humanist François Rabelais.113
Leaving his vitriolic anti-Protestant works aside, Thomas Mürner’s
most important edificatory works are the Narrenbeschwörung, Der Schelmen
Zunfft, Die Mühle von Schwyndelszheim and Die Gäuchmat zu Straff allen
wybschen Mannen.114 The last stands out as a provocative work of reli-
113
Cf. a.o. Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen’, 327; Étienne Gilson, ‘Rabelais
Franciscain’, in: Idem, De la Bible à François Villon—Rabelais Franciscain, Librairie
Philosopique J. Vrin (Paris, 1986).
114
Narrenbeschwörung (a.o. Strasbourg, 1512); Der Schelmen zunfft. Anzeigung alles
weltleuffigen mutwils, Schalckheiten und bieberyen diser zeyt, Durch den hochgelerten herren doc-
tor Thomas murner von Straszburg, schimpfflichen erdichtet und zu Franckfurt an dem meyn mit
ernstlichem fürnemen gepredigt (Frankfurt: Batt Murner, 1512/Strasbourg, 1512/Augsburg,
1513/etc.); Die Gäuchmat zu straff allen wybschen mannen durch den hochgelehrten herren
Thomas Murner, der heiligen geschrifft doctor barfüsser orden zu Straszburg, erdichtet unnd eyner
frummen gemein der löblichen statt Basel in freyden zu eyner letz beschriben und verlassen (Basel,
1519). This work saw a renewed edition as: Thomas Murner, Die Gäuchmatt, ed.
W. Uhl (Leipzig, 1896); Die Mühle von Schwyndelszheim und Grede Müllerin Jarzeit
(Strasbourg: Matthis Hupfuff, 1515). A new edition, by P. Albrecht, came out in
Straßburger Studien. Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Sprache und Literatur des Elsasses 2 (1884).
New editions of the Narrenbeschwörung and Der Schelmen Zunft can be found in the
series Neudrucken deutscher Literaturwerke des 16. Und 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. M. Spanien
(Halle, 1894) (Narrenbeschwörung) & 1912 (Schelmenzunft)). The majority of these
works can also be found in Thomas Murners Deutsche Schriften, ed. F. Schultz, 9 Vols.
(Strasbourg, 1918–1931). For a survey of further editions and additional information,
see Th. von Liebenau, Der Franziskaner Thomas Mürner (Freiburg, 1913); Landmann,
‘Zum Predigtwesen’, 324–325, note 102 & 103; LThK VII2, 540–541; Ausstattungskatalog
Thomas Mürner, Elsässischer Theologe und Humanist, ed. Bad. Landesbibl. Karlsruhe-Bibl.
Nat. et Univ. Strasbourg (Karlsruhe, 1987); D.V.N. Bagchi, Luther’s Earliest Opponents
(Minneapolis, 1989); Deutsche Dichter der frühen Neuzeit, ed. S. Füssel (Berlin, 1993),
296–310; M. Lienhard, ‘La controverse entre Murner et Bucer au sujet de la Sainte
Cène’, Revue d’Alsace 122 (1996), 223–237; Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik III,
1192–1196.
gious instruction, intending to vex its readers into self-inspection, by

showing them a distorting mirror of themselves, so that in this inverted
way they would learn to appreciate important moral and religious
truths. In the eyes of the Strasbourg magistrates, the work was
offensive enough to forbid its publication, after which it appeared in
Basel. Less satirical is Mürner’s Ein andechtig geistliche Badenfart: an
intriguing poetic religious ‘bath’ that uses the simile of bathing in
order to discuss the cleansing of body and soul, so to become pure
in the eyes of Christ.115
Although the large Observant homiletic output and the dominance
of religious educators such as Olivier Maillard might suggest otherwise,
within the various French provinces, where the Observant-Conventual
divide was not as clear-cut as in Italy, the production of edificatory
texts was less an Observant prerogative than in some other parts of
Europe.
In the period that Henry de Beaume and Colette de Corbie were
busy building up their Colettine and Coletan reform ideals, both
Conventual and Observant authors left their mark with a series of
edificatory writings. An early example is the Speculum Finalis Retributionis
by Pierre Reginaldi. Pierre was a friar from the Tours region, who
received his doctorate in 1425 and only switched to the regular
Observance after his disappointment with the laxity around him
during a stint as custos of the Poitiers custody in the early 1430s.116
It is not exactly known when he produced his edificatory theologi-
cal Speculum, which describes the actions and lifestyles that lead either
to damnation or to eternal life. For several decades, this ‘mirror’
remained almost neglected, until its publication by the Dominican
friar Guillaume Totani around 1492, after which it proved a remark-
able success.117
115
Ein andechtig geistliche Badenfart des hochgelerten Herren Thomas Murner, der heiligen
geschrifft doctor barfüsser orden zu Straszburg, in dem bad erdicht, gelert und ungelerten nutzlich
zu bredigen und zu lesen (Strasbourg: Johannes Grüninger, 1514/second edition ibidem,
1518).
116
See MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 5657–A f. 16v; CHUP IV, 447;
Murphy, A History of the Franciscan Studium Generale at the University of Paris, 208–216
for information concerning Pierre’s academic career. In 1434, Pierre defended the
Observants at the Council of Basel. See on this Clément Schmitt, ‘La réforme de
l’Observance discutée au Concile de Bâle II: La réplique de Pierre Reginaldi’, AFH
84 (1991), 3–50.
117
I know of one manuscript containing the Speculum Finalis Retributionis/De Gaudiis
Piorum et Poenis Malorum, namely MS Prague, National Library 2370 (XIII G 3)
ff, 131a–253b. In contrast, there is a veritable plethora of incunable and early
428 chapter seven
Pierre de Grossis was a Conventual friar from a later generation.

He also graduated from Paris University (1450), and for the greater
part of his life remained active in the French province as an order
administrator (he apparently was ‘custos Campaniae’ in 1451) and
public preacher in towns like Abbéville (1454) and Amiens (1468).
Between 1461 and 1464, he wrote a manual of spiritual edification
for the French nobleman Yves du Fou, entitled Le Jardin des Nobles,
which has been said to point towards Erasmus’ Enchiridon Militis
Christiani, but which itself elaborates on the well-established traditions
of the Hortus Deliciarum genre. It presents the human soul as an
enclosed beautiful garden (Song of Songs 4, 12) that has to be tended
carefully, so that beautiful plants (the Christian virtues) may grow
and bear fruit.118
Jean Perrini de Neufchâteau from Lotharingen likewise graduated
as a master of theology at Paris (1467). Contrary to Pierre Reginaldi,
he remained firmly within the Conventual fold, defending the dispen-
sations and privileges granted to the Franciscan order in his Tractatus
per Modum Quaestionis Theologialis super Dispensatione Fratrum Minorum.119
Apparently, Jean Perrini did not compose edificatory works of his
own, but he compiled a set of Motivae Meditationes from Scripture and
from patristic sources. In addition, he reworked the famous Dieta
Salutis as well as Rodrigo de Zamora’s Speculum Humanae Vitae, in
order to make them more accessible to a French public, apparently
without much success.120
sixteenth-century editions: Speculum Finalis Retributionis (Lyons: Joannes Trechsel, 1492/

Lyons: Joannes Trechsel, 1494/Paris: Antoine Caillaut, 1494–1499/Paris: Stephan
Jehannot, 1495/Paris: Stephan Jehanot pro Claudio Jaumar, 1497/Venice: Jacobum
de Pentiis, 1498/Basel: Jacobus de Pfortzheim, 1499/Paris: Petrus Levet, 1499/Paris:
Petrus Le Dru, 1505/Paris: Gaspardus Philippe pro Joannes Petit, 1509/several
undated editions). See for more information on these editions, Murphy, A History
of the Franciscan Studium Generale, 212–215.
118
Le Jardin des Nobles: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS Français 193. See Antoine
de Sérent, ‘Les Frères Mineurs à l’Université de Paris’, LFF 1 (1912), 297–337;
Murphy, A History of the Franciscan Studium Generale, 216–219.
119
Tractatus per Modum Quaestionis Theologialis super Dispensatione Fratrum Minorum
(Lyons: Wolff, c. 1500/s.l. & s.a. ca. 1500). Cf. Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, no.
12710; Copinger, Supplement, no. 4693. This Tractatus was reprinted in the Speculum
Minorum, ed. Martin Morin (Rouen, 1509), III, ff. 135–146. For more information
on Jean’s life and works, see Wadding, Scriptores, 148; Sbaralea, Supplementum II,
114–115; Mariano di Firenze, Compendium Chronicarum, AFH 4 (1911), 331; Murphy,
A History of the Franciscan Studium Generale, 238.
120
The Quaedam motivae meditationes ex S. Scripturae et sanctorum sentenciis compilatae,
Le désert de dévotion, a work by friar Henri Caupin (fl. ca. 1500),

definitely had a greater impact. Of the author not much is known
except that he was active in the Abbéville convent. Le désert de dévotion
had reached the printing press by 1530. It aimed for the spiritual
edification of all people, by inflaming their hearts with the love of
God and an ‘appetite’ for the ‘biens eternelz’.121
By 1500 the Conventuals had become a minority in the French
provinces, having lost much ground to the Coletans and the advo-
cates of the regular Observance. This development found its apex
in the transfer of the grand couvent de Paris and its studium generale
to Coletan (1502) and finally to Observant hands (after 1517). No
wonder, then, that Conventual manuals of spiritual edification become
harder to find, and that the varied Observant production becomes
more visible. Besides the French Observant friars mentioned in other
contexts, I would like to draw attention here to three French Observant
authors, namely Jean Capet (fl. ca. 1500), Jean Glapion (ca. 1460–
1522), and François Lambert d’Avignon (1487–1530).
Jean Capet studied at the College de Navarra (Paris) and at
Boulogne-la-Grasse, acquiring a doctorate in law and in theology.
After joining the order, Jean became personal chaplain of cardinal
Raymond Perault (d. 1505). Due to Jean’s influence, cardinal Perault
sent several relics to the Franciscans of Koblenz, to the Poor Clares
of Beauvais, and to Jeanne de Valois (founder of the Annonciades).
Jean produced a short Traité de patience for the cardinal, which is
mentioned in a letter by Perault to Jeanne de Valois (written in Basel
on 30 June, 1504), but which seems not to have survived. What
did survive were a series of sermons, and a Voie briesve de paradis
(1498).122 There seems to be a lack of scholarly consensus about the
character of this work. Some Franciscan bibliographers have por-
trayed it as a treatise on indulgences. To me, it rather seems to be
the Dieta Salutis in Gallico and the Liber Roderici Zamorensis Speculum Humanae Vitae can
all be found in MS Metz, Bibliothèque Publique 148.
121
Le désert de dévotion qui est ung traité plaisant, utile et proufitable à toutes manières de
gens (Paris, c. 1530). Cf. H. Perennès, Dictionnaire de bibliographie (Paris, 1850) II, 139;
J.C. Brunet, Manuel du libraire, 5th edition (Paris, 1861) II, 623; A. Barbier, Dictionnaire
des ouvrages anonymes (Paris, 1882) I, 409; Matthieu Verjans, ‘Caupin (Henri)’, DSpir
II, 354.
122
La voir briesve de paradis contenante le pardon de paine et de coulpe, lequel se porra en
ceste vie plusieurs fois acquerre et à la mort et aussy pour les trespassés, contenant trois conclusions
théologicalles, composées en l’an de grâce 1498: MS Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque Municipale
414.
430 chapter seven
a treatment of the means necessary for religious perseverance, namely

a surrender of the self to the Divine will and a consistent partici-
pation in the sacraments, notably the sacrament of penance.123
Far more famous is Capet’s contemporary Jean Glapion, guardian
of the Observant Franciscan convent at Bruges, provincial minister
of the new Parisian order province (1519), and counsellor and con-
fessor of emperor Charles V (1520). Some of his other works, such
as sermons, order statutes and defences of the Observant cause are
referred to elsewhere in this volume.124 His most important text of
religious edification seems to have been the Passe-temps du Pèlerin de
Vie Humaine.125 It is both a doctrinal and a spiritual work, in that it
wants to harness the faithful against Luther’s new ideas by furnishing
them with adequate materials to build a meaningful Catholic life.
In short, the Passe-temps presents the seven days of the week as
stages in the journey of the Christian pilgrim: Friday is the station
of the fear of God (Du premier passetemps, nommé crainte de Dieu); Saturday
123
See Wadding, Annales Minorum, ad. an. 1331, no. 22; Sbaralea, Supplementum
(ed. Rome, 1806), 401; Catalogue général des Manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques des
départements (Paris, 1861) III, 193–194; Schlager, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kölnischen
Franziskaner-Ordens Provinz, 132; F. Delorme, LFF 10 (1927), 223–224; RHF 5 (1928),
306–307; E. Longpré, ‘Capet ( Jean)’, DSpir II, 117.
124
See Otto Lehnhoff, Die Beichtväter Karls V (Alfeld, 1932), 20–33; H. Lippens,
‘Jean Glapion défenseur de la réforme de l’Observance, conseiller de l’Empereur
Charles-Quint’, AFH 44 (1951), 3–70 & 45 (1952), 3–71; A. Godin, ‘La société au
xvi e siècle vue par J. Glapion, confesseur de Charles Quint’, Revue du Nord 46 ( July-
September 1964), 341–370; Idem, ‘Glapion ( Jean)’, DSpir VI, 419f.; De Troeyer,
Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 55–66; Dieter Berg, ‘Glapion’,
LThK 3 III, 662.
125
Le Passe-Temps du Pèlerin de vie humaine: MSS Saint-Omer, Bibl. Municipale 320;
Saint-Omer, Bibl. Municipale 410; Saint-Omer, Bibl. Municipale 428; Besançon
Bibl. Municipale 231 ff. 1–74v; Arras (Atrecht), Bibl. Municipale 379 [6?] ff. 1–51v;
Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale/Koninklijke Bibliotheek Réserve II 33261 (Dutch trans-
lation, made in Antwerp ca. 1540: ‘Een seer suyverlijc Tractaetken, gemaect by
Broeder Jan Glappion (. . .) Tie Tijtcortinghe der Pelgrimagien des menschelijken
levens’). There exist various sixteenth-century editions and translations, a.o. Passe-
Temps du Pèlerin de Vie Humaine (Antwerp, c. 1540); Een seer suyverlijc tractaetken (. . .)
ende is ghenaemt die tijtcortinghe der pelgrimagien des menschelijcken levens, ende is ghedeylt
in seven dachreysen allen kersten menschen nootlijck ende profijtelijck (Antwerpen: Jacob
van Liesveldt voor Marck Martens te Brussel, ca. 1540). For more information, see
H. Lippens, ‘Jean Glapion défenseur de la réforme de l’Observance, conseiller de
l’Empereur Charles-Quint’, AFH 44 (1951), 3–70 & 45 (1952), 3–71 (and especially
in this volume Lippens’ analysis of the text on the basis of MS Besançon, Bibl.
Municipale 231); André Godin, ‘Jean Glapion: “Le passe-temps du pèlerin de vie
humaine”’, Bulletin trimestriel de la Société académique des antiquaires de la Morinie 20 (Saint-
Omer, 1965–6), 367–380, 427–430. On the theme of spiritual pilgrimage in the
later Middle Ages in general, see G. Méautis, Les pèlerinages de l’âme (Paris, 1959).
is the station of faith (le deuxieme passe temps du pelerin pour le samedy
est foy); Sunday the station of hope and charity (La tierce journee est le
dimenche et passerons ce jour notre temps avec esperence en charite); Monday
is the station of the imitation of Christ and His celestial philosophy
(La quarte journee du pelerin est ensuyvir les euvres et operations de nostre
Seigneur Jhesucrist); Tuesday is the station of prayer (La quinte journee
de passetemps du pelerin se passe en contemplant le ciel et les estoiles et qui se
fait par oraison, qui contemple Dieu et le Ciel); Wednesday is the station
of patience (La sixieme journee du pelerin passerons le temps a passer les mau-
vaises passaiges et saillir les fossez avec le baston de patience); Thursday the
station at which the Christian pilgrim prepares for death (La septieme
journee, qui est le jeudy, passera ce pelerin le temps en la consideration de la
mort . . .). A central theme throughout the text is justification, pre-
sented in a way that foreshadows the views approbated in the course
of the Council of Trent.126
Like Glapion, François Lambert d’Avignon started out as a staunch
defender of Franciscan religious reform. Once he was made apostolic
preacher in 1517, he cast his nets wider, with preaching forays
throughout the south-east of France. In 1522, on behalf of his order,
he travelled to Zurich, Switzerland, where he engaged in public dis-
putations with advocates of the budding Protestant reform. But later
that year, after a short sojourn in Basel, François Lambert came to
the conclusion that the Franciscan ideals of evangelical perfection
were better served outside the Catholic Church and opted for
Lutheranism. Most of François’ surviving works date from the period
after he had joined the Lutheran cause. Yet one edificatory work, the
Corone de Nostre Saulveur, published at Lyon around 1520, still reflects
his views as a Catholic reformer, inviting lay people to live accord-
ing to the evangelical precepts put forward in the Franciscan rule.127
126
Nevertheless, the theology faculty of Louvain condemned the work in the
period between 1546 and 1550.
127
Corone de Nostre Saulveur (Lyon, ca. 1520). R. Haas, ‘La corone de nostre saul-
veur’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 84 (1973), 288–301; Rainer Haas, ‘Lambert
(François)’, DSpir IX, 143–145. For the life and career or François Lambert and
his literary output during his Lutheran period, see J.W. Baum, Franz Lambert von
Avignon (Strasbourg-Paris, 1840); F.W. Hassencamp, Franciscus Lambertus von Avignon,
Leben und ausgewählte Schriften der Väter und Begründer der reformierten Kirche,
Part 9 (Elberfeld: R.L. Friderichs, 1860); L. Ruffet, Lambert d’Avignon, le reformateur
de la Hesse (Paris, 1873); W. Maurer, ‘Lambert von Avignon und das Verfassungsideal
der Reformatio Ecclesiarum Hessiae von 1526’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 48 n.s.
11 (1929), 208–260; Roy L. Winters, Francis Lambert of Avignon (1487–1530): A Study
432 chapter seven
With the exception of the most successful ones, the manifold texts
of religious instruction from the Spanish Peninsula frequently are less
easily accessible than the majority of the texts mentioned thus far.
This is partly due to specific spiritual traditions in late medieval
Spanish and Portuguese religious materials, but the main reason is
the comparatively sparse dissemination of Spanish and Portuguese
historical and philological scholarship in libraries North of the Pyrenees.
Very prominent throughout the fifteenth century was the legacy
of Francesc Eiximenis (d. 1409), whose Llibre des Dones and Cercapou
have already been touched upon, and whose large, multi-volume
Llibre del Crestiá calls for separate treatment. Another work of Eiximenis
that had a considerable impact was the Llibre del Angels dating from
1392, and probably the first large-scale vernacular angelology meant
for the literate laity. In its description of the variety of angels, the
work is firmly rooted in the pseudo-Dionysian tradition. The book
consists of five parts, dealing with the greatness, the nature, the
orders, the services, and the victories of angels repectively (ending
with the victories of St. Michael). The fourth part also deals with the
fallen angels, such as Lucifer. Yet more explicitly than his illustrious
example, Eiximenis’ concern was to show how angels interceded in
the sublunar world, emphasising the fact that angels are there to
help not only individual devout Christians, but also kings, realms,
and cities, and therefore are worthy of man’s devout attention.128
in Reformation Origins (Philadelphia, 1938); Edmund Kurten, Franz Lambert von Avignon
und Nikolaus Herborn in ihrer Stellung zum Ordensgedanken und zum Franziskanertum in
Besonderen, Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 72 (Münster: Aschendorff,
1950); Andres Moser, ‘Franz Lamberts Reise durch die Schweiz im Jahre 1522’,
Zwingliana 10 (1957), 467–471; G. Müller, Franz Lambert von Avignon und die Reformation
in Hessen (Tübingen, 1968); R. Haas, Franz Lambert und Patrick Hamilton in ihrer Bedeutung
für die evangelische Bewegung auf den Britischen Inseln (Marburg, 1973); Paul Nyhus, The
Franciscans in South Germany, 1400–1530: Reform and Revolution, Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society, n.s. 65 (8) (1975); Geoffrey Dipple, Antifraternalism
and Anticlericalism in the German Reformation (Aldershot, 1996), 1ff.; Dictionnaire de Biographie
Française XIX fasc. 110, cols. 510–511.
128
Llibre dels Angels: MSS Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 4030 ff. 1–225v; Madrid,
Biblioteca Nacional 62; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 73; El Escorial h. II. 13; El
Escorial h. II. 16; El Escorial h. III. 21; Barcelona, Biblioteca Universitaria 86;
Barcelona, Seminario 400; Barcelona, Archivo Capitular 30; Barcelona, Biblioteca
Central 267; Barcelona, Biblioteca Central 342; Barcelona, Biblioteca Central 462;
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Esp. 38; Rome, Biblioteca Casanat. 1392; Turin,
Biblioteca Nazionale 1647; Cambridge, Trinity College 350. For manuscripts of var-
ious Castilian and French versions, see Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles
en la edad media’, 263. The work saw several printed editions after 1494: Llibre
In the wake of Eiximenis’ massive legacy, there seems to have

been a temporary decrease in the Franciscan production of works
of religious instruction in the Iberian peninsula. It might well be that
this impression is not at all correct. After all, the manuscript libraries
in Spain and Portugal may harbour many treasures that have not
yet been brought to light (at least not in publications accessible to
non-native scholars like myself ). A first major name that pops up in
Spanish or rather Catalan sources coming after Eiximenis, is that of
Juan Pascual, a friar from the Gerona region, known to have entered
the order in the convent Castelló d’Empúries, and to have become
master of theology in 1436. Juan was a prolific author of moral the-
ological materials, who used a large number of Italian sources, such
as the Divina Comedia by Dante Alighieri and the Commentarium by
Pietro Alighieri, suggesting he was in contact with Italian centres of
Franciscan learning in Tuscany. Most of his surviving spiritual works
(Summa de l’Altra Vida, Llibre o Summa de Beatitut, Tractat o Summa de Pena,
and the Tractat de las Penas Particulars de Infern, Emperò Primerament de las
Penas Comunas Segons los Poetas) have come down to us in two Barcelona
manuscripts (MSS Barcelona, Biblioteca Central 467 & 468). These
texts are strongly inspired by the legacy of Dante Alighieri and com-
bine forms of moral theology also found among contemporary Italian
Franciscan lectores ad lecturam Dantis with basic instruction concerning
confession and the virtues and vices. Only further study will succeed
in revealing the full scope of these works.129
From the mid-fifteenth century onwards, as is corroborated by the
renewed production of rule commentaries, constitutions and novice
training treatises (see Chapters II and III), the incubation of Spanish
and Portuguese texts for religious instruction quickened pace, especially
in the various Observant reform movements. Among these, several
texts can be mentioned that either had a wide implied audience of
del angels (Barcelona: Juan Rosembach, 1494 (in Catelan)/Barcelona: Pere Miquel,
1494/Burgos, 1490 (in Castilian)). Early French editions appeared as: Le livre des
anges fait et compilé sur le livre de saint Denis, De triplici gerarchia, et sur les ditz de plusieurs
docteurs devotz et contemplatifz, par frère François Dachimenis (Genève, 1478/Lyon, 1486/Paris,
1505 & 1518). For modern editions, see: De sant Miquel Arcàngel. El quint tractat del
‘Llibre dels àngels’, ed. Curt Wittlin, Clàssics Curial, 15 (Barcelona, 1983); Il Libro
degli Angeli, ed. Gabriella Zanoletti (Milan, 1999).
129
Juan de San Antonio BUF II, 198; R. d’Alos, ‘Fra Joan Pasqual commen-
tarista del Dant’, Quaderns d’Estudi XIII (1921), 308ff. This article also appeared
seperately as a booklet (Barcelona, 1922); I. Vázquez Janeiro, ‘Jean Pasqual’, DHGE
XXVII, 429–430.
434 chapter seven
religious and lay people, or were directly geared to the spiritual

edification of specific groups in lay society.
Among the former we may find the edificatory texts of Alfonso
da Ilha (fl. 1493) from Madeira, whose literary legacy is bound up
with his long pastoral and scholarly career in Castile. Most well-
known among these is the Libro llamado Thesoro de virtudes. Although
initially this book on virtues might have been meant to function as
an edificatory text among his fellow Observant friars, once printed,
it found a wider audience outside the order.130
The same happened with a series of edificatory texts dating from
the early to mid-sixteenth century, namely the Libro llamado Lumbre
del Alma by Juan Cazalla, the Libro del Via Spiritus abreviado de nuevo
by Andrés de Ortega, and the Tesoro de Virtudes by Alfonso de Isla,
texts about which I have not been able to obtain much information
so far.131 Other examples are the anonymous and very catechetical
Libro llamado Fuente de Vida, and the likewise anonymous Catalan Spill
de la Vida Religiosa. The last of these works, the Spill de la Vida Religiosa,
first appeared in Barcelona in 1515 and soon afterwards was trans-
lated into Castilian under two different titles: the Espejo de Religiosos
(Seville, 1533) and the Tratado llamado el Desseoso (Toledo, 1536). The
text was claimed by the Hieronymites, who took great pains to pub-
lish additional Castilian editions and supported its dissemination in
other European languages. Yet, the studies of J. Oriol make a rea-
sonably convincing case for its Franciscan origin, arguing that the
first edition of the Spill de la Vida Religiosa, as well as the Libre de la
130
Libro llamado Thesoro de virtudes muy util y copioso copilado por un religioso portugues
de la horden del serafico padre sant francisco (Medina del Campo, 1543). See Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 503; Lopes, ‘Franciscanos portugueses
predentinos. Escritores, mestres e leitores’, 504; J. de Freitas Paiva, Via Spiritus 1
(1994), 209–212.
131
Juan Cazalla, Libro llamado Lumbre del alma (. . .) de los beneficios y mercedes que ha
el hombre recibido (. . .) de Dios y de la paga que por ello le es obligado de fazer (Valladolid:
Nicolás Thierry, 1528/Sevilla: Juan Cromberger, 1528/Sevilla, Juan Cromberger,
1542). Both this work and Cazalla’s Cartas (on the Escalera del paraíso) have been
touched upon in Bataillon, Erasmo y Espagna (Barcelona-Paris, 1937), 55, 62–71,
179–180, 186–188. See also Bataillon, ‘Introducción’ in the edition of Juan de
Valdés, Diálogo de doctrina cristiana (Coimbra, 1925), 137–143, 247, 251; Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 462. On Andrés de Ortega’s Libro del
Via Spiritus abreviado de nuevo (Toledo: Ferrer, 1550), and Alfonso de Isla’s Libro lla-
mado Tesoro de Virtudes (Medina del Campo: Pedro de Castro, 1543), see also Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 503 and 547, as well as M. Viller,
‘Alphonse de Isla’, DSpir I, 356.
Sancta Terçera Regla (published by the same publisher and in the same
year as the Spill de la Vida Religiosa) are the product of an Observant
Friar Minor from the Santa Maria de Barcelona convent.132
The Spill consists of two treatises. The first one of these tells the
tale of a hermit, called Desitjós or Deseoso, a personification of the
soul aspiring to perfection. At the beginning of his journey, Desitjós
meets a shepherd: a spiritual master, who is able to teach Desitjós
the means by which to reach his goal. The shepherd’s equipment
and the animals and plants surrounding him symbolise the virtues
that elicit the love of God. Other animals and plants stand for the
vices that keep the soul away from its aspired goal. The remainder
of this first treatise describes the journey itself, introducing a series
of additional personifications along the way.133
The second treatise, which bears the title Psalteri de Amor and shows
some superficial resemblance to the Blanquerna and the Félix of Ramon
Llull, explains how man (again the pilgrim Desitjós or Deseoso) can
move from imaginative and discursive reflections towards affective
prayer and affective contemplation of human and divine love. The
work uses the symbol of the psalterion, an instrument that in this case
can only be played when the player engages in proper charity, is
cleansed from sins and mistakes, and approaches his performance
with the virtue of humility. It is only then that the psalterion brings
forth ten virtuous chords by which resounds the love of God in var-
ious, hierarchically ascending tones.
The other anonymous text, the Libro llamado Fuente de Vida,134 starts
out as as a catechism, to evolve into a handbook of religious edification,
132
Spill de la Vida Religiosa (Barcelona, 1515/Valencia, 1529); Espejo de Religiosos
(Sevilla, 1533/11 additional editions until 1588). For more Latin, Italian, English,
German, Danish, Dutch, Irish, and Portuguese translations and (expanded) rework-
ings, see especially F. López Estrada, Notas sobre la espiritualidad española de los siglos
de oro. Estudio del tratado llamado el Deseoso (Sevilla, 1972), 13–26, as well as J. Oriol
de Barcelona, ‘Un anónimo franciscano del siglo XVI’, EsFr 16 (1922), 21–38;
L. Alcina, ‘El “Spill de la vida religiosa” de Miquel Comalada’, Studia Monastica 3
(1961), 377–382 (according to this article the work was written by the Hieronymite
friar Miguel Comalada); Rodriguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’,
432; M. Andrés, Los Recogidos (Madrid, 1976), 77–87; Saturnino Lopez Santidrián,
‘Spill de la vida religiosa’, DSpir XIV, 1135–1139.
133
It makes ample use of the topoi and personifications found in many classics
of the genre since the Anticlaudianus by Alain de Lille and the Songe d’Enfer et de
Paradis by Raoul de Houdenc. For a more in-depth analysis, see Saturnino López
Santidrian in DSpir XIV, 1136–1138.
134
Libro llamado fuente de vida, hecho por un fraile de la Orden de nuestro seráfico padre
San Francisco (Valencia, 1527/Burgos, 1528/Medina del Campo, 1542).
436 chapter seven
with separate chapters on the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary,
an explication of the Mass, a guide towards contemplation in three
steps, a mystical and, as it would seem, very Bonaventurian Centiloquium,
and a recapitulary Escalera del Paraíso. Apparent links with the spir-
itual works of Bernabé (Barnabas) de Palma, Francisco de Borja and
with the just-mentioned Lumbre del Alma of Juan Cazalla are in need
of further exploration.135
It has been argued that the Libro llamado Fuente de Vida is but an
omnibus put together from six different works by the Observant
Franciscan Bernabé de Palma (1469–1532) from Palma del Rio,136
famous for his devout humility and charity as a doorkeeper of the
Belén de Palma convent, and for his raptures and ‘levitations’ during
Mass. Bernabé eventually put down in writing his many experiments
with various modes of prayer and meditation, and especially his use
of the so-called ‘via del recogimiento’—a style of ecstatic prayer and
loving contemplation of the Divine—in a set of texts that testify to
his self-made approach to spirituality. His most important work in
this regard is the Via Spiritus, also known as the Libro llamado Via de
la Perfección Espiritual del Anima, which saw several complete and
abridged editions in the sixteenth century, and which passes from
spiritual edification into full-blown affective mysticism.137
135
Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 433–434.
136
Namely from Barnabas’ Centiloquio del Alma, Doctrina Christiana, Grados de la
Oración y contemplación, Declaración de los misterios de la Misa, De los cuatro Novissimos y
Postrimerias del Hombre, and his Vida de Christo. See also D. de Courcelles, ‘L’Espagne
de 1450 à 1550’, in: Hagiographies. Histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique
latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550, ed. G. Philippart, Vol. I (Brepols,
1994), 155–188 (esp. p. 161). For more information on these texts, see Andrés de
Guadelupe, Historia de la Santa Provincia de Los Angeles (Madrid, 1642/Madrid, 1662),
313–322 (Liber VII, Chapter 22–26); Juan de San Antonio, BUF (Madrid, 1732)
I, 181; Sbaralea, Supplementum I, 114; Fidèle de Ros, ‘Barnabé de Palma’, DSpir I,
1247; M. Andrés Martin, Los recogidos (Madrid, 1975), 176–192; Saturnino López
Santidrián, ‘Palma’, DSpir XII, 132–139; Manuel de Castro, ‘Un autor para una
“Doctrina christiana” medieval anonima’, Verdad y Vida 53 (1995), 187–192.
137
Via Spiritus/Libro llamado Via de la perfección espiritual del anima: en el cual se halla
doctrina muy singular sacada de la sagrada escriptura: y para llegar a la cumbre de la perfec-
ción espiritual. Compuesto por un frayle simple de la Orden del seráfico Padre sant Francisco de
la Provincia de los Angeles (Sevilla: Bartolomé Pérez, 1532/Salamanca: Juan de Junta,
1541). The following additional sixteenth-century editions are known: Via Espiritus
(Antwerp, 1533–1534 (sponsored by the Duke of Bejar, on request of Pedro Barrientos,
the brother of Pedro de Alcantara)/Valencia, 1546 (abridged)/Barcelona, 1549/Toledo,
1550 (together with the Soliloquio of Ortiz)/Toledo, 1553 (abridgment by Juan de
Borja, and published together with the Soliloquio of Ortiz)). See also Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 554–555; Bernardo Bravo, ‘El ‘Via
This tendency towards full-blown mysticism is also visible in the

Subida del Monte Sion by Bernardino de Laredo (1482–1540), a learned
doctor of medicine, who had entered the order in 1510 as a lay con-
versus and who spent a large part of his religious life in the convent
of San Francisco del Monte (Villaverde, ca. 30 kilometres north of
Sevilla). His medical works, connected with his activities as a med-
ical consultant for a number of Franciscan convents and lay patients
in Andalucia, met with considerable success. The same may be said
for his spiritual productions, namely the Josephina (which presents
Joseph as the greatest saint after the Virgin Mary and as a most
powerful intercessor),138 and the Subida del Monte Sion, a work that
was to have a considerable impact on the spirituality of Teresa de
Jesus (Theresa of Avila) and Juan de la Cruz. The Subida does indeed
present a mysticism of love, building on the purgative, illuminative
and unifying ways found in many other Franciscan mystical treatises.
Yet, especially the first two books of the work contain prayer and
meditation exercises to deepen religious self-knowledge (a topic directly
connected with the formation of inner man as found in nearly every
Franciscan edificatory manual) and to instil a pure devotional love
in the soul towards the suffering Christ and the Holy Family (in
according with the Franciscan passion devotion tradition).139
spiritus’ de Fr. Bernabé de Palma’, Manresa 31 (1959), 35–74, 235–260; P. Sáinz

Rodríguez, Espiritualidad española (Madrid, 1961), 143–186; José M.a Madurell y
Marimón, ‘La edición de la “Via spiritus” de 1549’, Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia 35
(1962), 283–285. The work has seen a modern edition in: Bernabé de Palma, Via
Spiritus—Bernardino de Laredo, Subida del Monte Sión, ed. Teodoro H. Martín, Clasicos
de Espiritualidad (Madrid, 1998). For an initial introduction to the work (esp. on
the various stages of man on his road of contemplation, from the bodily state, via
the mixed state of body and spirit, and the spiritual state, to the supernatural state),
and its relationship with other fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spanish mystic devel-
opments, see also the analysis of Saturnino López Santidrián, DSpir XII, 133–139.
138
It was published as an appendix to sixteenth-century editions of the Subida.
For a French translation of the work, see Josephina, trans. Michelangelo de Narbonne
(Toulouse, 1925). The Josephina borrows many ideas from Gerson and Pelbart de
Temesvar (d. 1504).
139
The Subida first came out in Seville, in 1535. A totally revised edition came
out in 1538 and subsequently was reprinted repeatedly. A modern re-issue of this
second redaction can be found in: Misticos Franciscanos, Biblioteca Autores Cristianos
44 (Madrid, 1948) II, 15–443; Bernabé de Palma, Via Spiritus—Bernardino de Laredo,
Subida del Monte Sión, ed. Teodoro H. Martín, Clasicos de Espiritualidad, Biblioteca
de Autores Cristianos (Madrid, 1998). The second edition of the Subida shows more
terminological innovation, applying concepts from the pseudo-Dionysian tradition,
from Ugo de Balma, Hendrik Herp, and Francisco de Osuna. In each of its three
books, the Subida elaborates an aspect of Christ’s exhortation in Matthew 16: 24:
438 chapter seven
More directly geared to the spiritual edification of the laity or even

specific groups within it, are the works of Juan Serrano, Jaime de
Alcalá, Juan Bautista Viñones, and Francisco de Evia. Juan Serrano’s
Información Para las Viudas Cristianas explores the time-honoured theme
of spiritual widowhood, which can become a state of extraordinary
perfection, both inside and outside the walls of the cloister.140 Jaime
de Alcalá’s Caballería Cristiana, a Spanish Enchiridion Militis Christiani
contemporaneous with Erasmus of Rotterdam’s more famous and
more humanist counterpart, teaches how the Christian soldier can
reap the rewards of heavenly beatitude by slaying the enemies of his
soul (temptations), and by wholeheartedly accepting Christ’s invita-
tion to partake in the Eucharist and the Christian life of the spirit.141
‘Qui vult venire post me, abneget semetipsum, tollat crucem suam et sequatur me.’
Each book is divided in three weeks, with series of appropriate meditations. Book
one focuses on self-knowledge. Book two centres on the humanity of Christ (and
especially on the mysteries of the nativity, the passion, and Christ’s glorification).
Book three deals with the perfect kind of contemplation leading to unification with
God. One could argue that Bernardino thus follows the Bonaventurian division of
mystical ascent (cf. De Triplica Via) into the purgative, illuminative, and unifying
ways, and comes close to the mysticism put forward by Francisco de Osuna. In
this kind of mystical ascent some scholars see a typical Spanish Franciscan school of
mystical thought, with as main advocates Bernardino de Laredo, Francisco de Osuna,
Pedro de Alcantara, and Francisco Ortiz. See: B. Foronda, ‘Fray Bernardino de
Laredo: su vida, sus escritos y su doctrina teológica ascético mística’, AIA 33 (1930),
213–250; F. de Ros, Le Père François d’Osuna (Paris, 1936–1937); Idem, ‘Harpius et
Laredo’, Revue d’Ascétique et de Mystique 20 (1939), 265–285; Idem, Un inspirateur de
S. Thérèse, le frère Bernardin de Laredo (Paris, 1948); R. Hoornaert, ‘Bernardin de Laredo
et la Subida del Monte Sion’, Les Lettres Romanes 6 (1952), 233–239; R. Ricard &
F. de Ros, ‘“La Fonte” de saint Jean de la Croix et un chapitre de Laredo’, Bulletin
hispanique 58 (1956), 265–274; Santiago Alcaida, ‘La espiritualidad franciscana en
fray Bernardino de Laredo’, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Historia de la Farmacia
7/25–26 (Madrid, 1956), 32*, 33*–40*; Sebastián Folch Jou, ‘Fr. Bernardino de
Laredo a través de sus obras científicas’, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Historia de
la Farmacia 7 (1956), 21–31; I. Behn, Spanische Mystik. Darstellung und Deutung (Düsseldorf,
1957), 125–160; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 508–509;
Cristóbal Cuevas Garcia, La prosa métrica, Teoria, Fray Bernardino de Laredo (Granada,
1972); Diego Gracia y Guillén, ‘La fisiología escolástica de Fr. Bernardino de Laredo’,
Cuadernos de historia de la medicina española 12 (1973), 125–192; T.M. Hernández,
Enrique Herp (Harpius) en las letras españolas (Avila, 1973), 65–81 & passim; Robert
Ricard, ‘Laredo (Bernardin de)’, DSpir IX, 277–281; LThK 2 II, 278–9; José Damián
Badia Pérez, Jesucristo en la vida y obra de Bernardino de Laredo, Diss. (Pamplona, 1998).
140
Información para las viudas cristianas (Medina: Francisco del Campo, 1554). See
Isaías Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, Repertorio de Historia
de las Ciencias eclesiasticas en España 3 (siglos xiii–xvi) (Salamanca, 1971), 574.
141
Caballería cristiana (Alcalá: Juan de Villanueva, 1570). On the Caballería and
Jaime’s Lucerna fratrum minorum et Expositio Bullae eugenianae, see Elizondo, ‘Doctrinales
Regulae Franciscanae Expositiones usque ad Annum 1517’, 490; Rodríguez, ‘Autores
espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 437.
Juan Bautista Viñones (c. 1480–1550), a learned doctor utriusque iuris

and a good friend of Bernardino de Laredo, took the habit after 1507
as a lay brother at the Guadalcanal convent, near Seville. He has
been attributed with the authorship of the Espejo de Conciencia Para Todos
los Estados, a work akin to the Speculum Aureum by Hendrik Herp. How-
ever, there are other candidates for the authorship of this text, such as
friar Juan de Argumanes (from the Santiago de Compostela province)
and the biblical scholar Gutierro de Trejo. In any case, the Espejo
de Conciencia is one of the most influential Spanish books of spiritual
edification in the sixteenth century.142 It consists of three main parts.
The first part (116 chapters) deals with the moral and religious oblig-
ations of rulers, bishops, priests, doctors, merchants and other ‘pro-
fessionals’ with an exemplary function in society. The second part
(37 chapters) discusses topics such as just and unjust forms of war-
fare, theft and restitution. Together, these two parts focus on society
and the ways in which one may uphold and pursue its Christian
character. The third part (24 chapters) turns towards the Christian
character of the individual, by focussing on confession, the qualities
of the confessor, exemptions, and the sins to which the soul may
succumb. In an appendix, the work also discusses matters of excom-
munication and related measures of punishment and discipline.143
142
The first edition of the work appeared as the Espejo de conciencia que trata de
todos los estados assí eclesiásticos como seglares para regir y examinar las conciencias (Salamanca,
1498 (2x)). This early date would suggest that at least this first edition was not writ-
ten by Juan Battista Viñones. However, later editions that do bear the name of
Viñones appeared under the title Espejo de la conciencia para todos los estados (Logroño:
Arnao Guillén de Brocar, 1507/Sevilla: Juan Varela de Salamanca, 1512/Toledo:
Juan Varela de Salamanca, 1513/Sevilla: Jacobo Cromberger, 1514/Sevilla: J. Varela
de Salamanca, 1516/Logroño, 1516/Badajoz, 1520/Segovia, 1525/Toledo: Gaspar de
Avila, 1525/Sevilla, 1531/Sevilla: Juan Cromberger, 1536/ Sevilla: Juan Cromberger,
1543/Sevilla: Jacobo Cromberger, 1548/Medina del Campo, 1552/s.l., 1568). It
might well be that Viñones was responsible for a reworked re-issue of the text.
143
Viñones’ major sources are Bonaventura and writers working in the pseudo-
Bonaventurian tradition, Alexander of Hales, Heinrich Seusse, Antonio da Firenze
(and comparable authors). The vocabulary in the Espejo reflects some impact of the
emerging alumbrados tradition. As such, it has been argued, the work might have
influenced spiritual authors like Diego Murillo, Juan de Los Angeles, and Alonso
de Madrid. See: Wadding, Scriptores (ed. 1906), 131; Wadding, Annales Minorum XVIII
(Quaracchi, 1933), 117; Andrés de Guadalupe, Historia de la santa provincia de los
Angeles (Madrid, 1662), 612; Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 38; B.J. Gallardo, Ensayo de
una biblioteca española de libros raros (Madrid, 1863) I, 738–739 (nn. 618–620); A. Lopéz,
‘Notas de bibliografía franciscana’, AIA 28 (1927), 350–363; F. de Ros, Le frère
Bernardin de Laredo (Paris, 1948), 20, 37; A. Melquiades Martín, Historia de la teolo-
gia española en el siglo XVI (Madrid, 1976–1977) I, 118, 204, 208, 376 & II, 178,
183, 244, 293–294, 480; I. Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1570)’,
440 chapter seven
A slightly different emphasis stands out in the spiritual manuals

of Francisco de Evia from Asturia, whose Confessionario y breve infor-
mación para toda persona que desea saberse confesar con brevedad we have
encountered in another context. His major work, the Espejo del Alma
(1550), meant for a diversified audience of simple clerics and edu-
cated lay people, gives an analysis of 1.) the nature and dignity of
the soul as such (its creatio ex nihilo, its excellence, powers, immor-
tality, and the ways in which it differs from angelic being); 2.) the
relationship between soul and body before and after the fall (main-
taining that a restoration of the prelapsarian relationship is possible
through the sacraments and charity, as is shown with the examples
of saints, and with recourse to the fact that Christ and His mother
were not blemished by original sin); 3.) the nature of death and
divine judgement after death (a rather anti-millenarian discourse with
information on hell and purgatory, and on the usefulness of inter-
cessory prayers for the dead, even when they are in hell); 4.) the
nature of and relationship between individual judgement (after death)
and the final judgement at the end of time (after the second com-
ing of Christ).144
At first sight, it resembles a work of doctrinal theology rather than
a manual for religious and devotional instruction. Yet throughout the
work the emphasis is on the proper method for the soul to redeem
itself (and others) and to find its proper way towards beatitude.
Apparently this same concern lay behind Evia’s prayer guides and
his Praeparatio Mortis, a typical ars moriendi that first appeared in 1558,
but soon was placed on the Index (preventing a large dissemination).145
The last Spanish friar I would like to mention in this context is
Luis de Maluenda (c. 1488–1547) from Burgos. Born to a conversos
602; A. Palau y Dulcet, Manual del librero hispanoamericano 5 (Barcelona, 1951), 130–131
& 27 (Madrid, 1976), 302, 313.
144
Espejo del Alma (Valladolid: Francisco Fernández de Córdoba, 1550). See:
Sbaralea, Supplementum I, 267; Juan de San Antonio, BUF (Madrid, 1732) I, 380,
393; Bataillon, Erasmo y Espagna (Barcelona-Paris, 1937), 571–572; Bibliotheca Catholica
Neerlandica Impressa (Den Haag, 1954), nos. 3982, 4146, 4265, 4568, 4863; Adolfo
de la Madre de Dios, ‘Espagne, Age d’Or; Auteurs spirituels Franciscains’, DSpir
IV, 1173; Manuel de Castro, ‘Hevia’, DSpir VII, 433–434; Rodríguez, ‘Autores
espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 479–480.
145
Praeparatio Mortis (Alcalá, 1558). For information concerning the whereabouts
of this work, see H. Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Bücher (Bonn, 1883) I, 310, and
Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 480. A copy of another
book by Evia, the Libro llamado tesoro de los ángeles (Astorga, 1547) is still present in
the British Library.
family, he studied at Salamanca, where he took the Franciscan habit

around 1505 as a friar of the Santiago province. Due to family con-
nections, Luis was able to cultivate relative close relations with high
Church dignitaries and with the royal courts of Castile and Portugal.
In his spiritual teachings he was heavily influenced by the Observant
friars Francisco de Castillo and Diego de Bobadilla. These strength-
ened Luis in his anti-Judaic, anti-Erasmian, and anti-Protestant feel-
ings, to such an extent that he eventually became somewhat of a
liability for the Franciscan Santiago province.146
Luis ventilated his vitriolic criticisms in a range of treatises, several
of which were published together. The oldest of these, a treatise on
the excellence of faith (Tratado Llamado Excelencias de la Fe) and a trea-
tise on the mysteries of devotion (Tratado Llamado Mysterios de la
Devoción) came out together in 1537. The treatise on the excellence
of faith was designed to function as an educational manual for crown
prince Philip (the later Philip II of Spain), but took on the form of
an anti-Erasmian and anti-‘alumbrados’ pamphlet in which Luis
defended traditional religion against all novelties, interspersing doc-
trinal arguments from the Church fathers with highly idiosyncratic
personal interpretations. Interestingly though, and without admitting
it, Luis used Erasmus’ Quaerela Pacis to attack the laxity of the pope
and the bishops, as well as their failure to attack heresies and reform
the Church. Luis adamantly defended the practices of the inquisi-
tion, representing inquisitors as surgeons operating on the ailing body
of Christian society. The accompanying treatise on the mysteries of
devotion is but a traditional introduction to devotional exercises, hail-
ing as their most valuable reward the total tranquillity of the soul.
This tranquillity would open the road towards contemplation and
give the soul the possibility to achieve a mystical union with the
Divine.147
146
See in general M. de Castro, Impresos raros de la provincia franciscana de Santiago
en el siglo XVI (Madrid, 1978); M. Avilés Fernandez, Una mistica de la intransigencia
en la España de los eramistas y alumbrados (Madrid, 1978); Manuel de Castro, ‘El fran-
ciscano Fr. Luis de Maluenda, un alguacil alguacilado de la Inquisición’, in: La
inquisición española. Nueva visión, Nuevos horizontes, ed. Joaquín Pérez Villanueva (Madrid,
1980), 797–813.
147
Tratado Llamado Excelencias de la Fe ayuntado de muchas flores de los libros de los exce-
lentes varones, así santos como paganos & Tratado Llamado Mysterios de la Devoción (Burgos,
26 June, 1537). Both works were composed at the convent San Francisco à Toro.
442 chapter seven
In 1539 Luis’ Vergel de Virginidad and a treatise on the ‘mysteries

of angels’ (Tratado Llamado Mysterios de los Ángeles) came out in a twin
volume. The first of these works extols virginity above all else, forg-
ing a strong link between virginity and charity, and highlighting the
unsurpassed meditational qualities of the Virgin. Yet this book again
denounces ‘new’ Erasmian and reformist doctrines. The second, rather
curious work develops the idea—partly prepared in the Llibre del
Angels by Francesc Eiximenis of more than a century before—that
everyone has a personal guardian angel, but that those working in
the Church or with public responsibilities have two, and that cities,
regions, realms and comparable social and political bodies have their
own set of heavenly protectors as well.148 Finally, in January 1545,
Luis de Maluenda’s final edificatory work came out, the Tratado
Llamado Leche de la Fe del Principe Christiano. In this work Luis’ vitri-
olic criticisms were pushed to their limit. It is one long and at times
hysterical diatribe against the ‘sins of the time’, all of which would
apocalyptically point to the approaching reign of Antichrist. The text
aimed to ‘instruct’ the Christian rulers on their responsibilities to
uphold the true faith and the Christian morals that were increas-
ingly under siege.149
Outside of the realms of homiletics, epistolography and catechis-
tic poetry the contribution of the English province in the field of
edificatory manuals seems to have been rather meagre. As a matter
of fact, I know of only one short early fifteenth-century edificatory
manual of English origin, namely the Instructorium Providi Peregrini by
Thomas Winchelsae (d. 1437), a friar who perhaps studied at Oxford
and who was lector and guardian at the London friary later in his
life. The Instructorium was influenced by the spiritual works of Jean
Gerson, notably the latter’s Testamentum Peregrini, and is addressed to
Duke Charles of Orléans.150
148
Vergel de Virginidad con el edificio espiritual de la caridad y los mysterios de la Virgen
sin par & Tratado Llamado Mysterios de los Ángeles, con trece servicios que hace el ángel cus-
todio (Burgos, 2 june, 1539).
149
Tratado llamado Leche de la Fe del Principe Christiano. Con 62 milagros de Jesucristo
nuestro Dios y Redentor. Y con los mysterios del Antecristo. Y con las ropas de las virtuded
morales y teologales (Burgos, 16 January, 1545).
150
Instructorium Providi Peregrini (1434): MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 2049
(15th cent.) ff. 226r–232 (‘per fratrem Thomam ordinis Minorum et lectorem
Londoniensem’). To Thomas has also been ascribed a Donatus Devotionis, but this
ascription seems insecure. Cf. A.I. Doyle, ‘The European Circulation of Three Latin
Although the indigenous output of these edificatory works by

English Franciscans might have been slant, the presence of studia gen-
eralia such as Cambridge and Oxford guaranteed the steady influx
of well-educated outsiders who did embark upon such para-theological
endeavours. An intriguing and as yet not well-studied example is the
Conventual friar Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona, a human-
ist and rhetorician, who taught eloquence at Cambridge. He not only
produced a large number of scholarly works related to rhetoric and the
art of humanist letter writing, but also engaged in the production of
highly polished religious dialogues and triumphi.151 Among the latter
I would like to signal the Triumphus Pudicitiae Beatae Mariae Virginis,152 the
Triumphus Iustitiae Iesu Christi,153 the Triumphus Amoris D.N.J. Christi,154
the Triumphus Sapientiae Iesu Christi,155 the Triumphus Veri Amoris,156 and
the Triumphus Vitae supra Mortem,157 all of which carefully combined
a humanist literary form with straightforward religious edification.158
Spiritual Texts’, in: Latin and Vernacular. Studies in Late Medieval Texts and Manuscripts,
ed. A.J. Minnis (Cambridge, 1989), 129–146 (esp. 138–141). On Thomas, see also
C.L. Kingsford, The Grey Friars of London, British Society of Franciscan Studies, 6
(London, 1915), 170–171; Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland Before
1540, ed. Richard Sharpe, Publications of The Journal of Medieval Latin, 1 (Turnhout,
1997), 694.
151
Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 167; J. Ruysschaert, ‘Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagni
de Savone, un humaniste franciscain oublié’, AFH 46 (1953), 195–210; Idem, ‘Les
manuscrits autographes de deux oeuvres de Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagni imprimées
chez Caxton’ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 36 (1953–54), 191–197; D. Luscombe,
‘The Ethics and the Politics in Britain’, in: Aristotle in Britain during the Middle Ages,
ed. J. Marenbon (Turnhout, 1996), 345; Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain
and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard Sharpe, Publications of The Journal of Medieval
Latin, 1 (Turnhout, 1997), 362–365.
152
Triumphus Pudicitiae Beatae Mariae Virginis (London, 1477). See also MSS Rome,
BAV Vat. Lat. 11608 (ad. 1495) ff. 204r–212r; Savona, Biblioteca Civica IX B.
2–15 (s. xv) ff. 90r–98v; Savona, Biblioteca Civica IX B. 2–17 (s. xv) ff. 228r–253v.
153
Triumphus Iustitiae Iesu Christi (London, 1483). See also MS Savona, Biblioteca
Civica IX B. 2–15 (s. xv) ff. 235r–291r.
154
Triumphus Amoris Domini Iesus Christi (London, 1485). See also MS Lambeth
Palace 450 (ad. 1485) ff. 9r–45v.
155
Triumphus Sapientiae Iesu Christi (Savona, 1487). See also MSS Savona, Biblioteca
Civica IX B. 2–15 (s. xv) ff. 199r–213r, 218r–234v; Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 11607
(s. xv) ff. 255r–329v.
156
Triumphus Veri Amoris (Savona, 1496). See also MS Savona, Biblioteca Civica
IX B. 2–17 (s. xv) ff. 112r–227v.
157
Triumphus Vitae supra Mortem (Savona, 1498). See also MSS Rome, BAV Vat.
Lat. 11607 (s. xv) ff. 106v–166v; Savona, Biblioteca Civica IX B. 2–14 (s. xv) ff.
2r–141r.
158
Other triumphi of this kind are his Triumphus Divinitatis Iesu Christi: MS Rome,
BAV Vat. Lat. 11607 (s. xv) ff. 167r–252r (autograph); the Triumphus Clementiae: MS
444 chapter seven
Among his dialogues the following stand out: the Dialogi de Vita
Aeterna,159 the Directorium Humanae Mentis ad Deum,160 the seven dia-
logues of the Directorium Vitae Humanae,161 and the Semita Recta ad
Mentem Salutis sive Dialogi de Monte Orationis.162
B. Spiritual letters
Following long-standing patristic and monastic traditions, with clas-

sics like Jerome’s letters to Eustochium, the letters of Petrus Venerabilis
and Bernard de Clairvaux, and of course Guillaume de St. Thierry’s
Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei, the Franciscans soon made both the
private letter (primarily addressed to a unique recipient), and the
public letter (addressed to all friars or even to all the faithful) a
choice vehicle for conveying religious instruction, easily adaptable to
a variety of edificatory purposes, and to some extent conveying a
more personal touch than the independent treatises and the sermons,
with which these spiritual letters of course had much in common.163
The earliest spiritual letters of Franciscan provenance come from
the pen of Francesco d’Assisi himself. Some of these, such as the
Epistolae ad Fideles have already been mentioned in the context of the
earliest Franciscan Formae Vitae for lay penitents allied with the order
or inspired by its proffered way of evangelical perfection.164 Besides
Savona, Biblioteca Civica IX B. 2–17 (s. xv) ff. 1r–105r; the Triumphus Fortitudinis:
MS Savona, Biblioteca Civica IX B. 2–15 (s. xv) ff. 298r–340r, and the Quinque
Triumphi Domini Iesu Christi: MS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 11608 (ad 1495) ff. 1r–200v.
159
Dialogi de Vita Aeterna (Vienna, 1453/Paris & London, 1480). It also can be
found in MSS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 11607 ff. 5r–60v; Savona, Biblioteca Civica
IX B. 2–15 ff. 102r–142r (= Book I), ff. 143r–147r (= prooemia), ff. 150r–167v (=
Book II), ff. 168r–195v (= Book III), ff. 341r–v. Cf. Kristeller, Iter Italicum II, 149.
160
Directorium Humanae Mentis ad Deum (Toulouse, 1462).
161
Directorium Vitae Humanae: MS Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Lat. VI.
34 (3631) (ad. 1492). Cf. Kristeller, Iter Italicum II, 220.
162
Semita Recta ad Mentem Salutis sive Dialogi de Monte Orationis (Toulouse, 1460).See
also MS Rome, BAV Vat. Lat. 11607 ff. 63v–106v.
163
It is impossible to make neat generic distinctions between the spiritual letter,
the written sermon and the written ‘treatise.’ Various ‘letters’ presented in this para-
graph are in fact reworkings of sermons or independent treatises deliberately shaped
in the form of a letter. My choice in presenting the following materials together is
motivated by pragmatic reasons as much as by generic indications in the proper
sense of the word.
164
Epistola ad Fideles I (Exhortatio ad Fratres et Sorores de Poenitentia), in: Opuscula, ed.
K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 107–112; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes
these, Francesco wrote an Epistola ad Clericos165 on the importance of

showing proper reverence to the body of Christ in the Eucharist,
two Epistolae ad Custodes166 on the penitential character of preaching
and the importance of people shedding their sins and partaking in
the Eucharist, letters to various individuals who shared Francesco’s
evangelical ideas (such as friar Leo, Chiara d’Assisi and Jacopa),167
a letter to the citizens of Bologna,168 two letters to Franciscan min-
isters,169 a letter to the Franciscan friars in the French province,170
a letter to the leaders of the world urging them not to forget the
mandates of God,171 and an Epistola Toti Ordini Missa.172 According
285 (Paris, 1981), 220–227; Testi e documenti sul terzo Ordine Francescano, ed.
Lino Temperini (Rome, 1991), 46–52. Epistola ad Fideles II, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser
(Grottaferrata, 1978), 113–128; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285
(Paris, 1981), 228–243; Testi e documenti sul Terzo Ordine Francescano, ed. Lino Temperini
(Rome, 1991), 62–80. According to Esser, this second letter is a ‘redactio posterior’
of the other Epistola ad Fideles and, like the other one, is directed to ‘Universis chris-
tianis religiosis, clericis et laicis, masculis et feminis . . .’ Not all modern scholars go
along with Esser’s interpretation. In an upcoming publication, Michael Cusato will
give a different interpretation, which will also challenge the chronological priority
of the ‘first’ letter.
165
Epistola ad Clericos (Redactio Prior et Posterior), in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (1978),
96–101; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 216–219.
This letter to clerics, which in some manuscripts has survived as De Reverentia Corporis
Domini et de Munditia Altaris, is a call for treating the body of Christ (the host and
the wine), as well as his written words (the Gospels) with proper respect: ‘(. . .) et
ubicumque fuerit sanctissimum corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi illicite collocatum
et relictum, removeatur de loco illo et in loco pretioso ponatur et consignetur.
Similiter nomina et verba Domini scripta, ubicumque inveniantur in locis immundis,
colligantur et in loco honesto debeant collocari.’ Cf. B. Cornet, ‘Le De reverentia cor-
poris Domini, exhortation et lettre de saint François’, EF ns. 6 (1955), 65–91, 167–180;
7 (1956), 20–35, 155–171; 8 (1957), 33–58.
166
Epistola ad Custodes, in: Opuscula, ed. K Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 102–106;
François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes 285 (Paris, 1981), 256–259.
167
Epistola ad Fratrem Leonem, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978),
129–130; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes 285 (Paris, 1981), 266–267.
Epistola S. Clarae de Ieiunio Scripta, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (1978), 321–322; Epistola
Dominae Jacobae Scripta, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978), 323.
168
Epistola Civibus Bononiensibus Scripta, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata,
1978), 321.
169
Epistola ad Ministrum & Epistola ad Quendam Ministrum, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser
(Grottaferrata, 1978), 131–134; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285
(Paris, 1981), 262–265.
170
Epistola Fratribus Franciae Missae, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978),
323.
171
Epistola ad Populorum Rectores, in: Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (Grottaferrata, 1978),
151–153; François d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 260–261.
172
Epistola Toti Ordini Missa, una cum oratione: omnipotens, aeterne, in: Opuscula, ed.
446 chapter seven
to statements of Ubertino da Casale and Angelo Clareno, this last

letter was written shortly before Francesco composed his Testamentum,
and contains comparable admonitions.
Most of these letters are very short and re-iterate the basic points
of Franciscan humility, poverty, proper reverence to the Eucharist,
love for the crucified Christ, and of the need for penitence in order
to turn away from sin and follow in Christ’s footsteps. Short though
these letters may be, they played an important role in the formation
of the religious self and in enhancing the team-spirit within the early
Franciscan world, and some were awarded the status of religious
relics after Francesco’s death.
Within the budding order of Damianites/Poor Clares the importance
of such spiritual letters for shaping the religious self-understanding of
the nuns likewise can hardly be overstated. Here too, the letters of
the founder hold a special place. Particularly Chiara d’Assisi’s four
surviving letters to Agnes of Prague, remnants of a much larger cor-
respondence that covered a period of over twenty years, are revealing
testimonies to the spiritual friendship between these two champions
of the female evangelical life in accordance with the precepts of
poverty and humility, and with a very outspoken devotion to the
suffering Christ and the Virgin. The rather refined Latin style of
these letters also is an indication of Chiara’s (and Agnes’) high level
of education.173
285 (Paris, 1981), 244–255. Cf. O. Schmucki, ‘La Lettera a tutto l’Ordine di san
Francesco’, IF 55 (1980), 245–285.
173
Litterae ad beatam Agnetem de Praga (four letters written between 1234 and 1253
to Agnes of Bohemia). These can be found in several omnibus editions of the works
of Chiara. They can also be found in Acta Sanctorum 6 March Vol. I (Antwerp,
1668), 506–508 (edited together with the Legend of Agnes of Bohemia), and in
AFH 17 (1924), 513–519. The first critical edition was produced by Legenda Blahoslavené
Anezky a ctyri listj Sv. Klàry, ed. J.K. Vyskocil (Prague, 1932). This edition was re-
issued with an English translation as The Legend of Blessed Agnes of Bohemia and the
Four Letters of St. Clare, ed. J.K. Vyskocil (Cleveland, Ohio, 1963). More recent edi-
tions are: Claire d’Assise, Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed.
Marie-France Becker, Jean-François Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes,
325 (Paris, 1985), 82–119; L. Barabàs, ‘Le lettere di S. Chiara alla B. Agnese di
Praga’, in: Santa Chiara d’Assisi. Studi Cronaca del VII Centenario 1253–1953 (Assisi,
1953), 123–143; Lettere ad Agnese. La visione dello specchio, ed. Giovanni Pozzi & Beatrice
Rima, Piccola Biblioteca Adelphi, 426 (Milan, 1999); Clare’s Letters to Agnes. Texts
and Sources, ed. Joan Mueller (St. Bonaventure NY, 2001). See also W.W. Seton,
‘The letters from Saint Clare to blessed Agnes of Bohemia’, AFH 17 (1924), 509–519;
Marini, ‘‘Ancilla Christi, plantula sancti Francisci’’, 127ff.; E.A. van den Goorbergh
& Th.H. Zweerman, Light Shining through a Veil. On Saint Clare’s Letters to Saint Agnes
of Prague (Leuven, 2000).
These surviving letters of Chiara to Agnes of Bohemia are but

the kernel of what must have been a massive written communica-
tion with a wide range of male and female religious colleagues in
Italy and beyond. Most of this correspondence seems to have been
lost. Aside from the four letters to Agnes and a set of Benedictiones
to Agnes and other sisters,174 we only have some fragments of a cor-
respondence between Chiara and Ermentrudis von Köln.175
It is very difficult to assess the number of letters produced by the
Franciscan order family in the course of the medieval period. Letter
writing must have been a major form of communication between
the convents and the various order provinces, as well as between
male or female religious and lay pupils and benefactors. Many of
these letters probably dealt with organisatory, economic or adminis-
trative matters. Yet others would have dealt with admonitory or
174
Benedictio, edited in: W.W. Seton, ‘Some new sources for the life of Blessed
Agnes of Prague, including some chronological notes and a new text of the Benediction
of Saint Clara’, AFH 7 (1915), 185–197; Claire d’Assise, Écrits. Introduction, texte latin,
traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-France Becker, Jean-François Godet, Thaddée
Matura, Sources Chrétiennes, 325 (Paris, 1985), 186–189 (a new critical edition based
on the available Latin manuscripts). Supposedly it is a benediction of the present
and future sisters, composed by Chiara shortly before she died. As a matter of fact,
the Benedictio resembles the benediction addressed to Agnes of Prague, which sur-
vives in some medieval German manuscripts as an attachment to Chiara’s fourth
letter to Agnes. This German benediction to Agnes in turn resembles a compara-
ble benediction addressed at Ermentrudis as found in a seventeenth-century Latin
manuscript. The benediction to the poor sisters itself has survived in a fifteenth-
century medieval French manuscript, in two medieval Italian manuscripts, in some
medieval Dutch manuscripts, in several Latin manuscripts and in the Chronica by
Marco de Lisbon (Venice, 1582), Vol. I, l.8, chap. 34, p. 240. Cf. Claire d’Assise,
Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-France Becker, Jean-
François Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes, 325 (Paris, 1985), 27–28,
as well as Ubald d’Alençon, ‘Le plus ancien texte de la bénédiction, du privilège
de la pauvreté et du testament de sainte Claire d’Assise’, RHF 1 (1924), 469–482;
D. de Kok, ‘S. Clarae Benedictionis textus neerlandici’, AFH 27 (1934), 387–398;
Cf. H. Lippens, AFH 40 (1947), 290–291.
175
It would seem that Chiara wrote at least two letters to Ermentrudis von Köln,
who after several pilgrimages had established monasteries of Poor Sisters in the
German lands. None of these letters have survived in full. In the Annales Minorum,
Luke Wadding presented a compilation in the shape of a single text, commonly
known as the Littera ad Ermentrudem. Cf. L. Wadding, Annales Minorum, ad. ann. 1257
suppl. no. 20 (Quaracchi, 1931), 90–91. This text can also be found in Claire
d’Assise, Écrits. Introduction, texte latin, traduction, notes et index, ed. Marie-France Becker,
Jean-François Godet, Thaddée Matura, Sources Chrétiennes, 325 (Paris, 1985),
192–195. For more information, see: D. de Kok, ‘De Origine Ordinis S. Clarae in
Flandria’ AFH 7 (1914), 234–246; H. de Hooglede, ‘Ermentrude et les origines des
Clarisses en Belgique’, Neerlandica Franciscana 2 (1919), 67–84; A. Heysse, ‘Origo et
progressus Ordinis Sanctae Clarae in Flandria’, AFH 37 (1944), 165–201.
448 chapter seven
uplifting edificatory issues, as is shown by the surviving letters of

Francesco and Chiara d’Assisi. The vast majority of such letters might
have disappeared. The following survey therefore might just be the
tip of the proverbial iceberg.
One of the first important surviving Franciscan letter collections
from the period after Francesco d’Assisi is that of the English the-
ologian Adam Marsh (d. 1259), pupil and friend of Robert Grosseteste,
and the first Franciscan teacher at the Oxford Franciscan studium.
Adam was an avid letter writer, and luckily 247 of his letters have
withstood the tooth of time.176 A surprising number of these have a
spiritual import, elaborating spiritual friendship (spiritualis amicitia),
Christian perfection, and comparable issues. Some letters address
specific aspects of religious instruction. Thus letter eight in the Brewer
edition deals with the pastoral life, whereas letter 159 in the same
edition is a rather stern treatise on the domestic virtues and conjugal
obligations of wives, meant for the Countess of Leicester.177 Letter
180, in its turn, tackles the topics of natural perfection, the perfect
life for friars (laid out as a spiritual itinerary), and the means to pur-
sue the latter through the cultivation of charity and the virtues in
general, and all this for the benefit of the Franciscan provincial min-
ister William of Nottingham.178
Most famous of all is Adam’s lengthy letter to Sewald of York,
written around 1256,179 and completely devoted to the good quali-
176
Epistolae, ed. J.S. Brewer, in: Monumenta Franciscana, Rolls Series, 4 (London,
1858), I, 77–489.
177
‘Ex illa Dei sententia qua dicitur: Faciamus ei adiutorium simile sibi (Gen. 1,
26) evidenter intruimur, quia uxor viro districtissime tentur, et per vigoris constan-
tiam, et per discretionis prudentiam, et per benignitatis clementiam, iugem iuvaminis
impendere sedulitatem ad omnia in quibus, aut Deus colitur aut iuste vivitur, aut
recte iudicatur. Propter quod omnis anima coniugalis, quae modis omnibus hoc
implere non satagit, individuum vitae consortium, in quod secundum legem matri-
monii intemerate servandum coniuravit, damnabiliter violare convincitur . . .’ (after
which follow the sins and virtues of the domestic life). Epistolae, ed. Brewer, 294ff.
178
For more information on Adam Marsh as a spiritual author, see: D.L. Douie,
‘Adam de Marisco, an English Friar’, Durham University Journal 32 (1940), 81–97;
G. Cantini, ‘Adam de Marisco, OFM, auctor spiritualis’, Antonianum 23 (1948),
441–474; C.H. Lawrence, ‘The Letters of Adam Marsh and the Franciscan School
at Oxford’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 42 (1991), 218–38; M. Rappenecker, ‘Adam
v. Marsh’, LThK I (Freiburg etc., 1993), 140.
179
Epistola ad Sewallum: MSS London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius C.VIII
(second half 13th cent.); Oxford, Bodleian Digby 104 ff. 90r–101v. For an edition,
see Epistola ad Sewallum, ed. J.S. Brewer, in: Monumenta Franciscana, Rolls Series, 4
(London, 1858) I, 438–489 (= epist. 247).
ties and obligations of the bishop. Among these obligations the reli-
gious instruction of the Christian flock under the bishop’s pastoral
care occupies a central place. The letter particularly focuses on the
necessity to teach the believers the tenets of faith. In the course of
this letter Adam also keeps stressing the importance of prayer, and
in six short chapters elaborates on various forms of efficacious prayer
and their beneficial effects.180
Adam Marsh’ surviving letter collection is exceptional in its length
and its abundance of edificatory materials. Yet he is by no means
the only thirteenth-century friar of whom we have a large number
of letters. Adam’s fellow Englishman John Pecham, regent master at
Oxford (1271–1274) and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1279
onwards, likewise produced a voluminous body of letters, many of
which date from the days of his episcopate. Beside administrative
matters they deal with issues of pastoral care and the enforcement
of a catechistic regime that was unfolding under Pecham’s own ini-
tiative and recorded in his famous Lambeth Constitutions of 1281.181
Whereas many of Pecham’s letters were a direct product of his
episcopal obligations, the majority of the surviving letters ascribed
to Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio (d. 1274) should be placed in the
context of the latter’s role as one of the most authoritative religious
educators within the Franciscan fold, and of his responsibilities as
the minister general of the Franciscan order (1257–1273). From the
perspective of basic religious instruction, the most important of these
ascribed letters probably are the Epistola Continens Viginti Quinque
Memoralia, and the Epistola de Imitatione Christi, the implied audience
of which does not differ much from the novices and student-friars
for whom Bonaventura wrote his Regula Novitiorum.182 The Epistola
180
Cf. Cantini, ‘Adam de Marisco, OFM, auctor spiritualis’, 467.
181
On Pecham’s letters, see Registrum Epistolarum Fratris Joannis Peckham, ed. T. Martin,
Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, 3 Vols. (London, 1882–1885); Concilia
Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae ab Anno MCCLXVIII ad Annum MCCCXLIX, II, ed.
D. Wilkins (London, 1737).
182
Bonaventura’s authorship for all of these letters is not completely certain. Yet
they all seem to stem from his immediate circle, if not necessarily from his own
hand, and they reflect his spiritual conceptions. For other ascribed letters addressed
to nuns, friars and lay people that contain quintessential elements of religious instruc-
tion see: Epistola de Sandalis Apostolorum, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi,
1898) VIII, 386–390; Epistola ad Abbatem Sanctae Mariae Blesensis, in: Idem, Opera
Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 473; Epistola ad Abbatissam et Sorores Sanctae Clarae
Monasterii de Assisio, in: Idem, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 473–474 & in:
450 chapter seven
Continens Viginti Quinque Memoralia is nothing but a reminder and an

outline of the virtues and requirements each friar should master
through discipline. This eventually should help the friar to efface
himself totally. It is only then that he will be able to follow in Christ’s
footsteps, and only then that he can expect to hope for the grace
necessary for gaining spiritual perfection.183 The Epistola de Imitatione
Christi provides the same teachings even more concisely, reducing
the 25 requirements of the previous letter to five main virtues with
which to imitate Christ, viz. the virtues of humility, poverty, charity,
patience and obedience. The starting point for the exercise of all
these virtues is prayer. It is prayer that makes a friar humble, patient
and obedient, and it is prayer that enables him to have God both
in this life and in eternity. To facilitate this prayer, friars should be
able to enjoy moments of silence and solitude. Therefore they should
Escritos de Santa Clara y Documentos Contemporaneos (Madrid, 1970), 308–310; Epistola

ad Guidonem Comitem Flandrie et Matildem Uxorem Eius, ed. Callebaut, AFH 7 (1914),
250–1; Epistola ad Fratrem Laurentium, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898)
VIII, 471–472 & Z. Lazzeri, ‘Documenta controversiam inter Fratres Minores et
Clarissas spectantia (1262–1297)’, AFH 3 (1910), 678–679; Epistola ad Ministrum et
Fratres Congregationis Beatae Virginis in Civitate Brixiensi, ed. P. Guerrini, AFH 1 (1908),
561–2; Epistola ad Omnes Ministros Provinciales et Custodes Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, in:
Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 478–479; Epistola ad Omnes Ordinis
Ministros Provinciales, in: Idem, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 470–471; Epistola
ad Fratres Custodem et Guardianum Pisarum, in: Idem, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898)
VIII, 471; Epistola ad Fratres Universos, in: Idem, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII,
472–473; Epistola ad Recommendatos Beatae Virginis in Urbe Roma, ed. I.M. Pou y Martí,
AFH 17 (1924), 451–2; Epistola de Concordia cum Capitulo Sanctae Mariae Cameracensis
Stabilienda, ed. Callebaut, AFH 7 (1914), 251–4.
183
Aside from ‘memorialia generalia’ (eight virtues, the practice of which is a
general precondition for the ascent towards a perfect life, namely sancta verecundia in
cunctis verbis et actibus, tarditas loquendi, promptitudo obediendi, frequentatio orationis, fugere
otium et dissolutiones, pure et frequenter confiteri, libenter servire, infructuosum consortium devitare),
Bonaventura offers twenty-five ‘memorialia specialia’ expounding the virtues and
requirements of the life of discipline in more detail: 1.) De concupiscentiis mortificandis;
2.) De vitiis exstirpandis; 3.) De colligationibus resecandis; 4.) De tribulationibus cum patientia
tolerandis; 5.) Ut de nulla re conqueraris; 6.) De paupertate et despectu sui ipsius; 7.) De hon-
oribus fugiendis; 8.) De humilitate vera; 9.) De pace animae, et quomodo habeatur; 10.) De cus-
todia sensuum; 11.) De solitudine et vigiliis; 12.) De divino officio; 13.) Quod super omnia
habeas in devotione Virginem gloriosam; 14.) Quod fugienda sint consortia mulierum; 15.) De
fuga accidiae et tristitiae; 16.) Quod de omnibus habeas bonum exemplum; 17.) De custodia
cordis; 18.) De caritate ad proximos; 19.) De orationibus cum operibus sanctis; 20.) De obedi-
entia sancta; 21.) Quod consolationes et tribulationes occulte teneas; 22.) Quod Deum semper et
ubique habeas in memoria; 23.) De sollicita custodia sui ipsius; 24.) De pura confessione pec-
catorum; 25.) Quales esse debeamus in nostra reputatione, quamvis perfecti. See: Epistola Continens
Viginti Quinque Memoralia, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898) VIII,
491–498 & in: Bonavenurea, Selecta pro Instruendis Fratribus Ordinis Minorum Scripta S.
Bonaventurae, una cum Libello Speculum Disciplinae (Quaracchi, 1942), 237–257.
take care to create room for these in between their manifold com-
munal obligations.184
Other thirteenth-century spiritual letters worth mentioning are
those written by Guibert de Tournai (d. 1288) and Pietro di Giovanni
Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu, d. 1298). In another context I have already
drawn attention to Guibert’s letter-treatise Tractatus de Pace et de Tran-
quillitate, written around 1275 for the Cistercian nun Marie de Dam-
pierre. Comparable with this work is the Epistola ad Dominam Isabellam/
Epistola Exhortationis de Virginitate, addressed to Isabelle de France
(d. 1270), daughter of the French King Louis VIII, sister of Saint
Louis (Louis IX) and founder (around 1256) of the Longchamp
monastery (Abbaye de l’Humilité de Notre Dame).185
This letter-treatise, probably written in the early to mid 1250s,
and taking much of its spirit from pseudo-Dionysius and Bernard de
Clairvaux, consists of five sections, corresponding to the themes of
hereditas, puritas, virginitas, humilitas, and honestas. The first of these sec-
tions describes the spiritual inheritance of the royal daughter and
sketches ten progressive levels of detachment from worldly affairs.186
By going through these levels, Isabelle’s soul could achieve real con-
templative joy: a prelude to a full understanding of the Divine in
the visio beatifica. In the four remaining sections of this letter Guibert
extols the merits and virtues of purity of mind, virginity (the practice
of which should keep a middle course between temptations of the
flesh and pride in one’s endurance), and exterior discipline. Together
these merits and virtues should make a worthy spiritual garment for
the princess, who shortly afterwards was to put her own variant of
this religious programme into practice in her new monastic founda-
tion of Poor Clares.
184
Epistola de Imitatione Christi, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Quaracchi, 1898)
VIII, 499–503 & in: Bonaventura, Selecta pro Instruendis Fratribus Ordinis Minorum Scripta
S. Bonaventurae, una cum Libello Speculum Disciplinae (Quaracchi, 1942), 261–271.
185
The Epistola ad Dominam Isabellam/Epistola exhortationis de Virginitate/Tractatus de
Virginitate has been studied and edited for the first time by A. de Poorter, ‘Lettre
de Guibert de Tournai, O.F.M., à Isabelle, fille du roi de France’, Revue d’Ascétique
et Mystique 12 (1931), 116–127. A new edition by Sean Field, based on a more com-
plete manuscript, will appear in Mediaeval Studies (2003).
186
Not unlike the ideas of spiritual ascent developed in the Guibert’s (E )Rudimentum
Doctrinae, Book III, Part Six (= De Modo Addiscendi, ed. Bonifacio (Turin, 1953),
679–680), and in chapters 28 and 29 of his Tractatus de Pace, ed. Longpré (Quaracchi,
1925), 163–187. In all these cases, Guibert’s main source is the Benjamin Major of
Richard de St. Victor.
452 chapter seven
Olivi’s most important surviving spiritual letter is his 1295 con-

solation, written for the three adolescent sons of King Charles II of
Anjou. From 1288 onwards these juveniles had been held hostage
in Ciurana (near Barcelona) by the King of Aragon, as part of a
provisional peace settlement between Aragon and the Kingdom of
Naples. During their hostage period, which lasted for nearly seven
years (October 1288–June 1295), Charles’s three sons (Louis, Robert
and Raymond Berengario) were under the tutelage of three Franciscan
friars with moderate spiritual leanings (François Bruni from Montpellier,
who, as Louis’ confessor had joined the children in their captivity,
and the Catalan friars Pedro Scarez and Poncio Portugati).187 Quite
probably, by some means or another, these friars were in contact
with Olivi, at that time the most prominent representative of the
Franciscan spiritual faction.
Barred from visiting the children in person,188 Olivi wrote his 1295
consolatory letter at the request of the three princes of Anjou, appar-
ently. In this letter Olivi offered them a religious programme for liv-
ing a (Franciscan) life of evangelical perfection, presented in a strong
eschatological framework that, in a nutshell, recapitulates Olivi’s
eschatological ideas as put forward far more extensively in his learned
Apocalypse commentary.189 The gist of Olivi’s message is that suffering
(the suffering of Christ and of his martyrs for the faith) is the true
driving force of history, ushering in the return of the Redeemer and
the final defeat of Antichrist. The ordeals of all upright Christians,
the children of Anjou included, are part and parcel of this overall
scheme of suffering. The children therefore should embrace their
suffering as a sign of election and a token of God’s wisdom.190
187
Jacques Paul, ‘Saint Louis d’Anjou, franciscain et évêque de Toulouse (1274–
1297)’, Cahiers de Fanjeaux 7 (1972), 59–90; J.M. Pou y Marti, ‘Visionarios, beguinos
y fraticellos catalanes’, AIA 11 (1919), 138.
188
The letter gives the impression that the King of Naples discouraged Olivi to
see the children in person, out of fear that the friar would indoctrinate them with
‘beguine’ ideas.
189
See on this also Raoul Manselli, La ‘Lectura super Apocalypsim’ di Pietro di Giovanni
Olivi (Rome, 1955); David Burr, Olivi’s Peaceable Kingdom. A Reading of the Apocalypse
Commentary (Philadelphia, 1993); E. Pásztor, ‘L’escatologia gioachimitica nel frances-
canesimo: Pietro di Giovanni Olivi’, in: L’attesa della fine dei tempi nel medioevo, ed.
O. Capitani & J. Miethke (Rome, 1985), 169–193.
190
Epistola ad Regis Siciliae filios, edited in H. Denifle, ‘Olivi’s Schreiben an die
Söhne Karls II. von Neaples aus dem J. 1295’, Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte
des Mittelalters 3 (1887), 534–540. The text has also been edited in C. Vielle, Saint
Louis d’Anjou. Évêque de Toulouse. Sa vie, son temps, son culte (Vanves, 1930), 469–472.
No doubt, the most prolific letter writer belonging to the Franciscan

spiritual camp was Angelo Clareno (Pietro di Fossombrone, ca. 1255–
1337), who is renowned for his polemical Historia Septem Tribulationum
and for a series of high-quality translations of Greek patristic texts
(spiritual works of Basil, Chrysostom, pseudo-Athanasius, and John
Climacus). Many of Angelo Clareno’s 84 surviving Latin letters, as
well as many of his Italian letters, are veritable treatises of spiritual
edification.191 Cases in point are the Praeparantia Christi Iesu Habitationem
et Mansionem Ineffabilem et Divinam in Nobis Secundum Exterioris et Interioris
Hominis Mores (the ninth letter in the edition of Musto), the letter
Nemo Potest Duobus Dominis Servire (letter thirteen), the letter De Verbis
et Consiliis Fratris Angeli (letter 26), his letter on the necessity to follow
Christ and to die to sin by living in Him (letter 33), the letter
Principalem Dei Intentionem est Impossibile a Contradictione Impedire (letter
41), and his letter on Francesco d’Assisi as the ‘new’ man through
which God speaks to us all (letter 63). Among all these letters, the
Praeparantia Christi Iesu habitationem in particular is a significant work
of religious instruction;192 it is comparable with a novice training
treatise in its explanation of the external and internal actions and
attitudes that favour the presence of Christ in the human soul.193
191
The Latin letters have been edited twice: The Letters of Angelo Clareno (c. 1250–
1337), ed. R.G. Musto, U. of Columbia Phd. (Ann Arbor, 1977); Angeli Clareni Opera
I, Epistole, ed. Lydia von Auw, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 103 (Rome, 1980). Both
these editions are dependable, although the first of these seems somewhat more
preferable from a historical point of view. For the complete edition of all the Italian
letters, see: Lettere di Clareno in volgare, ed. F. Accrocca (Padova, 1994) & F. Accrocca,
‘L’Epistolario di Angelo Clareno nel Ms. 1942 della Biblioteca Oliveriana di Pesaro’,
in: Temi e immagini del Medio Evo. Alla memoria di Raoul Manselli da un gruppo di allievi,
ed. E. Pásztor (Rome, 1996), 115–136. See also H. Mottu, ‘Les lettres du francis-
cain Angelo Clareno’, RThPh, 116 (1984), 247–251; Angelo Clareno. Seguire Cristo povero
e crossifisso. Con ampia scelta di testi tradotti da O. Manzio (Padua, 1994), 67–72,
97–100, 139–142, 147–148 (includes several Italian letters).
192
This letter saw several independent editions and translations: Praeparantia Christi
Iesu Habitationem et Mansionem Ineffabilem et Divinam a Nobis Secundum Exterioris Hominis
Mores: Il beato Simone Fidati da Cascia e i suoi scritti editi ed inediti, ed. N. Mattioli
(Rome, 1898), 467–471; R.G. Musto, ‘Angelo Clareno’s “Preparantia Christi Iesu
Habitationem”’, AFH 73 (1980), 69–89 & 82 (1989). A modern Italian translation
by Ottaviano Maurizi & Feliciano Olgiati can be found in I Mistici Francescani Secolo
XIV, II (Assisi-Bologna, 1997), 697ff.
193
For more information, see Felice Accrocca, ‘Angelo Clareno: Riflessioni e
nuove ricerche’, CF 62 (1992), 311–332; C. Cargnoni, ‘La “passione dell’ imitazione
di Cristo” nell epistolario di Angelo Clareno’, Analecta Tertii Ordinis Regularis S. Franc.
[AnTOF] 26/156 (1995), 253–259; Felice Accrocca, ‘L’epistolario di Angelo Clareno
nel Ms. 1942 della Biblioteca Oliveriana di Pesaro’, in: Temi e immagini del Medio
454 chapter seven
With Angelo Clareno we have moved into the fourteenth century.

Several of his direct contemporaries stand out as important letter
writers as well. By 1303/1304, one of these, the Ravenna lector of
theology and convent preacher Gosmario dei Gosmari da Verona,
had written a letter-booklet on the virtues and the obligations of
priests and preachers, at the request of the newly appointed Archbishop
Rainaldo de Concoregio. After the Archbishop sent a thank-you let-
ter in reply, in which related spiritual issues were raised, Gosmario
answered with an additional letter-booklet, namely De Bono Animae,
which, on the basis of Augustine’s Psalm commentaries, in five parts
discusses the proper happiness of the soul (with its supporting virtues
of humility, charity, and justice), and the proper performance of
prayers and meritorious deeds.194
Another contemporary of Angelo Clareno, the Franciscan conversus
Ugo Panziera da Prato (d. ca. 1330), is first and foremost known as
the composer of a set of laude comparable with those of Jacopone
da Todi and Guittone d’Arezzo. Around 1307, Ugo left Italy for the
Franciscan vicariate Tartaria Orientalis, as did several other Franciscan
friars with spiritual leanings (who found the religious life in the Italian
peninsula frayed with disciplinary difficulties). In the course of his
travels, which ended with his death in the Pera-Galata Convent at
Constantinople around 1330, Ugo completed a set of spiritual letter-
treatises addressed at male and female religious and, more in particular,
at members of the del Ceppo Fraternity in Prato. These letter-treatises
eventually were collected as a set of fourteen Trattati Spirituali, and
as such have survived in 26 or more manuscripts and in a series of
fifteenth and sixteenth-century editions.195 They provide Ugo’s rumi-
Evo, 115–136; Guido Baldassarri, ‘Letterature devota, edificante e morale’, in: Storia
della lettteratura italiana II (Il trecento) (Rome, 1995), 211–326; Gian Luca Potestà,
‘Clareno, Angelo’, Diz. Enc. Med. I, 411–412; Giulia Barone, ‘Angelo Clareno’,
Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart I, 481; C. Cadderi, ‘Angelo Clareno e gli spiritu-
ali del Lazio’, SF 95 (1998), 343–362; Benoît Gain, ‘Ange Clareno (d. 1337) lecteur
et traducteur de S. Basile’, AFH 92 (1999), 329–350.
194
Littera de bono animae: MS Arezzo, Biblioteca della Città 325 ff. 2r–34v. For a
first analysis of this letter and of the Littera de perfectione et virtutibus praelatorum, see
in particular C. Cenci, ‘Lettera “De bono animae” di fr. Gosmario da Verona al
B. Rainaldo, Arcivescovo di Ravenna’, AFH 81 (1988), 50–71.
195
Trattati Spirituali: a.o. MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.E.33; Oxford,
Bodleian Canon Ital. 299; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale XIII.D.26; Aquila, Biblioteca
Provinziale 322; University of Notre Dame IN, MS 18 ff. 36–41 & 43v–49v. for
old and new editions, see Trattati Spirituali/Libro del beato Ugho Pantiera da Prato, layco
contemplativo (Florence: Antonio Mischomini, 1492 (2x)/Venice: Nicolò Brenta da
nations on the nature of religious perfection and true humility, his

methods of contemplation, his mental anguish at the commemoration
of the suffering Christ and, last but not least, his programme for the
transformation of the self in the love of God.196
One of Angelo Clareno’s more complex opponents within the
order was the learned Galician friar Alvaro Pelayo (ca. 1275–1349),
one-time apostolic penitentiary at the court of pope John XXII and
subsequently bishop of Faro (Portugal). Best studied are Alvaro’s anti-
heretical, exegetical and political works, and most of all his hiero-
cratic Summa de Statu et Planctu Ecclesiae. Both before and during his
episcopate, Alvaro wrote a number of spiritual letters to Franciscan
friars, to fellow bishops, and to groups of male and female peni-
tentiary flagellants or disciplinati in Perugia.197 These flagellants, for
Varana, 1500/Genoa: Antonio Bellon, 1535). See also A. Levasti, Mistici del duecento
e del trecento (Milan-Rome, 1935) & Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, n. 12303 &
12304. Some of these treatises (no. I, IV, V, IX, and X) have found a modern
Italian translation by Lino Temperini & Alberto Bartola in Mistici Francescani Secolo
XIV, II (Assisi-Bologna, 1997), 733–974.
196
Based on the information found in the editions and subsequent studies, the
following division can be made: 1.) Della perfectione (in ten chapters, this letter-
treatise deals with perfection in general, virtue in general and its relation to grace,
perfection in the body’s vita activa, the perfection of the vita activa of the body in
relation to the contemplative life, mental activity, contemplation, the consubstantial
reward of meritorious virtue, the accidental reward of meritorious virtue, substan-
tial glory and the perfection of the life of the Virgin); 2.) Contro alcune oppenioni
della doctrina del non pensare di Dio chi vuole pervenire alla contemplazione; 3.)
Somma degli spirituali sentimenti; 4.) Epistola mandata a sancte religiose nella quale
le conforta al perfecto stato della innamorata croce; 5.) De dolori della mente et
delle pene del corpo lequali Christo huomo sostenne; 6.) De dieci gradi di humil-
itade per liquali lhuomo pervienne allultimo perfecto chiamato nihilata; 7.) Come
quanto et di che amore deba essere et Creatore et la creatura amata in via; 8.) A
che si possono conoscere le spiritioni se sono da mettere in operatione per acquistare
salute; 9.) Delle possessioni che sono dalle rationali creature possedute et come di
quelle spogliare si debbe chi desidera in Christo il suo humano essere transformare;
10.) Di XV gradi ne quali si concludono tutte le reali virtudi che rispondono all-
humana perfectione lequali sono necessarie a ogni religioso che desidera la sua pere-
grinatione nelle vestigie del nostro Signore Jesu Christo; 11.) Dello excellente,
pericoloso stato dello spiritu che nel mondo regna, et della mia imperfectione; 12.)
Come Christo conversa in via con suoi electi figliuoli; 13.) Della amistade et suo
nascimento et quale fu fra Christo et gli apostoli suoi; 14.) Divota epistola al quale
fu mandata alli spirituali fratelli della Compagnia del Ceppo di Prato. See: D. Pacetti,
‘I trattati spirituali di Ugo Panziera’, SF 63/4 (1966), 3–41; G. Matteucci, Un glorioso
convento francescano sulle rive del Bosforo. Il S. Francesco di Galata in Costantinopoli, c. 1230–
1697 (Florence, 1967), 52–64; D. Pacetti, ‘La traditione dei Trattati spirituali di Uga
Panziera’, Studi Francescami 64 (1967), 30–77; Clément Schmitt, ‘Hugues Panziera’,
DSpir VII, 892–893.
197
Epistolae Variae: a.o. MS Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria 596 ff. 84–372 (15th cent.).
456 chapter seven
whom Alvaro served as a spiritual director, received at least nine of

such letters. In them Alvaro gave spiritual advice concerning ortho-
dox religious praxis, correct forms of prayer and christocentric devo-
tion, the proper approach towards corporal penitence, the importance
of humility, and the spiritual worth of honest work.198
Some of Alvaro’s letters to fellow friars deal with issues of spiri-
tual dissent and the poverty struggle within the Franciscan order.199
Yet other letters directed at Franciscan friars are deeply concerned
with the formation of inner or interior man within the Franciscan
regulated life. In showing how friars are supposed to fine-tune their
inner self after they have mastered the principles of exterior or exter-
nal discipline, these letters are valuable complementary reading to
the novice training treatises of David von Augsburg.200
198
These nine letters have been edited together with related pieces in: V. Meneghin,
Scritti inediti di fra Alvaro Pais (Lisbon, 1969) 130ff.
199
MS Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria 2094 ff. 1r–40v contains the Epistola Responsiva
Fr. Angeli Clareni contra Fr. Alvarum Pelagium de Regula Fratrum Minorum Observanda, which
is a reaction to a letter by Alvaro Pelayo. See also Musto’s edition of Clareno’s let-
ters, as well as AFH 39 (1946), 63–200.
200
Some texts can be found in the work of Meneghin mentioned above. Most
famous is Alvaro’s Littera ad Fratrem Juvenalem, ed. in Z. Lazzeri, ‘Una lettera spiri-
tuale di fra Alvaro Pelagio’, AFH 10 (1917), 575–582. This Ritratto dell’‘uomo interi-
ore’ saw a modern Italian translation by Lázaro Iriarte, in: Mistici Francescani. Secolo
XIV, II (Assisi-Bologna, 1997), 981–992. Following Lazzeri’s translation, we can see
that the work, addressed at a friar ‘M.’, contains twelve sections: Accendi in te la
lucerna dell’amore di Dio; Prendi l’esempio dalle api; Esercizi di penitenza e di devozione; Vita
raccolta e fedeltà alla regola; Come passero solitario; Stai in silenzio salmeggiando; Il sacramento
della penitenza; Poni freno al tuo riso; Ogni estremismo viene dal diavolo; La guida e il con-
siglio dei frati esperti; Aspetta la grazia della contemplazione; La communione eucaristica. It
amounts to an all-encompassing life-guide for the serious but non-extremist friar,
and provides insight in Franciscan penitential activities. Hence, the section Esercizi
di penitenza e di devozione states (trans. Lazzeri, 985–986): ‘Se, per amore ed ispi-
razione del Signore, ti vuoi correggere ed emendare, prendi la pratica di fare, oltre
l’usanza dell’Ordine, una disciplina temperata, una o due volte la settimana, sec-
ondo la quantità e gravità dei difetti che avrai fatti. Per la prima volta la durata
sia per lo spazio dei tre primi salmi penitenziali, la seconda per altri quattro, senza
le litanie, e non più. Farai dra il dì e la notte trecento genuflessioni, e non più.
La domenica, il martedì e il giovedì cena; gli altri giorni, a meno che non vi sia
una ragione importante, non cenare, ma mantieni la vita comunitaria. Ingegnati
normalmente di mangiare poca carne, specialmente di sera, e non bere molto vino,
nel quale sta la lussuria (Ef. 5, 18). Per tutta la tua vita, qualunque cibo ti disponi a
mangiare, arma il tuo cuore, prima di andare a tavola, perché nessuna cosa ti sazi,
per quanto sia di piccola stima o sapore; ma sforzati quanto puoi di vincere te
stesso con la virtù della temperanza, la quale è nutrimento di tutte le virtù e
sopratutto della castità (. . .) etc.; The section Il sacramento della penitenza (trans. Lazzeri,
988–989) states: ‘Quando ti confessi, non ti confessare con parole generali, ma ricor-
dati quanto puoi dei tuoi difetti e peccati, che hai commesso dall’ultima confes-
The period between the death of Alvaro Pelayo (1349) and the
early fifteenth century seemingly did not see a prolific production of
spiritual letters within the Franciscan order. This picture is of course
partly determined by the relative scholarly neglect for later fourteenth-
century Franciscan history in general, and new research might change
matters dramatically. Thus far, however, I know of only two isolated
specimens, namely the mystical-ascetical Sendbrief an geistliche Kinder
signalized by the German scholar Kurt Ruh, which apparently was
addressed at female religious and has survived in two St. Gallen
manuscripts,201 and the Regel aller Prälaten: a letter by Marquard von
Lindau to Konrad von Braunsberg (prior of the German Johanniter
order), listing all the necessary virtues of a mighty prelate.202
Spiritual letters again became important vehicles of religious instruc-
tion in the wake of the Observant reforms. Significant in this con-
text is the emergence of a relatively large epistolary corpus of female
origin, predominantly originating from the French-Belgian Colettines,
and from the Observant Poor Clares in Italy and Southern Germany.
Many of Colette of Corbie’s surviving letters to her fellow Colettine
sisters, most of which date from the 1430s and 1440s, aim at imple-
menting a specific Colettine Minorite lifestyle in the newly established
communities in Burgundy, France and the Southern parts of The
Netherlands.203 We are dealing with hortatory and supportive letters
that stress the importance of passion devotion, humility, patience,
silence, and obedience. These virtues are depicted as the constituting
sione fino a questa che ora fai, e dilli particolarmente con vergogna al tuo con-
fessore, senza mescolare altro ragionamento non necessario a questa confessione,
puramente e umilmente, con dolore e preposito di emendarti, sia che si tratti di
peccato mortale, il che piaccia a Dio che non sia mai, ovvero veniale. Fatti mostrare
da qualcuno quali sono i peccati mortali che si possono commettere contro la nos-
tra Regola e, quando in essi vi fose offesa di Dio, confessatene, e guardati di ricadere
nel futuro. Mai confessarti prima di pentirti di quello che hai da confessare. (. . .).’
201
Ruh, Bonaventura Deutsch, 53.
202
MS Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek Cod. Cent. VI, 46d, ff. 198v–205v. It comes
close to some manuals for the instruction of prelates mentioned elsewhere in this
volume.
203
A range of Colette’s letters have been published in Lettres de Ste Colette (Paray-
le-Monial, 1981). Several can also be found in La Règle de l’Ordre de Sainte Claire,
avec les Statuts de la Réforme de Sainte Colette, quelques lettres de cette Glorieuse Réformatrice,
ses Sentiments sur la Sainte Règle, etc. (Bruges, 1892). Colette also corresponded with
high noble benefactors, high clergymen, the French King, and with the authorities
of the towns in which she established her foundations. Such letters could become
the occasion for religious instruction, albeit that Colette had to be careful to pre-
sent herself with the humility and deference expected from a woman.
458 chapter seven
elements of becoming a ‘bonne fille’204 and amount to a programme

of religious perfection. The most comprehensive of these programmes
is unfolded in Colette’s so-called Testament, written near the end of
her life (a text already mentioned in my chapter on Franciscan rules
and rule commentaries as sources for religious instruction). This long
final letter of intent, which circulated among Colettine communities
and brings to mind the Testament ascribed to Chiara d’Assisi, is a
statement of control over the adherence to the 1254 rule of Chiara
and the Colettine constitutions.205 It contains a systematic exposition
of Colette’s ideal programme of religious formation for Franciscan
nuns, with as main elements the uncompromising practise of obedi-
ence, poverty, chastity, and penitence (fasting and bodily discipline),
a thorough devotion to prayer and meditation (on the death of Christ
and His sufferings), a total immersion in the divine office, and a
relentless training in the renunciation of the world and the flesh by
embracing complete enclosure206 and by focusing the eyes as often
as possible on the community’s graveyard.
The surviving letter collections of the fifteenth-century Colettines,
several of which remain hidden in the archival collections of Ghent
and Amiens, do not only contain letters by Colette de Corbie and
letters written to her by external benefactors, Franciscan counsellors
and confessors (such as Henry de Baume, Pierre Salmon, François
Claret and Pierre de Reims).207 These collections also include letters
written by other Colettine sisters, such as Agnes de Vaux.208 Élisa-
beth de Bavière, Guillemette de Gruyère,209 and Catherine Rufiné.
204
Cf. the letter to sister Loyse Bassande in Auxonne. Lettres de Ste Colette (Paray-
le-Monial, 1981), 6; the letter to Marie Boen of Ghent (c. 1442), Lettres de Ste Colette
(Paray-le-Monial, 1981), 32–34; the letter to the abbess and the sisters of Besançon
( July 1446). Lettres de Ste Colette (Paray-le-Monial, 1981), 46–49.
205
Published in the Seraphicae Legislationis Textus Originales (Quaracchi, 1897), pp.
298–307, and translated in Lettres de Ste Colette (Paray-le-Monial, 1981), 54–66.
206
Enclosure as the grave into which the soul descends to obtain salvation. This
theme may have been inspired by Colete’s recluse background.
207
Three of Henry de Baume’s letters to the Colettines have survived. One of
these has been edited in U. d’Alençon, ‘Documents sur la réforme de Ste Colette
en France’, AFH 2 (1909), 607–608 (addressed to the abbess of Besançon). The
other two letters can be found in the archives of the Poor Clares of Ghent (Flanders).
On other letters to the Colettine sisters, see U. d’Alençon, ‘Lettres inédites de
Guillaume de Casale à Ste Colette et notes pour la biographie de cette Sainte’, EF
19 (1908), 460–481, 668–691 and in Idem, ‘Documents sur la réforme de Ste
Colette en France’, AFH 2 (1909), 447–456, 600–612 & 13 (1910), 82–97 (passim).
208
Some of these are edited in Règle de Ste Claire (Desclée, 1892), 286–288.
209
For the seemingly unedited testimonies of sister Élisabeth de Bavière and
Sometimes, such letters provide direct evidence of autonomous female

authorship, not tampered with by male scribal mediation. They also
exhibit the interesting topos of writing as a major means to store
and recreate the vicissitudes and the history of the Colettine sisters
as they experienced them.
These letters bear witness to the sisters’ active involvement in the
formation of a collective cultural memory. A fine example is Catherine
Rufiné’s letter to sister Marie de Berghes in Ghent. This letter, writ-
ten around 1492, does not only mention the opening of Colette’s
tomb, where the saint was found in the odour of sanctity, but it also
deals with female writing as such. It offers testimony to the exchange
of letters between sisters of different convents, and it provides a
revealing instance of female editorial comment on another woman’s
compositions.210
Observant communities of Poor Clares in Italy had a comparable
epistolary culture. Sometimes, we have gained knowledge of such
activities in indirect ways. We know, for instance, that Eustochia
Calafato from Santa Maria di Montevergine (Messina) kept up a
lively correspondence with other abbesses of Observant Poor Clare
communities. Mariano da Firenze mentions that Eustochia exchanged
letters with the sisters of the Santa Lucia convent at Foligno, above
all with their abbess Cecilia Coppoli (who herself took major initia-
tives in the reform of communities of Poor Clares in central Italy).211
Regrettably, not many of these letters have survived. A better fate
was reserved for the letters to Cecilia Coppoli, written by one of
Eustochia’s fellow sisters at Messina, namely Iacopa Pollicino, who
engaged in hagiographical ventures as well.212
Guillemette de Gruyère, abbess of Hesdin, see: Archives of the Poor Clares of Amiens,
Liasse 23, mémoires d’Hesdin, no. 11.
210
Historians have used this letter to obtain information about the opening of
Colette’s tomb (1492). The letters of Catherine Rufiné, and her additional souvenirs
(written c. 1492) on the first disciples of Colette (the original of which is lost) are
edited by Alençon, ‘Documents sur la réforme de sainte Colette en France’, AFH
3 (1910), 82–86. In the historicist view of Ubald d’Alençon these letters are only
interesting insofar as they establish actual facts concerning the life, death, and cult
of Colette. Yet they unveil a thriving correspondence and the nuns’ mutual edito-
rial support in the creation of a hagiographic corpus of their own.
211
Mariano da Firenze, Libro della degnità et excellentie del ordine della seraphica madre
delle povere donnen Sancta Chiara da Asisi, ed. G. Boccali (Florence, 1986), 349.
212
On such letters and notices, see F. Terrizzi, La beata Eustochia (1434–1485)
(Messina, 1982), passim; Costanza, ‘Ricerca bibliografica sulla vita di Eustochia
Calafato, beata messinese’, 157–174; Idem, ‘Ricerca bibliografica sulla beatificazione
di Eustochia Calafato, beata messinese’, 3–20.
460 chapter seven
Other examples are the surviving letters from the Observant

Franciscan nunneries at Bologna and Milan. The first of these letters
date from the late fifteenth-century religious and cultural renaissance
of the Bolognese Corpus Domini convent during the abbatiates of
Caterina Vigri and Illuminata Bembo. Several archival collections
from the Corpus Domini convent, now kept in the Archivio Generale
Arcivescovile of Bologna, still contain letters of Caterina and her sis-
ters, frequently copied together with eulogies, hagiographical accounts,
prayers and spiritual treatises.213 From Milan stem the sixteenth-
century Epistolae Spirituales of sister Angelica (Paula Antoinette de
Nigris), which combine spiritual recommendations addressed at fel-
low sisters and external benefactors with (auto-)biographical accounts
of her own religious life.214
In all these cases, we see how, by means of an exchange of letters,
spiritual treatises and devotional art works, Colettines and Observant
Poor Clares created large ‘networks of nuns’ and thus could strengthen
their religious identity, at times in the face of attempts at control by
male authority figures.215 Very important for our insight into these
matters is the relatively large number of surviving letters from the
Poor Clares of Nuremberg, where the upkeep of an epistolary culture
213
For a general impression, see Zarri, ‘Écrits inédits de Catherine de Bologne
et de ses soeurs’, esp. 222ff. See also Caterina Vigri, Laudi, Trattati e Lettere, ed.
Antonella Degl’Innocenti, SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo (Florence-Bologna, 2000).
214
Epistolae spirituales, ed. Jean-Baptiste Fontana de Comitibus (Rome, in aedibus
populi Romani, 1576). Cf. J. Goyens, ‘Angélique (Paule Antoinette de Nigris)’, DSpir
I, 578.
215
See on this phenomenon especially Wood, Women, Art, and Spirituality, passim.
See also Dear Sister. Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, ed. K. Cherewatuk &
U. Wiethaus, University of Pennsylvania Press Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia,
1993); Albrecht Classen, ‘Female Epistolary Literature from Antiquity to the Present:
An Introduction’, Studia Neophilologia 60 (1988), 3–13; Albrecht Classen, ‘Emergence
from the Dark: Female Epistolary Literature in the Middle Ages’, Journal of the Rocky
Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 10 (1989), 1–15. In this context it is inter-
esting to note that the earliest rule for the Longchamp community and the 1263
rule of Urban IV deliberately curbed female initiative in these matters. The Longchamp
rule indicates that ‘Omnis litera, quae ex parte Conventus dirigitur, primo in Capitulo
legatur. Nulla Soror aliquas litteras dirigat, seu recipiat, nisi primo eas Abbatissa
legat; vel nisi ab alia ad hoc statuta coram Abbatissa legantur. Abatissa autem de
correctione, monitione, ac ordinatione Sororum Capitulum teneat qualibet hebdomada
bis, vel saltem semel.’ BF II, 486. A comparable ruling is found in Urban’s Regula
Secunda: ‘Nulla etiam Soror aliquas litteras dirigat, seu recipiat, nisi primo eas Abbatissa
legat, vel ab alia ad haec constituta legantur.’ BF II, 518. The choice for the 1253
rule of Chiara and for the missionary example of Chiara and her early followers
amounted to a cultural emancipation of the Poor Clares in France and Italy.
apparently was seen as an important defining aspect of the religious

community.216 Most famous, no doubt, are the many Latin and
German letters from the hand of the learned nun Caritas Pirckheimer
(1467–1532), abbess of the Nuremberg Poor Clares after 1502. Yet
Caritas functioned in a network of equally and nearly equally learned
nuns, such as the Nuremberg Poor Clare Felizitas Grundherrin (d. 1556,
six of whose letters have been edited thus far), Caritas’ own sister
Klara (1487–1533), and her niece Katharina, themselves reputable
letter writers and possible co-authors of Caritas Pirckheimer’s Denk-
würdigkeiten.217
The friars had more possibilities to spread their message of reli-
gious instruction in other genres, such as published sermon cycles
and full-blown religious treatises. Yet the spiritual letter remained
the preferred vehicle for targeted forms of religious edification. Not
216
As pointed out in Renate Mattick’s study, ‘Eine Nürnberger Übertragung der
Urbanregel für den Orden der hl. Klara und der ersten Regel der hl Klara für die
armen Schwestern’, FrSt 68 (1987), 173–232, the Observant Poor Clares of Nuremberg
followed the rule of Urban IV, which in itself put some limits to female epistolary
expression. However, the nuns also took inspiration from the rule of Chiara d’Assisi
and from the so-called Sankt-Klara Buch, an intruiging in-house Nuremberg hagiograpi-
cal compilation about Chiara d’Assisi, dating from the fourteenth century. In this
booklet, which was read by the Observant Poor Clares from Nuremberg during
the refectory meals, along with the rule, the writing of letters is presented as one
of the twelve good and sanctifying works of the order’s founder Chiara d’Assisi:
‘. . . sie schrieb gern und ließ schreiben prief andern iunckfrawen zu bekerung, zu
sterckung, zu besserung und zu almusen geben.’ See: Kurt Ruh, ‘Das Sankt-Klara-
Buch’, W&W 46 (1983), 192–206; Ruth Meyer, ‘Junckfraw-Muter-Helferin. Das
Bild der heiligen Klara im St.-Klara-Buch und seine Rezeption im 15. Jahrhundert’,
CF 62 (1992), 507–532 (the text quoted here has been taken from this article, p. 523).
217
Around 180 letters from Pirckheimer nuns to the humanist celebrity Willibald
Pirckheimer have survived, thanks to Willibald’s initiative to collect them in his let-
ter archive. See for instance MS Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek, Nachlaß Pirckheimer
Nr. 542–551. Not all of these letters have been edited as yet. Among the letters of
Caritas, Klara, Katharina, Felizitas and other nuns that have been printed and
edited so far (as well as replies from some of their male and female correspon-
dents), many can be found in Willibald Pirckheimer, Opera Omnia (Frankfurt, 1610);
Die ‘Denkwürdigkeiten’ der Caritas Pirckheimer (aus den Jahren 1524–1528), ed. Josef Pfanner,
Caritas-Pirckheimer-Quellensammlung, 2 (Landshut, 1962); Briefe von, an und über
Caritas Pirckheimer (aus den Jahren 1498–1530), ed. Josef Pfanner, Caritas-Pirckheimer-
Quellensammlung, 3 (Landshut, 1966); Briefe der Felizitas Grundherrin, Klosterfrau zu St.
Klara in Nürnberg, zwischen 1509 und 1529, in: Historisch-Politische Blätter für das katholische
Deutschland 44 (1859), 378–395, 441–469. On the function of letters in the Nuremberg
community and the way in which authorship of letters and treatises by nuns could
surpass the individual, see the excellent article of Susanne Beate Knackmuß, ‘Die
Äbtissin und das schwarze Schaf oder zur Vox Ipsissima einer Inutilis Abatissa. 500
Jahre Äbtissinenjubiläum der Nürnberger Klarisse Caritas Pirckheimer’, CF 73 (2003),
93–159.
462 chapter seven
surprisingly, we still have a significant number of letters written by

predominantly Italian Observant friars,218 such as Bernardino da
Siena,219 Alberto da Sarteano, Alessandro Ariosto di Bologna (d. ca.
1484), the Florentine preacher Antonio Balocco (ca. 1410–1483),220
Gabriele Rangone (1410–1486), and Tommaso Illyrico da Osimo
(1484–1528). Among these collections, that of Alberto da Sarteano
probably is the largest, with more than 125 letters on a large number
of issues, ranging from veritable diatribes against ‘irreverent’ human-
ists (such as Poggio Bracciolini) to calls for social peace and religious
discipline.221
218
Among the spiritual letters from non-Italian Observants, I would like to point
out the Epistola de Silentio by Hendrik Herp (MS Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek/
Bibliothèque Royale IV 222 (an. 448). Several of Herp’s letters have been edited
in Deutsche Mystikerbriefe des Mittelalters, ed. W. Oehl (Munich, 1931), 602–612.
219
21 of Bernardino’s surviving letters have been edited in S. Bernardini Senensis
Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad Claras
Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965) VIII, 311–332. Several of these letters have an
administrative character or address order-specific problems. Others take up matters
of spiritual import. Most interesting to our purpose are the Declaratio S. Bernardini
de Senis circa aliqua dubia super Regulam Fratrum Minorum Fratribus de Observantia totius
Italiae (31 July, 1440), Op. Cit., 317–320 (on specific problems with regard to the
Regula Bullata) and the Littera Sorori Nicolinae Abbatissae (10 November, 1440), Op. cit.,
321–323. This is a very interesting spiritual letter with advice on the performance
of the divine office and the personal engagement in prayer. It could be interpreted
as a concise prayer guide in letter format.
220
Most of Antonio’s surviving letters, covering the period from January 1469 to
April 1478, were addressed to his Florentine patron Lorenzo dei Medici. Several
of these have been edited in B. Bughetti, ‘Tre lettere inedite di Fr. Antonio da
Vercelli a Lorenzo il Magnifico (1478)’, AFH 10 (1917), 591–595; P. Sevesi, ‘Lettere
autografe di Francesco della Rovere’, AFH 28 (1935), 227; P. Bonmann, ‘Memoriale’
Antonii de Vercelli ad Laurentium Magnificum de Medicis coniuratione pactiana
(a. 1478) effectu frustrata’, AFH 43 (1950), 388–410. The Florentine Medici fam-
ily also received letters from the Conventual humanist friar Francesco Michele del
Padovano (d. ca. 1472). MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Landau Finaly 152 ff.
17r–24v, 60r–62v, 88v–93v contains a series of 15 letters, among which (consolatory)
letters to the Medici family and other aristocratic figures, as well as letters to sev-
eral popes and to Franciscan general ministers, in which Michele asks for a proper
reform of the Franciscan order: one that would re-unite the Observant and Conventual
branches. For other manuscripts containing some of the same letters, see: MSS
Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 928 ff. 31v–36v; Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana
Plut. LII cod. 15 no. III ff. 17v–22r; Siena, Biblioteca Comunale H.V. 31 ff.
111v–116v (letter to Pope Nicholas V, March 1447); Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana
Plut. XXVI cod. 19 ff. 169v–171v–179v (letter to minister general Giacomo Bassolini
da Mozzanica, 21 April 1456); Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 723 ff. 68r–77v
(seven letters to members of the Medici family); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm.
23593 ff. 101r–109v (letters to Sixtus IV). Most of these letters have also been pub-
lished in Pratesi, ‘Francesco Micheli del Padovano di Firenze,’ AFH 47 (1954),
239–366 & AFH 48 (1955), 73–130; Idem, ‘Discorsi e nuove lettere di Francesco
Micheli del Padovano’, AFH 49 (1956), 83–105.
221
Several letters can be found in Beati Alberti a Sartiano, Ordinis Minorum Regularis
The epistolary activities of Alessandro Ariosto are closely con-

nected with his pastoral work among the Maronitic Christians in
Palestine, Lebanon and other regions in the Middle East, and can
be read together with his various topographical and ethnographical
works, such as the Topografia Terrae Promissionis,222 and the Itinerarium
sive de Sacra Peregrinatione.223 Of particular interest is his Epistola ad Fr.
Simonem de Rhegio OFM,224 as this not only gives an insight in Alessandro’s
literary production and travels, but also presents the writing of praedi-
cabilia and hagiographical works as suitable forms of religious labour.225
Gabriele Rangone’s Epistola Consolatoria to the vicar general of the
Observants, Marco Fantuzzi da Bologna, is an exercise in obituary
commemoration after the death of an esteemed Observant friar, in
this case Antonio da Bitonto.226 The first part of Gabriele’s letter
Observantiae, Vita et Opera, ed. Fr. Harold Hiberno (Rome, 1688). A reprint under
the supervision of G.B. Bussoto appeared somewhat later: Beati Alberti a Sartiano,
Ordinis Minorum Regularis Observantiae, Opera Omnia (Rome, 1698). Individual letters
have been pointed out and studied in F. Biccellari, ‘Un franciscano umanisto. Il B.
Alberto da Sarteano’, SF 35 (1938), 2–48, 97–127 & 36 (1939), 265–87; Idem,
‘L’Opera del Beato Alberto da Sarteano per la pace e per la regola disciplina’, SF
36 (1939), 159–173, 213–229, 267–310; E. Bulletti, ‘Sospensione del beato Alberto
da Sarteano dalla predicazione’, SF 25 (1953), 95–6; R. Pratesi, ‘Nuovi documenti
sul Beato Alberto da Sarteano (d. 1345)’, AFH 53 (1960), 78–110; P. Santoni, ‘Albert
de Sarteano, observant et humaniste, envoyé pontifical à Jérusalem et au Caïre,
Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, Moyen Âge 86 (1974), 165–211; Spicioni, ‘Alberto
Berdini da Sarteano’, SF 82 (1985), 359–365; R.L. Guidi, ‘Sottintesi e allusioni tra
Poggio e Sarteano a proposito di una polemica mancata’, AFH 83 (1990), 118–61.
See also Roberto Zavalloni, ‘Alberto da Sarteano (1385–1450)’, in: Mistici Francescani,
III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 747–761.
222
Edited in: Marcellino da Civezza, Storia universale delle Missioni francescane (Rome,
1861) V, 637–682. Also edited as: Fratri Alexandri Ariosti de Bononia Topografia Terrae
Promissionis, ed. Marcellino da Civezza (Rome, 1863) and in Ch. Kohler (ed.),
‘Description de la Terre Sainte par un franciscain anonyme’, Revue de l’Orient Latin
11 (1909–12), 1–67, 484ff.
223
Edited as: Viaggio nella Siria, nella Palestina, nell’Egitto fatto dal 1475 al 1478 da
frate Alessandro Ariosto, missionario apostolico, ed. G. Ferraro (Ferrara, 1878). This edition
is incomplete, using only the account as found in a Ferrara manuscript. This is a
far more geographically and ethnographically oriented work than the Topografia.
224
Edited in Fussenegger, ‘De vita et scriptis Fratri Alexandri Ariosti (d. 1486)’,
158–165.
225
For editions and references to other letters (most of which can be found in
MS Piacenza, Biblioteca Comunale Passerini-Landi 154 ff. 44r–50r, 192–199v,
202rr–215v), see also: M. da Civezza—Th. Domenichelli, Orbis Seraficus de Missionibus,
II (Ad Claras Aquas, 1886), II/I, 792; Picconi de Cantalupo, Cenni biografi sugli uomini
illustri della francescana osservante provincia di Bologna (Parma, 1894), 16–9; G. Ferraro,
Viaggio nella Siria, nella Palestina, nell’Egitto fatto dal 1475 al 1478 da frate Alessandro
Ariosto, missionario apostolico (Ferrara, 1878), 38–43.
226
Epistola Consolatoria Super Obitu (. . .) Fr. Antonii de Bitonto: MS Naples, Biblioteca
Nazionale XV.F.60 ff. 1r–11v (ca. 1500). An edition and first analysis can be found
464 chapter seven
(nos. 1–14 in the present edition) is a free adaptation of Lactantius’

Divinae Institutiones (esp. Book III, De falsa sapientia philosophorum).
Thereafter, the letter develops into an eulogy on the life and activities
of Antonio da Bitonto, interspersed with first-hand information based
on Gabriele’s longstanding friendship with the deceased. Antonio is
praised for his indefatigable evangelical zeal, which led him to preach
and teach throughout his life (‘Itaque nullum vite sue momentum
absque usu plurimo et pietate fluebat’).227 Antonio’s life had been a
beacon, and his death in the Lord should not be a cause for distress.228
The letters of Tommaso Illyrico da Osimo are a good example
of the way in which public letters could function in the Observant
programme of religious reform. As an industrious itinerant preacher
esteemed for his preaching tours through Italy, Northern Spain and
Southern France, as well as for his anti-Lutheran engagements in
the early 1520s, Tommaso used the public letter as a vehicle to
exhort urban authorities and lay people to defend the Church and
to espouse evangelical purity in their daily occupations, be they stu-
dents, married couples, or soldiers. Tommaso taught that in all these
different states a Christian lifestyle was possible and necessary for
individual and collective salvation now that the end of the world
was drawing near.229
in M. Bihl, ‘L’‘epistola consolatoria’ di fra Gabriele Rangone da Verona O.M.Observ.

sulla morte di Fra Antonio da Bitonto scritta a Vienna il 10 gennaio 1466’, in:
Miscellanea Pio Paschini. Studi di storia ecclesiastica, volume Secondo, Lateranum, Nova
Series 15 (Rome, 1949), 165–190 (ed. 174–190).
227
Ibidem, 185. This same sentiment later would be expressed by Erasmus with
regard to Dietrich Colde.
228
Ibidem, 86–187: ‘Et nos hunc flebimus? Et nos in tam ineffabili patris nostri
triumpho et glorioso natali lacrimas efferemus? Gaudere solet et iam ipsa mater,
que infandos perpessa est partus dolores, cum nascitur homo, nec iam videtur mem-
inisse pressure. Omnes enim gratulantur amici, cum quis ad hanc mortalem, erum-
nisque plenam editur vitam; quanto magis itaque gaudere et letari debemus, dum
hi quibus et favemus bonum et meliora semper optamus, ad vitam immarcescibilem
et incommutabilem, felicem gloriosamque deveniunt?’
229
It would seem that a first collection of his letters was published at Toulouse
in 1519. This collection contains a letter to the Senate of Toulouse on defending
the name of Jesus (7 February, 1519), a letter to the students of Toulouse University
(16 August 1519), a letter directed to the faithful ‘de ordine servando in matrimo-
nio ac de laudibus matrimonii, ad omnes Christifideles directa’ (15 February, 1519),
and an undated letter to the soldiers of the French King (‘ad milites sub rege
Francorum christianissimo militantes, pro salute animarum suarum, cum quibusdam
regulis ac ordinibus, directa.’). A year later his Epistola ad Omnes Christifideles contra
Hypocritas (Limoges, 1520) appeared, to be followed by L’epistre de fr. Thomas Illyric
(. . .) à tous les chrétiens sur le mariage (Poitiers, s.d. c. 1525). Another Epistola ad Ragusanos
Within the new Capuchin branch, which was very much concerned
with outlining its religious profile within the Franciscan family, spiri-
tual letters for circulation within the order quickly became prominent.
Most instructive are the letters of Bernardino Palli d’Asti (1483–1557),
a former Observant friar and minister general of the Capuchins from
1535 to 1538 and from 1546 to 1552.230 During his first stint as
Capuchin minister general, and in collaboration with a small com-
mittee of fellow Capuchin friars (namely Giovanni da Fano, Francesco
da Jesi and Bernardino Ochino) Bernardino Palli issued a set of
important Capuchin constitutions (1536) that firmly established the
Capuchin branch as a radical Franciscan movement, deeply devoted
to evangelical poverty and engaged in social work and penitential
preaching. From his second stint as Capuchin minister general stem
at least three ‘lettere circolari’ to all the friars of the Capuchin order,
namely two Lettere de electione e de la reprensione (concerning the election
and correction of Capuchin superiors),231 and the Epistola de Peculiaribus
Fratris Minoris Capuccini Virtutibus Caritate Scilicet et Paupertate (6 June,
1548), which is more concerned with spiritual matters: discussing
charity and evangelical poverty as the most beautiful adornments of
the Capuchin religious life.232
de Invicem Habenda Caritate can be found in MS Rome, BAV Vat.Lat. 6894 (6989)
f. 4. On these letters, their relationship with the teachings in Tommaso’s surviving
homiletic and polemical works, see R.M.-J. Mauriac, ‘Nomenclature et description
sommaire des oeuvres de Fr. Thomas Illyricus OFM’, AFH 18 (1925), 374–385;
Idem, ‘Un réformateur catholique, Thomas Illyricus’, EF 46 (1934), 329–347,
434–456, 584–604 & 47 (1935), 58–71 (edited separately at Paris, 1935); A. Bacotich,
‘Degli scritti a stampa e della vita di fra Tommaso Illirico (1450–1528)’, Archivio
storico per la Dalmazia (Rome, 1931), 1–14; M.-F. Godfroy, Thomas Illyricus, prédica-
teur et théologien 1484–1528, thèse de doctorat à Toulouse (Toulouse-Le Mirail, 1984);
Idem, ‘Le prédicateur franciscain Thomas Illyricus à Toulouse (nov. 1518—mai
1519)’, Annales du Midi 97 (1985), 101–114 (Cf. AFH 78 (1985), 533–535); J. Ragot,
‘Passage à Condom et à Nérac de Thomas Illyricus, ermite d’Arcachon’, Revue de
l’Agenais. Bulletin de la Société académique d’Agen 102 (1985), 19–28; Pierre Péano,
‘Thomas Illyricus’, DSpir XV, 827–830.
230
Cf. DBI XV, 197–198.
231
Lettere de electione e de la reprensione, edited in: I frati cappuccini III, 44–45. The
edition is based on MS l’Aquila, Biblioteca Provinciale Cod. 203, a manuscript that
also contains Capuchin rule commentaries, general chapter ordinations, obedience
formularies and related materials useful for provincial superiors.
232
Edited in: Litterae Circulares Superiorum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum
(1548–1803), ed. Melchior a Pobladura, Monumenta Historica Ordinis Minorum
Capuccinorum, VIII (Rome, 1960), 3–10. This collection contains a wealth of addi-
tional circular letters of religious instruction from later periods. Additional Litterae
P. Bernardini Astensis Generalis Ordinis Nostri ad Fratres Provinciae Sancti Angeli have been
edited in: Analecta Ordinis Minorum Capuccinorum XXIV, 1 (1908), 20–21.
466 chapter seven
Throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, letters con-

tinued to be a favourite vehicle to communicate matters of spiritual
edification to Franciscan nuns and devout women. Some elements
of this have already been indicated when the epistolary culture of
the Colettines and the Observant Poor Clares was sketched. Yet, as
the examples of Henry de Baume and Pierre de Reims have shown,
Franciscan preachers and confessors responsible for the spiritual wel-
fare of the nuns also wrote letters to the female religious in their
charge, alongside and sometimes as part and parcel of the sermons
and religious treatises produced for the same audience.
The smooth generic overlap between such letters and forms of
homiletic instruction discussed elsewhere in this volume is clearly vis-
ible in the so-called Ansprachen by the Observant friar Olivier Maillard,
all of which address the Poor Clares of Nuremberg.233 According to
M. Straganz, the editor of these texts, we are dealing with a set of
letters and at least one sermon, possibly translated from French or
Latin into German by the Observant friar Stephan Fridolin, con-
fessor of the Poor Clares of Nuremberg during the period in which
Maillard visited and counselled the Nuremberg sisters.234
The first of these spiritual teachings or Ansprachen is connected with
the feast of Mary’s birth and provides counsel on the reception of the
host.235 The second spiritual advice develops comparable themes,
233
MSS Brixen, Franziskanerkloster S 11 ff. 33r–50v (early 16th cent.; this ma-
nuscript was in the possession of the Poor Clare Justina Plebin, who died (1521)
in the Poor Clare convent of Brixen); Dresden, Ehemalige Bibliothek des Prinzl.
Sekundogenitus 8° 12 f. 172r (c. 1500); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4439 ff.
48v–50v; Prague, University Library cod. XVI G 31 ff. 28v–33v (early 16th cent.).
The last three of these manuscripts only contain one text on temptations by the
Devil. For a diplomatic edition of the various texts contained in these manuscripts,
see: M. Straganz, ‘Ansprachen des Fr. Oliverius Maillard an die Klarissen zu
Nürnberg’, FrSt 4 (1917), 68–85.
234
Olivier Maillard visited the convent at least twelve times and probably kept
up a lively correspondence with the sisters and their confessors. See on this also
the articles by K. Ruh and P. Kesting, in VL2 V, 1173–1175 & 1258.
235
‘Disse ler hat uns geton der aller wirdigist und wolsellig vater pater Oliverius
Mailardi zu der zeit vicarius generalis am freitag vor nativitatis Marie anno domini
MCCCCXCIII. Transite ad me omnes, qui concupiscitis me; also spriht die sellig
kristragend iunkfrau Maria durch den weissen man (Eccl. 24, 26); trettend zu mir
alle jünger die mein begeren, wan wer mich fint, der fint daz leben und schopft
daz heil von got dem hernn. Zu disser edeln muter solt ir aller libsten kinder treten
durch zwii, daz ist durch betrachtung und gepet. czu dem ersten durh betrachtung.
in dissem hochzeit der edeln iunkfrauen Maria sult ir betrachten die wirdigkeit
disser heilligen muter gotes, welhe ir wirdigkeit unter got niemant mag begreiffen
noch außsprechen, wan waz grosser wirdigkeit mag sein, denn daz si ist ein tragerin
elaborating upon the spirit of devotion, the water of compunction

or contrition, and the blood of the passion (‘spiritus devocionis, aqua
compunccionis, sanguis passionis/der geist der andacht, daz wasser
der reu und daz plut dez mitleidens’), the last element of which
christi, die unsern behalter und erlösser gezogen, ernert und getragen hat (. . .) Waz
aber mer von ir zu betrachten ist, dez gibt unz ursach daz heillig evangelium von
dem tag irr gepurt liber generacionis (Matt. 1, 1) ihesu christi, daz uns disse edele
muter fur hebt unter der form eines schonen puchß. Aber zu einem wol geformirten
puch gehörn fir aigenscheft. Czu dem ersten, daz es rein gemacht sey von reinem
perment; czum anderen, daz es wol geschriben sei; czum triten, daz es schon illu-
minirt sei, czum firden, daz es wol ein gepunden sei. Czu dem ersten ist diß wirdig
puch die sellig muter gotes maria von zweien reinen pergamenen, daz sint ir heilige
sel und yr keuscher leib. (. . .) Czu dem andern sullen wir betrachten, wie dicz edel
puch sogar wol geschriben ist worden von eitteller weisheit, tugend und heiligkeit;
nach irem son christo ist daz war, recht, lebendig puch, in dem wir lessen all
tugend. Czu dem dritten mal sullen wir betrachten, wie schon diez puch illuminirt
ist mit ruberick, mit glasur und mit gold. Die ruberick bedeuttet den anliegenden
smerczen (. . .) Sy ist auch illuminirt gewessen mit lasur; die bedeut daz si in ir hat
gehabt die freud der ewigen selligkeit (. . .) Item ist auch illuminirt mit gold; daz
bedeut die grossen volkumen, inprunstigen lieb, die si hat ghabt zu got, mit dem
si gancz veraint ist gewest. (. . .) Czym firden sollen wir betrachten, wie wol diez
puch ein puntten ist, daz es niemant zerprechen mag und das die grosse gnad, die
ir got getan hat in yrer gnaden reichen auffart (. . .) Daz ander, do mit wir zu dis-
sem prunen diß heils zu der werden muter gotes Maria sullen flichen, ist andechtigs
gepet. Wan si ist under nechste hofnung nach irem liben sun christo. Si ist unser
sichere zuflucht, zu der wir in allen notten sullen flichen alz kinder zu irr getreuen
muter. (. . .) Nu furpas aller liebsten kinder und paupercule filie sult ir mercken,
was gut dar zu ist, daz ir auf dicz zu kunftig hochzeit und sust alzeit eurn behal-
ter und erlosser wirdiglich in dem heiligen sacrament zu euch mugt enpfachen.
Darzu sind vi dinck not: czwei vor, ee man zu gangen ist, czwei im zugang, czwei
nach dem alz man zugangen ist. Wer zu dissem sacrament wil gen, dem ist not,
daz er mit reinigkeit zugang. Ist aber iemand auf erden, der mit reinem herczen
sol er zugan, so sult ir es sein fur ieder man euers geistlichen stands halben. Czu
disser reinigkeit sind vor dem zugang not zwei dinck: puratio et cessatio, reinigung
oder puß der sunden und aufhörn von den sunden. (. . .) Aber in dem zugang dez
h. Sacramencz sind auch zu mercken zwei dinck: meditatio et oratio, betrachtung
und gepet. Czu dem ersten sult ir euch zu dem h. sacrament schicken mit betrach-
tung, do durh ir den herrn ihm vor geistlich mugt enpfachen, der im selbs die pest
beraitschaft in uns ist. Ir sult nit on betrachtung zugan, synder euch ein zeitein
nemen, zum minsten vor ein meß hörn, unter der ir euch mit lieb und begird mugt
zu dem herrn kern und in suchen und in pitten, daz er sich selbs wol in euch
enpfach und vor zu euch kum geistlich, ee ir in enpfacht sacramentlich. Also sult
ir begirlich begern dez herrn, daz ir in pei euch wolt haben und daz ir auch begert
pei im zu sein. S. Paulus spricht von unserm aller liebsten herrn ihm; er ist erschi-
nen in dem fleisch, er ist erleucht in dem geist und ist aufgenumen in die glori
(1 Tim. 3, 16). Auß dissem spruch sol nu ein ieglichß kint unter der meß, in der
es sich zu dem h. sacrament wil schiken formieren einen kostenlichen schonen turn,
in dem sind iii zeln, do die eine ist hocher und lustiger den die ander. In disse iii
czeln sult ir gien, ee ir zu dem h. sacrament get und betrachten, waz in einer
ieglich zeln gemalt ist und dar ein teiln die iii teil der meß. In der ersten cel solt
468 chapter seven
should bring the sisters back to Christ.236 In another spiritual letter

Olivier Maillard is more particularly concerned with the way in
which the sisters spent their days. They should not idle away their
time but read holy books, and engage themselves in devotions and
fruitful labour.237 In all their activities and in all places of the cloister
the sisters should make mental correspondences with heavenly bless-
ings and the punishments of hell. Most of all, the sisters should
embrace the cross with their heart.238
ir betrachten von eurem aller susten gesponssen ihm alles daz in seinem heiligen
leben ye geschehen ist. In der andern zeln allez daz in seiner heiligen vergotten sel
geschehen ist. In der iii. zel waz iezund geschiht, so er siczt in der glori seines
himellischen vaters, do er uber all creatur erhocht ist. In der ersten zell sult ihr
beleiben von dem introit der meß pis zu der elleuirung dez h. sacramencz; in der
andern zel beleibt von der wandellung pis zu dem pax domini; in der iii. beleibt
von dem pax domini pis ir daz h. sacrament enpfacht. (. .) Aber nach der Communion
sind aber zwei dinck, graciarum accio et suscepti retencio, got dancken umb diß
groß gut und allen fleiß haben, wie ir den mugt behalten, den ir habt enpfangen.
Czu dem ersten, nach dem und ir zu dem heiligen sacrament sind gangen, so solt
ir got unserm herrn unmessigen danck sagen umb daz unaußsprechlich gut, daz er
euch unwirdigen armen burmellein mit geteilt hat sein heiligen leib, sein genaden-
reiche sel und sein uber wirdige gotheit, do nichczt pessers mag sein weder in himel
noch in erden, und daz er euch ursach hat geben, zu kumen in einen solchen
stand, in dem ir in dick mugt enpfachen, daz in der werld so manig taussent men-
schen ist versagt. Czu dem andern sult ir allen fleiß dar an keren, daz ir den herrn,
den ir enpfangen habt, nit verliest (. . .). Dar umb sult ir euch nach dem heilligen
sacrament besunder den selben tag vor aller außkerigkeit, magkfaltigkeit, zerstreuligkeit
und leichfertigkeit mit fleiß hutten und beleiben in einigkeit und stilligkeit und euch
kern zu dem herrn, den ir habt enpfangen, und in pitten, daz er pei euch woll
beleiben und sich nimer ewiglich von euch woll scheiden (. . .)’ MS Brixen,
Franziskanerkloster S 11 ff. 33r–40v. Taken from the edition of Straganz.
236
‘Also so ein kint get in sein zellein oder kamerlein und etwen stet vor einem
crucifix, so merckt es, daz der herr jhesus, der so unschuldiglich getotet ist, ein
warer mensch ist gewesen (. . .) Also aller liebsten kindt und paupercule filie! Hebt
auf eure augen als yoseph und secht an euren pruder benyamyn an dem creucz
stien. Daz ist betrachtet und durch grundet sein heilligs leiden, secht, was, wie und
warumb er gelidten hat; so wird bewegt werden eur inwendigkeit, daz ist, ir wert
mitleiden mit im haben, durch welches mitleiden ir geschickt werdt, daz er durch
sein genad zu euch wirt komen und sein wollust wirt sein, pei euch zu wonnen,
daz er euch verleich, qui vivit et regnat in secula seculorum. Amen.’ MS Brixen,
Franziskanerkloster S 11 ff. 41r–46v & ff. 82–83. Taken from the edition of Straganz.
237
‘die Zeit sult ir nit unnuczlich verzern, sunder nun heillige leczen, denn reu
und miltte betrachtung, denn fruchtpere arbeit sollen den maisten teil eur zeit in
zu eigenen; manigfeltigkeit unnuczer wort und unnuczer erfarung neuer mer sullen
ferr von euch sein, wann sy zerstreuen daz gemut und schopfen auß denn geist,
wie wol den noch meßige ergeczligkeit mit den swestern nit sind zu verberffen. Yr
sult euch schir an aller stat und in einer ieglichen creatur gewenen, got den herrn,
eurn gesponßen eintweder zu bekennen oder zu pitten.’ MS Brixen, Franziskanerkloster
S 11 ff. 47r–48r. Taken from the edition of Straganz.
238
Ibidem, f. 47v: ‘aber uber alle dinck solt ir oft mit den armen dez herczen
Not unlike some of the works ascribed to Heinrich von Weissenburg

(d. 1499), preacher and confessor of the Poor Clares in Alspach near
Colmar, which I have mentioned in the context of novice training
manuals, Maillard’s fourth spiritual advice deals with the temptations
(Anfechtungen) that threaten the religious in their daily religious life.239
Maillard insists that melancholy (Swermutigkeit) is the most dangerous
mental temptation for fully enclosed nuns. To fight this, the nuns
should aim at loving Christ unconditionally, and trust that Christ
will never leave those who love him genuinely.240
Isabelle de France, founder of the Urbanist monastery at Longchamp,
already in the 1250s had been the recipient of edificatory letters
(such as the before-mentioned Epistola ad Dominam Isabellam/Epistola
Exhortationis de Virginitate of Guibert de Tournai). From the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries stem some other spiritual letters addressed at
this community of Franciscan nuns. One of these, the Lettre sur les
défauts de la langue241 by friar Jean Barthelemy, is part of a larger set
of spiritual works on the passion, the Sacred Heart, the sacraments,
and prayer (such as Le livret de la crainte amoureuse, Le livret de la triple
viduité and the Le traité de la vanité des choses). All of these were writ-
ten for the spiritual benefit of the Longchamp Poor Clares, for whom
Jean functioned as counsellor and possibly as confessor in the years
before and after 1460.242 Another such letter, the lengthy Adresse de
Salut, written around 1520 for the Poor Clare Marie de Livres and her
fellow sisters by the Longchamp confessor Robert Le Messier, which
discusses in two books the roads of purgation and illumination in
den stamen dez heiligen creuczes an euch trucken und da an schauen den bun-
derlichen got seiner weißheit halb, seiner gerechtigkeit halb, seiner guttigkeit halb.’
239
Ibidem, ff. 48v–50v: ‘Item ir sult gewarnt sein vor dem hinter listigen feint
der nit auf hort nacht und tag zu veriren die got geweichten junkfrauen, die dy
upikeit der welt versmechen und christo begeren an zu hangen. Wenn der selb
listig temptator kumpt so sult ir gewarnt sein; wann er wirt nit losen, er wirt sein
pfeil auch etwan zu euch schiesen. Es sey mit anfechtung von der welt, von den
menschen, von dem flaisch, etwan mit ungestumen, grewenlichen, groben anfech-
tungen von gotz lesterung, von dem gelauben und schwermutigkeit.’
240
Ibidem, f. 50r: ‘Aber vor allen dingen sult ir euch huten vor swermutigkeit
die schier den grosten schaden thut in der gaistlikeit. Sunder mit frolichen hertzen
begirlichen dienen; denn der euch zu seinen dienst geschafen hat erlost und beruft,
und solt nit besorgen ob ir von der zal der auserwelten seit oder nit.’
241
MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale français 9611 ff. 162–165r.
242
These other texts, all of which like the Lettre sur les défauts de la langue can be
found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale français 9611, are dealt with elsewhere
in this volume.
470 chapter seven
the religious quest for the sanctification of the self, has been touched
upon elsewhere in this volume.
From the mid fifteenth century onwards, and in line with the
Observant attempts at reaching larger strata of society, lay people
below royal and high noble ranks increasingly became the direct
addressees of edificatory works. This also holds true for the ‘subgenre’
of spiritual letters. On the one hand, it became more common to
write letters of spiritual comfort to individual lay penitents and con-
vent benefactors. Among these I would like to point out Konrad
Fünfbrunner’s Trostbrief an die Witwe Barbara (before 1457), written on
the occasion of the death of her husband and developing the theme
of virtuous Christian widowhood,243 as well as the Dutch letter Die
den menschen leert sonder mont, a product of the Observant friar Cornelis
243
Trostbrief an die Witwe Barbara geschriben nach der metten mit grossem eylen (. . .) Bruder
Cünratt Fünffbrunner parfusser orden: MS Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek Cent. VII 20 ff.
211v–215r. This manuscript was written between 1444 and 1457 in the St. Catherine
convent of Nuremberg. For an edition, see: Trostbrief an die Witwe Barbara, ed. K. Ruh,
in: Franziskanisches Schrifttum. Band II: Texte, 248–250. With reference to Paul the
apostle, Konrad makes it clear that spiritual widowhood should be built on four
pillars, these being prayer (‘gepet’), resistance to ‘müßigkeit’, proper taciturnity, and
‘eynigkeit’ (ed. Ruh et al., 248–250): ‘(. . .) Auch, liebe fraw Barbara, das ir euch
sölt nun schicken zu einem wittwen leben als lang, piß es der ewig got anders
macht mit euch, und nempt ein cleine kurcze vermanung von mir auff, die ich
euch hie beschreibe. Santt Paulus spricht, das vier dingk zu gehören einer wittwen:
Das erst ist andechtig gepett, wann sie söllen haben sunderliche lieb zu ernstlichem
gepet. Das ander ist, sie söllen nymer müßig sein, wann sant Paulus strafft alle wit-
twen, die in müßigkeit leben. Das dritt ist, sie söllen wenig wortt haben, und all ir
wortt söllen güttig und senfftmüttig sein. Das vierd ist, [249] das sie söllen eynigkeit
lieb haben und söllen nit vil hin noch her lauffen, als sant Paulus spricht. Wann
ein wittwe sol sein als ein gürttel tewblein: so dem sein gemahel stirbt, so liebt es
dar nach sein eynigkeit und fleugt nit hin noch her. Darumb lobet es die geschrifft
Judith umb dise vier ding, wann wir lesen von ir, das sie junck und schön was vor
allen frawen und allein in irem hauß ein heymliche kamer het, da sie innen wonet,
mit iren junckfrawen beschlossen, und kam nymer her für denn wenn sie in den
tempel wolt gen, und trug ein herein hemd an dem leib und vastet alle tag an den
sabath und die höhcziglichen tag und vertreib ir zeit in heiliger übung und andechtigem
leben, und durch diße heilige wittwe würcket got grosse dingk und wunder. (. . .)
[250] Doch solt ir auch wissen, das mancherley wittwen sein: Zu dem ersten sein
ettlich wittwe, die leben nach lust und muttwillen, und die sein tod wittwen (. . .)
Zu dem anderen sein ettlich wittwen, die ir hauß außrichten und ir kinde zyehen
in götlicher forcht, und sölche wittwen lobt sant Paulus sunderlich. Zu dem drit-
ten so sein ettlich wittwen, die tag und nacht got dynnen und sein als santt Anna,
die ein heilige wittwe was, von der santt Lucas schreibt, das sie stettiglich in dem
tempel was und mit vasten und petten got dynnet tag und nacht. Das ir auch ein
solche wittwe werdett, das helff euch der almechtig, ewig, parmhertzig got und wöl
euch trösten mit seinem ewigen trost, der er selber ist.’ Cf. K. Ruh, ‘Fünfbrunner,
Konrad’, VL2 II, 1013.
Raven (d. 1548), active at the Franciscan convent of Amsterdam and

a staunch opponent of the reformation.244 On the other hand, and
this seems to have been a Spanish phenomenon mostly, it became
fashionable to write letter-books of spiritual advice for a wider public
of devout households, teaching lay people how to incorporate prayers
and devotions in their daily routines. In these cases, we are dealing
with handbooks of religious instruction that use the letter-format as
a stylistic device for the organisation and presentation of the edificatory
narrative. I know of two of such letter-books dating from the first
half of the sixteenth century, namely the Cartas familiares by the
humanist but anti-Erasmian Franciscan Observant theologian Antonio
de Guevara (1480–1545),245 whose novice training manual and work
on passion devotion are mentioned elsewhere, and the Epístolas famil-
iares of Francisco Ortiz Yáñez (1497–1547), an Observant Spanish
friar from Jewish descent and the author of a wide-ranging homiletic
and meditative oeuvre.246
244
Die den menschen leert sonder mont: Ghent, University Library Acc. 1353 ff. 67r–71r.
It is a reply in answer to a personal request for spiritual guidance. The letter gives
advice on living a proper interior life, by means of frequent confession and daily
examinations of one’s conscience. In line with other Observant guide books, this
letter also gives reading advice: ‘van deze ende deser ghelijke saken hebt ghy in
paerle ende in dat spieghel der volcomenheit ende in anderen veel boecken.’ For
more information, see B. De Troeyer, ‘Cornelis Raven van Naarden’, Franciscana
19 (1964), 1–12; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I,
180–187.
245
Cartas familiares/Epístolas familiares, 2 Vols. (Valladolid-Saragossa, 1539–1543).
Several translations followed. The most well-known are Les epistres dorées, trans. M. de
Guterry (Lyon, 1556) and Épîtres dorées et discours salutaires, trad. Jean de Barnaud
(Paris: Robert le Fizelier, 1584). On Antonio’s life and career at the court of Emperor
Charles V and as the bishop of Guadix and Mondoñedo, see for instance Fidel de
Ros, ‘Antonio de Guevara auteur ascétique’, EF 50 (1938), 306–332, 609–636 &
Idem, ‘Guevara, auteur ascétique’, AIA 6 (1946), 339–404; Emilio Blanco, ‘Bibliografia
de Fray Antonio de Guevara, OFM (1480?–1545)’, El Basilisco 26 (Oviedo, 1999),
81–86.
246
Epístolas Familiares (Alcalá, 1551/Alcalá: J. Brocar, 1552/Alcalá, 1555/Saragossa,
1552/Saragossa, 1592); Opuscula Varia Spiritualia (Saragossa, 1552). This latter edition
is a composite, containing various Epistolas (some of which also appeared separately),
as well as Francisco’s Soliloquium inter Animam et Deum, which also was published inde-
pendently at Alcalá (1548 & 1551) and Toledo (1550 & 1553), and together with
the Via Spiritus Abreviada of Andrés Ortega and Juan de Borja at Saragossa (1552).
See Mariano Acebal Luján, ‘Ortiz Yánez’, DSpir XI, 1004–1008; Rodríguez, ‘Autores
espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 547–548.
472 chapter seven
C. Texts of passion devotion
Within the overall Franciscan programme of religious instruction, the

promotion of passion devotion and the adoration of the Virgin held
a special place. Some aspects of this have already been dealt with
in other chapters, as works of passion devotion do not adhere to
one specific genre of religious instruction literature. Elements of pas-
sion devotion can be found in Franciscan liturgical and eucharistic
treatises, as well as in catechistic works, consolatory and exhortatory
letters, sermons, and in a wide range of prayer guides and meditative
treatises, written for the clergy and the laity alike. This paragraph
particularly focuses on treatises that, to borrow the words of Michael
Cusato, ‘used the vita Christi as the springboard for meditation and
spiritual growth.’247
247
Michael Cusato, ‘Two Uses of the Vita Christi Genre in Tuscany, c. 1300:
John de Caulibus and Ubertino da Casale Compared. A Response to Daniel Lesnick,
ten years hence’, FS 57 (1999), 131–148, 132. The Franciscan promotion of devo-
tion to the Virgin (and Joseph) and the development of Franciscan mariology is a
huge topic in itself that I will not be able to address here. I have pointed out some
aspects of these issues in my chapter on Franciscan preaching, in the paragraph on
Franciscan religious poetry in Chapter IV, and will continue to do so in this para-
graph on Franciscan passion devotion treatises. Many elements of the medieval
Franciscan engagement with mariological issues (including devotional aspects) found
their way into the Mariale by Bernardino da Busti. In the early modern period,
many key texts were gathered in the Monumenta Antiqua Seraphica pro Immaculata
Conceptione Virginis Mariae, ed. P. de Alva y Astorga (Louvain, 1665). For an intro-
duction to this wide field, see: Heribert Holzapfel, ‘Bibliografia seu Bibliotheca
Franciscana de Immaculata Conceptione B.M.V.’, Acta Ordinis Fratrum Minorum 23
(1904), 454–483; V. Doucet, ‘Le culte de saint Joseph et l’ordre franciscain’, Annales
de Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal 15 (1926), 250–257; F. Cucchi, La meditazione universale
della Sanctissima Vergine negli scritti di Bernardino de Busti (Milan 1945); Jean de Dieu,
‘La Vierge et l’Ordre des Frères Mineurs’, in: Maria, ed. H. du Manoir (Paris,
1952) II, 803ff.; E. Christian, Our Lady. Devotion to Mary in the Franciscan Tradition
(Chicago, 1954); A. Emmen, ‘Die Bedeutung der Franziskanerschule für die Marialogie’,
FrSt 36 (1954), 385–419; J. Juric, ‘Franciscus de Mayronis Immaculatae Conceptionis
eximus Vindex’, SF 51 (1954), 224–263; L. Veuthey, ‘La pietà mariana nella spir-
itualità francescana’, Vita cristiana 23 (1954), 223–237; I. Brady, ‘The Development
of the Doctrine on the Immaculate Conception in the Fourteenth Century after
Aurioli’, FS 15 (1955), 175–202; É. Longpré, ‘Saint Joseph et l’école franciscaine
du xiii e siècle’, in: Le Patronage de saint Joseph, Actes du Congrès d’études de 1955 (Montréal-
Paris, 1955), 217–254; A. Pompei, ‘Sermones duo Parisienses saec. XIV de Conceptione
B.V.M.’, MF 55 (1955), 480–557; K. Balic, ‘Die Corredemptrixfrage innerhalb der
Franzisk. Theologie’, FrSt 39 (1957), 218–287; A. Emmen, ‘Einführung in die
Mariologie der Oxforder Franziskanerschule’, FrSt 39 (1957), 99–217; M. Mückshoff,
‘Die mariologische Prädestination im Denken der franziskanischen Theologie’, FrSt
39 (1957), 288–502; M. Petrocchi, ‘La devozione alla Vergine negli scritti di pietà
del cinquecento italiano’, in: Problemi di vita religiosa in Italia nel Cinquecento (Padua,
From the outset, the Franciscan movement cherished a special

relation with the life and suffering of Christ. Francesco d’Assisi mod-
elled his own religious life on the commands of the Gospel, and on
its representation of the meek and suffering Christ, who had died
for the sins of mankind. Francesco’s various writings, notably his
rules and Testament, his various letters (such as his Epistola ad Fideles)
and admonitions, and most of all his Officium Passionis Domini all
express his conviction that the cross was the only path towards sal-
vation. Moreover, Francesco’s veneration of the crucifix and of the
sacrament of the Eucharist, his predilection for the ‘tau’ sign, his
interpretation of the Franciscan habit as a figura of the cross, as well
as his own self-renunciation and search for martyrdom, they are all
indications for his far-reaching identification with Christ’s suffering.248
Francesco’s biographers, notably Tommaso da Celano and Bona-
ventura, elaborated the saint’s emphasis on the imitatio Christi, creat-
ing a coherent hagiographical narrative to show Francesco’s spiritual
itinerary towards an ever more perfect christoformitas, starting with his
naïve obedient reaction to the speaking crucifix in the church of San
Damiano and culminating in his reception of the stigmata at La
Verna (September 1224).249 In this narrativisation process, Francesco’s
1960); La Madonna nella spiritualità francescana, Quaderni di spiritualità francescana, 5

(Assisi, 1963); Bernardino de Busti e il Mariala (Busto, 1982); Testi Mariani del secondo
millennio. Autori medievali dell’Occidente, Vol. IV: secoli XIII–XV, ed. L. Gambero (Rome,
1996); Maria Corredentrice. Storia e teologia I & II: Scuola Francescana, Bibliotheca corre-
demptionis B.V. Mariae, Studi e ricerche, 1–2 (Frigento: Casa Mariana Editrice,
1998–1999); A. Apollonio, Mariologia francescana. Da San Francesco d’Assisi ai Francescani
dell’Immacolata, Diss. (Rome, 1997); Stefano M. Cecchin, Maria Signora Santa e Immacolata
nel pensiero francescano. Per una storia del contributo francescano alla mariologia, Studi mari-
ologici, 1 (Città del Vaticano, 2001); Gli studi di Mariologia Medievale. Bilancio storiografico,
SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo (Tavarnuzze, 2001).
248
L. Bracaloni, ‘Il prodigio Crocifisso che parlò a S. Francesco’, SF ser. 3, 11
(1939), 185–212; Kajetan Esser, ‘Das Gebet des hl. Franziskus vor dem Kreuzbild
in San Damiano’, FrSt 34 (1952), 1–11; B. Cornet, ‘Le ‘De Reverentia Corporis
Christi.’ Exhortation et lettre de s. François’, EF n.s. 7 (1956), 23–25; Oktavian
von Rieden, ‘Das Leiden Christi im Leben des hl. Franziskus von Assisi. Eine
Quellenvergleichende Untersuchung im Lichte der zeitgenössischen Passionsfröm-
migkeit’, CF 30 (1960), 5–30, 129–145, 241–263, 353–397. The Franciscan habit
as a ‘tunica crucis imaginem praeferens’ is also a theme in Angelo Clareno, Historia
Septem Tribulationum, ed. A. Ghinato (Rome, 1959), 221–222, and was taken up again
by the Capuchin order. Cf. Adalbert Wagner von Stans, ‘Unser Ordenskleid und
die ‘viereckige’ kapuze’, St. Fidelis 15 (1928), 124–129, 153–155.
249
The christoformitas of Francesco d’Assisi is a central theme in most vitae devoted
to the founder of the order. It was taken to extremes in the De Conformitate Vitae
Beati Francisci ad Vitam Domini Iesu (composed between ca 1385 and 1390) by
474 chapter seven
biographers placed the order founder’s journey of bodily suffering

and spiritual growth in a salvation-historical perspective, eventually
identifying Francesco with the angel with the signs of the living God,
whose life and whose order were to rejuvenate Christianity as a whole
near the end of time. Subsequent Franciscan authors with eschato-
logical and spiritual leanings, such as Gerardo di Borgo San Donnino,
Olivi, and even more radical spiritual authors, were to join this rep-
resentation with a joachimist inspired vision of world history, turn-
ing Francesco into a figure of salvation-historical significance, the
herald of a new era of spiritual perfection.250
Aside from emphasising the christoformitas of Francesco himself,
many Franciscan authors became very active in the promotion and
dissemination of literature that focused on the life and suffering of
Christ.251 It would be a mistake to view this activity as a uniquely
Franciscan phenomenon. It has been observed that the various kinds
of passion devotion literature associated with the Franciscan order
had their roots in monastic spirituality, and to a large extent were
a direct result of literary and cultural developments of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries.252
Bartoleomo da Pisa. This work met with an astounding success in the order dur-
ing the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, not in the least because it contained
many materials taken from important sources of Franciscan hagiography, history
and spirituality (including full-blown catalogues of Franciscan saints, masters of the-
ology and minister generals). It was one of the major sources of inspiration for the
Franceschina by Giacomo Oddi da Perugia. In the early sixteenth century, Bartolomeo’s
De Conformitate became the object of humanist and reformation ridicule. For a recent
(if controversial) interpretation of the Franciscan representation of the conformitas
Christi and Francesco’s reception of the stigmata, see Christoph Daxelmüller, ‘Süße
Nägel der Passion’. Die Geschichte der Selbstkeuzigung von Franz von Assisi bis heute (Düsseldorf,
2001).
250
See on this a.o. J. Ratzinger, Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura (Munich-
Zürich, 1959); David Burr, Olivi’s Peaceable Kingdom. A Reading of the Apocalypse Commentary
(Philadelphia, 1993); Bert Roest, ‘Franciscaanse apocalyptiek in middeleeuws per-
spectief ’, in: Visioenen aangaande het einde. Apocalyptische geschriften en bewegingen door de
eeuwen heen, ed. Jan Willem van Henten en Osger Mellink (Zoetermeer, 1998),
189–220.
251
See a.o. Fanny Imle, Die Passionsminne im Franziskanerorden (Werl, 1934); Metodio
da Nembro, I ‘Cantori della Passione’ francescani (Studio e testi) I: Il Medioevo (Rome,
1950).
252
Fleming, ‘The friars and medieval English literature’, 371: ‘The friars did not
invent the cult of Christ’s Passion nor that of His Mother; but they did foster them
with an unprecedented energy and a programmatic thoroughness that has left a
defining impress on late medieval Europe, and especially on the lyric, the drama
and the sermon.’
A range of Benedictine, Cistercian, and Victorine spiritual tradi-

tions prefigured the Franciscan passion devotion tradition. Influential
texts from these traditions comprise the Meditationes, Soliloquia and
Manuale by pseudo-Augustine, the Meditationes by Anselm of Canterbury
and pseudo-Bernard, the devotional works of Jean de Fécamp and
Edmund of Abington, and notably the passion devotion treatises of
Bernard de Clairvaux, Aelred of Rievaulx, Stephen of Sawley, and
Ekbert von Schönau.253 Likewise, the Franciscan liturgical Officium
Passionis, such as those produced by Francesco, Bonaventura and
John Pecham had a series of medieval forerunners.254
It is true nevertheless that within the Franciscan order passion
devotion treatises along the vita Christi genre reached new levels of
narrative expansion, fully exploiting the emotional impact of the
suffering Christ (and that of the other members of the Holy Family
and Mary Magdalen), in order to evoke strong reactions of partici-
patory identification with Christ’s humanity.255 Elements of this par-
ticipatory identification had already been put forward in Francesco’s
Officium Passionis, a text that itself stimulated other passion devotion
initiatives, both within the male branch of the Franciscan order, and
within the order of Poor Clares.256 Still, Francesco’s own writings as
yet do not put too much emphasis on the realistic elements of Christ’s
suffering; elements that had already been elaborated upon within
253
Thomas H. Bestul, Texts of the Passion. Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval
Society, University of Pennsylvania Press Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, 1996),
42; Giles Constable, ‘Twelfth-Century Spirituality and the Late Middle Ages’, in:
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. O.B. Hardison (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1971), 27–60.
254
See for instance J. Stadlhuber, ‘Das Laienstudengebet vom Leiden Christi in
seinem mittelalterlichen Fortleben’, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 72 (1950), 282–325.
Bonaventura’s passion office received a late German vernacular reworking by ‘friar
Hans’ (fl. fourteenth cent.): MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek mgo 367.
255
Cusato, ‘Two Uses of the Vita Christi Genre in Tuscany, c. 1300’, 140;
Fleming, An Introduction to the Franciscan Literature of the Middle Ages, 242–248. For the
spiritual context of the Franciscan passion devotion tradition in general, see also
Ulrich Köpf, ‘Leidensmystik in der Frühzeit der franziskanischen Bewegung’, in:
Festschrift für Reinhard Schwarz (Göttingen, 1989), 137–160; Rab Hatfield, ‘The Tree
of Life and the Holy Cross. Franciscan Spirituality in the Trecento and the Quat-
trocento’, in: Christianity and the Renaissance. Image and Religious Imagination in the
Quattrocento, ed. T. Verdon & J. Henderson (Syracuse N.Y., 1990), 132–160.
256
The first biographer of Chiara d’Assisi indicates how she cultivated Francesco’s
Officium Crucis as a keystone in her own spiritual life of love for the suffering Christ.
Cf. Grau, Leben und Schriften der h. Klara von Assisi, 44.
476 chapter seven
Cistercian and Victorine circles, and that were to become an important

hallmark of the late medieval Franciscan passion devotion tradition.257
Outside the direct liturgical setting, the friars were quick to make
the passion of Christ a favourite subject of their preaching. From
Antonio di Padova onwards,258 the passion of Christ and the signifi-
cance of His sacrifice became paramount in many Franciscan sermons,
especially in those held during the Lent and Easter periods. At times,
sermon cycles for this part of the liturgical year developed into ver-
itable passion treatises.259
257
In Francesco’s treatment of the crucifixion and death of Christ, naturalistic
and biographical digressions are absent. Rieden, ‘Das Leiden Christi im Leben des
hl. Franziskus von Assisi’, 136: ‘. . . entscheidender (. . .) ist (. . .) , daß Franziskus
sich in seiner Passionsbetrachtung nicht in naturalistischem Ausmalen von evange-
lischen oder gar apokryphen Einzelheiten ergeht, sondern geradeaus zum Zen-
tralgeheimnis vorstößt: zu Jesu ungebrochener gehorsamshingabe an den Vater.’ It
is clear that, for Francesco, Christ’s death on the cross was an example to follow
suit.
258
Ottavio Luna, ‘La passione e morte di Gesú Cristo nei sermoni domenicali
di Quaresima e delle Psalme di sant’ Antonio di Padova’, W&W 61 (1998), 239–264.
259
It is impossible to provide a complete overview of Franciscan passion sermons.
Some interesting examples are Alberto da Pisa’s Sermo de Caritate Salvatoris (ca. 1240)
in MS Arras, 759 (691), f. 254vb. Cf. Schneyer, Repertorium I, 150, and Thomas of
York’s Sermo de Morte Christi Cogitanda (ca. 1255) in MS Cambridge, Trinity College
373 ff. 201r–204v [MS B. 15.38], and now edited by J.P. Reilly, in FS 24 (1964),
205–222. In this sermon, Thomas of York, who otherwise is known for his hiero-
cratic defense of the mendicants against the secular clergy, gives seventeen argu-
ments for the fruitfulness of meditating on the passion of Christ. Other good examples
are the Tractatus de Corpore Christi by François de Meyronnes, which actually is a
sermon held at the papal court of Avignon in 1324 (cf. Roßmann, Die Hierarchie der
Welt, 58), the passion sermons of the fourteenth-century German Franciscan preacher
known as ‘Der Schölzerin’ (cf. VL2 VIII, 815), and the lengthy passion sermons of
Christian von Hiddesdorf, lector at Magdeburg and magister regens at Erfurt in the
last decade of the fourteenth century. For the passion sermon of the latter, see MS
Breslau, I.F.742 ff. 120a–136a. We may also point to the De Anima Christi sermon
of Marquard von Lindau (d. 1392). Originally, this was a Latin sermon in three
parts on the poverty, the patience, and the suffering of Christ. In some of the later
vernacular manuscripts, the treatise was expanded with other, related themes, some-
times enlarging the treatise into a work of seven or eight parts. For partial editions,
see R. Lievens, ‘De mystieke inhoud van het handschrift Dr. P.S. Everts [= Maastricht,
Gemeentearchief 479]’, Leuvense Bijdragen 51 (1962), 22f [part VII] & J. Hartinger,
Der Traktat De paupertate von Marquard von Lindau, Diss. (Würzburg, 1965), 180–229
[parts I–V, VIII]. For more information, see also Kurt Ruh, ‘Der von Winphen’,
VL2 X, 1218f.; Palmer, ‘Marquard von Lindau’, 96. Conrad Bömlin has used (a
Latin version of ) the De Anima in his sermon Vom Leiden Christi, in his passion ser-
mon Inspice et fac secundum exemplar, and in his Gúldin Buch, which will be dealt with
later. The tendency to elaborate passion sermons into lengthy treatises consisting
of a series of sermons, reached its height in the Observant movement, as will be
shown further on in this section.
At least as early as the 1240s more independent Franciscan passion

devotion treatises make their appearance, aiming at more meditative
encounters with the passion of Christ. A first major group of writings
constitute the Latin and vernacular passion devotion treatises of David
von Augsburg, such as his Kristi Leben unser Vorbild,260 which played
an important role in the creation of a vernacular religious culture
in the Augsburg and Regensburg region. A second group of impor-
tant passion devotion treatises for meditative purposes are from the
hand of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, who dealt with the passion
of Christ in many of his writings.261 His most important passion
260
On David von Augsburg’s Latin and vernacular works in which the imitatio
Christi and the passion take up an important place, see especially G. Steer, ‘Die
Passion Christi bei den deutschen Bettelorden im 13. Jahrhundert. David von
Augsburg, ‘Baumgarten geistlicher Herzen’, Hugo Ripelin von Strassburg, Meister
Eckharts ‘Reden der Unterweisung’’, in: Die Passion Christi in Literatur und Kunst des
Spätmittelalters, ed. Walter Haug & Burghart Wachinger (Tübingen, 1993), 52–75
(esp. 59–63). Die sieben Vorregeln der Tugend; Der Spiegel der Tugend; Kristi Leben unser
Vorbild; Die vier Fittige geistlicher Betrachtung; Von der Anschauung Gottes; Von der Erkenntnis
der Wahrheit; Von der unergründlichen Fülle Gottes; Betrachtungen und Gebete 1–12; Die sieben
Stapheln des Gebetes (version A) are all edited in: Deutsche Mystiker des 14. Jahrhunderts,
ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1845), I, 309–397. The Kristi Leben unser Vorbild, together
with Von der Offenbarung und Erlösung des Menschengeschlechtes, is also edited by F. Pfeiffer,
in Zeitschrift für das deutsches Altertum 9 (1853), 1–55.
261
Aside from his Officium de Passione Domini, and from his Lignum Vitae and Vitis
Mystica mentioned below, see the Epistola de Imitatione Christi, in: Bonaventura, Opera
Omnia VIII, 499–503 & in: Bonaventura, Selecta pro Instruendis Fratribus Ordinis Minorum
Scripta S. Bonaventurae, una cum Libello Speculum Disciplinae (Quaracchi, 1942), 261–271;
the Sermo de Sanctissimo Corpore Christi, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia V, 553–566; the
Sermo in Die Veneris Sancta: passio domini nostri Jhesu Christi secundum quatuor evangelistas
devote collecta, printed in a 1502 edition and described by J.-G. Bougerol, ‘Le pre-
mière édition du corpus des sermons Dominicaux de saint Bonaventure’, Antonianum
51 (1976), 209; the Laudismus de Sancta Cruce, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia VIII,
667–669; the De Sex Alis Seraphim, in: Opera Omnia, VIII 131–151 & in: Seraphici
Doctoris S. Bonaventurae Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia (Quaracchi,
1965), 283–340; the De Perfectione Vitae ad Sorores seu de Forma Perfectionis Religiosorum,
in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia VIII, 107–127 & Seraphici Doctoris S. Bonaventurae Decem
Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia (Quaracchi, 1965), 221–273. This last-men-
tioned work is one of Bonaventura’s most important works of passion devotion and
christology, especially written to show Poor Clares the way to spiritual perfection
through the crucified Christ. A special case is formed by De Quinque Festivitatibus
Pueri Iesu, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia VIII, 88–95 & in: Seraphici Doctoris S.
Bonaventurae Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam Spectantia (Quaracchi, 1965), 181–199.
A modern Italian translation of this text by Bernardino Garcia can be found in I
Mistici. Scritti dei Mistici Francescani Secolo XIII, I (Assisi-Bologna, 1995), 571–590. This
is a meditation on the mysteries of Christ’s childhood (virginal conception, birth,
way in which He received His name, the adoration of the Magi), and their reper-
cussions for our Christian life. It contains a prologue and five ‘Festivitates’: I.
Quomodo Filius Dei, Christus Iesus, a mente devota spiritualiter concipiatur; II.
478 chapter seven
devotion treatises in the proper sense of the word are the Lignum
Vitae (a meditation on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ),262
and the Vitis Mystica seu Tractatus de Passione Domini.263
The Lignum Vitae exploits the metaphor of the tree (symbol of the
life-giving cross and reminiscent of the tree of life mentioned in
Genesis) with its branches and its fruits, to describe the events in
the life of Christ (His life, passion, and glorification), imbuing them
with meaning, and streamlining the meditative process. The Vitis
Mistica, in turn, represents Christ as a fruitful vine, an allegory through
which the episodes of the passion can be dealt with by means of
the similes of cultivation and pruning, and can be exemplified through
the vine’s indispensable fruit. Both works were written to enkindle
a strong love for the crucified Christ and to stimulate emotional
responses to Christ’s suffering. To achieve that purpose the Lignum
Vitae in particular relies on techniques of ‘vivid representation’, describ-
ing the action of the crucifixion with a lot of attention for the physical
details of Christ’s suffering and the horrible torments of his bleeding
Quomodo Filius Dei in mente devota spiritualiter nascatur; III. Quomodo infans
Iesus a devota anima spiritualiter sit nominandus; IV. Quomodo Filius Dei a devota
anima cum Magis sit spiritualiter quaerendus et adorandus; V. Quomodo Filius Dei
a devoto anima spiritualiter praesentetur in templo. Bonaventura wants to renovate
the spiritual life of every individual by showing him or her how to consider these
mysteries and to internalise them in one’s own spiritual outlook through various
exercises, leading to spiritual purification, spiritual insight and peace. For a first
introduction into these various Bonaventurian works, see M. Suley, ‘La croce nella
vita del cristiano negli opuscoli e sermoni di S. Bonaventura’, MF 96 (1996), 113–170.
262
Lignum Vitae, in: Bonaventura, Opera Omnia VIII (Quaracchi, 1898), 68–86 &
in: Bonaventura, Seraphici Doctoris S. Bonaventurae Decem Opuscula ad Theologiam Mysticam
Spectantia (Quaracchi, 1965), 135–180. A modern Italian translation by Bernardino
Garcia can be found in I Mistici. Scritti dei Mistici Francescani Secolo XIII, I (Assisi-
Bologna, 1995), 375–418. This meditative book on the tree of life (the crucified
Christ), produced around 1260, contains a prologue and twelve ‘fruits’, spread over
three themes: De mysterio originis (Fructus I–IV: Praeclaritas originis; Humilitas con-
versationis; Celsitudo virtutis; Plenitudo pietatis); De mysterio passionis (Fructus V–VIII:
Confidentia in periculis; Patientia in iniuriis; Constantia in suppliciis; Victoria in
conflictu mortis); De mysterio glorificationis (Fructus IX–XII: Novitas resurrectionis;
Sublimitas ascensionis; Aequitas iudicii; Aeternitas regni). Hence it charts the mys-
teries of Christ’s origin, His passion, and His glorification, with recourse to tree
symbolism. The keys to a proper reading of Christ’s life and His mysteries on earth
are the embrace of poverty and humility (man’s possible ways to imitate Christ in
this life). The mystery of Christ’s glorification explains the victory of Christ over
sin and death, which opens the door to eternal life. The glory of Christ can prefigure
the future glorification of man.
263
Vitis Mystica (forma brevis) seu Planctus de Passione Domini, Bonaventura, Opera
Omnia VIII, 159–189 & Idem, Decem Opuscula, 365–418. Cf. Bonifatius Strack, ‘Das
leiden Christi im Denken des hl. Bonaventura’, FrSt 41 (1959), 129–162.
flesh. Yet this realistic imagery is always linked up typologically, in

order to keep up front the overwhelming salvation-historical significance
of this brutal event. Both works intend to engrave lasting mental
pictures on the reader’s mind, pictures that may be the starting point
for further meditation. In addition, Mary comes to the fore as fellow-
sufferer, whose mental anguish and pain in reaction to the physical
torture of her son, make her a perfect figure for identification, through
the eyes of whom the reader becomes, as it were, an eye-witness to
the event.264
Bonaventura’s passion devotion treatises were a source of inspira-
tion for subsequent authors, and proved to be of great significance
for the further development of late medieval passion devotion treatises
in general.265 To a lesser degree, the same can be said of a number
of works in the literary output of Franciscan friars from the same
generation, notably the Philomena of John Pecham, which was fre-
quently edited among the works of Bonaventura,266 and the Tractatus
de Septem Verbis Domini in Cruce by Guibert de Tournai.267 Pecham’s
264
Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 44–46.
265
Bonaventura. Studien zu seiner Wirkungsgeschichte, ed. Ildefonsus Vanderheyden,
Franziskanische Forschungen, 28 (Werl., 1976), which gives a good indication of
the influence of Bonaventura’s devotional works in the German Lands (in Latin
and in the vernacular); Michael G. Sargent, ‘Bonaventura English: A Survey of the
Middle English Prose Translations of Early Franciscan Literature’, in: Spätmittelalterliche
geistliche Literatur in der Nationalsprache Band 2, ed. James Hogg, Analecta Cartusiana,
106 (Austria: Universität Salzburg, 1984), 145–17; Cento meditazioni di San Bonaventura
sulla vita di Gesù Cristo: volgarizzamento antico toscano, ed. Bartolomeo Sorio (Rome,
1847).
266
Pecham’s Philomena can, for instance, be found in Bonaventura, Opera Omnia
VIII (Quaracchi, 1898), 669–674. It also received a separate edition by G.M. Dreves,
in AHMA 50 (1907), 602–616. The Philomena can best be described as a pious can-
ticle, in which the soul contemplates and meditates on the life of Christ. See for
Pecham’s other poems and canticles my section on Franciscan religious poetry.
267
Guibert’s Tractatus de Septem Verbis Domini in Cruce/De Passione Christi can for
instance be found in MS London, British Library Stowe 36 [576.A.6] ff. 29vb–62vb
(13th cent.). A partial edition by Balduinus ab Amsterdam may be found in CF 32
(1962), 230–270. See also É. Longpré, ‘Le ms. Stowe 36 et les écrits spirituels de
Gilbert de Tournai’, AFH 22 (1929), 231–232. It consists of a prologue and eleven
meditative sermons on the seven words of Christ on the cross, which are dealt with
as remedies against the seven deadly sins. In the past, this work was sometimes
confused with the treatise on the seven words on the cross produced by the Benedictine
abbot Arnaldus Bonnaevallensis, which was one of Guibert’s main examples. In the
prologue (ff. 29v–30v in MS British Library Stowe 36), the author presents the cross
as a cathedra, on which Christ, as a new legislator and greatest magister of all, pro-
vides a concise teaching on his doctrine, and points out the way to salvation (ed.
B. ab Amsterdam, 268–269): ‘Videamus igitur verba quae protulit Salvator in cruce,
quia, secundum beatum Job, refertissima sunt dolore ( Job 6, 3). Videamus quibus
480 chapter seven
Philomena also shows that passion devotion materials became cherished

subject matter for Franciscan liturgical and para-liturgical religious
poetry.268
One of the first to take up and rethink the Bonaventurian legacy
was Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu), whose spiritual
works contain strong elements of passion devotion, as well as more
theoretical christological reflections.269 A case in point is his Informatio
ad Virtutum Opera, which provides a spiritual disciple with fourteen
considerations for persevering in the love for God and in the per-
fection of the virtues. These considerations start with a meditation
on God and the passion of Christ, and from there extend to related
meditative issues, and to the ways in which one may deal with the
dangers of the world.270 More specifically concentrated on Christ’s
verbis recapitulavit in cathedra crucis magister optimus quasi novum Deuteronomium,

et privilegia salutis renovans filiis, bullam imputribilem proprii corporis exhibendo,
confirmavit in suo sanguine testamentum. Septem proponiit in medium verba, car-
itatis indicibilis argumenta. Verba sunt Verbi, quae vitia destruunt, virtutes astru-
unt, omnes instruunt, dum perfectionis regulam cunctis instituunt.’ The seven words
on the cross form an efficacious remedy against the seven capital sins and lead man
to his salvation, turning, so to speak, into seven virtues taught by the crucified
Christ. Hence, the meaning of these salvific words is worthy of our meditative atten-
tion. The Franciscan focus on the words of Christ on the cross is also visible in
Olivi’s Expositio Septem Verborum Christi in Cruce Dictorum, MS Siena, Biblioteca Comunale
Cod. U.V.5 ff. 60r–60v (which is part of his commentary on Matthew), in the poem
on the seven words of the crucified Christ composed by Guiral Ot mentioned below,
in the works of Ubertino, in the Franciscan Meditationes Vitae Christi and in Bernardino
da Siena’s Sermo de septem amorosis et ardentissimis verbis quae Christus in cruce dixit (ed.
S. Bernardini Senensis Opera Omnia II, 234–261). One later thirteenth-century Tractatus
de SS. Nomine Jesu was printed under the name of Bonaventura in Lyon (1506) and
Trent (1774). It amounts to ten meditations or sermons for Franciscan friars on the
name of Jesus Christ. This Tractatus may have been written (between 1274 and
1284) in response to the request of friars and pope Gregory X to stimulate the
devotion to the name of Jesus. Cf. AFH 29 (1936), 154 n. 6. The work had a
significant impact on later medieval Franciscan spirituality, especially on Bernardino
da Siena. Cf. E. Longpré, ‘S. Bernardin de Sienne et le Nom de Jésus’, AFH 28
(1935), 443–476, 29 (1936), 142–168, 30 (1937), 170–192; G. Melani, ‘S. Bernardino
da Siena e il Nome di Gesù’, in: S. Bernardino da Siena. Saggi e Ricerche pubblicati nel
quinto centenario della morte (1444–1944), Pubblicazioni dell’Università del S. Cuore,
n.s. VI (Milan, 1945), 247–300; Anselmo da Ceschio, ‘La letterature francescana
prebernardiniana sul Nome di Gesù’, Bulletino Regionale Deput.Abruz.Stor.Patria 6
(1944/published in 1957), 33–46.
268
See my paragraph on religious poetry elsewhere in this volume.
269
These christological concerns were more fully developed in his theological
works, such as the Quaestiones de Incarnatione et Redemptione and in his commentaries
on Isaiah, Matthew and the Apocalypse.
270
Informatio Petri Johannis ad Virtutum Opera, ed. D. Pacetti, SF 52 (1955), 83–86
& ed. R. Manselli, in: Idem, Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza, 278–281. Interestingly,
mental suffering is his Tractatus de Septem Sentimentis Christi Iesu, a work

which is still relatively unknown and which has received insufficient
scholarly attention so far.271
Ubertino da Casale’s Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu, a much more volumi-
nous work, was more influential in the long run. The first version
was completed in 1305 during Ubertino’s sojourn at La Verna.272 The
Arbor Vitae is not a straightforward passion devotion treatise. It is a
comprehensive meditation on the life of Christ in five books, with
many digressions. These digressions incorporate hymns on the Virgin,
an account of Ubertino’s own spiritual journey, his ecclesiological
and eschatological visions (complete with a full-blown Apocalypse
commentary along the lines of Olivi’s Postilla in Apocalypsim), and his
combative views on Franciscan poverty and the search for evangel-
ical perfection.273 Book four of the Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu is devoted
Olivi warns against the search for visions and revelations. In their contemplative
activities, people should exhibit humility, and use the trusted instruments of con-
fession, communion, prayer, fasting and charity.
271
De Septem Sentimentis Christi Iesu, ed. Marco Bartoli, in: Idem, ‘Le opere di
Pietro di Giovanni Olivi nella Biblioteca di Giovanni da Capestrano’, in: S. Giovanni
da Capestrano: un bilancio storiografico, Atti del Convegno Storico Internazionale, 15–16
maggio 1998 (L’Aquila, 1999), 47–80 (ed. pp. 70–80). See also Marco Bartoli, ‘Il
Tractatus de Septem Sentimentis Christi Iesu di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi’, AFH 91 (1998),
533–549.
272
Between March and September 1305, during a retreat at La Verna, Ubertino
composed the first version of his Arbor Vitae at the request of the local Franciscan
community. Final editorial work was done between 1326 and 1329. It was printed
in the later fifteenth century: Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu, ed. Andrea de Bonetis (Venice,
1485). This incunable edition was reproduced with an introduction by C.T. Davis
(Turin, 1961). A translation of Book Four was printed in 1564 at Foligno, by the
Dominican friar Lorenzo da Foiana. A new edition of Book Four is presently being
prepared by Carlos Martínez Ruiz. A poem on the lamentation of the Virgin at
the foot of the cross (Arbor Vitae, Book Four, chapter 25), has been edited in Jeffrey,
The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality, 269–271. Cf. F. Callaey, ‘L’influence
et la diffusion de l’Arbor vitae de Ubertin de Casale’, RHE 17 (1921), 533–546; G.L.
Potestà, ‘Un secolo di studi sull’ ‘Arbor Vitae’. Chiesa ed escatologica in Ubertino
da Casale’, CF 47 (1977), 217–267.
273
The Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu consists of five books: presenting Christ as the
actor et materia, finis et forma of this work and of life in general. The first book deals
with the eternal birth of the Son from the Father up to the birth of Mary. The
second starts with Jesus’ circumcision and ends with the teachings of John the
Baptist. The third deals with the preaching of Jesus and ends with the last supper.
The fourth book explores the passion and the resurrection, ending with the ascen-
sion of Christ and the ascencion of Mary. The fifth deals with the renovation of
faith throughout church history and contains a lengthy Apocalypse commentary,
relying heavily on the Apocalypse commentary of Olivi. Together, the five books
form a tree of life, centered on the incarnation (a simile derived from Bonaventura’s
482 chapter seven
to the passion, the resurrection and the ascension of Christ. This

part of Ubertino’s work is firmly, but not exclusively, rooted in the
Bonaventurian tradition, and makes ample use of extra-biblical details
and passages of the Old Testament traditionally associated with the
passion of Christ in allegorical and anagogical exegesis (such as the
‘passion prefigurations’ found in Isaiah and the Psalms). There is a
strong emphasis on Christ’s public suffering and on his bloody and
disfigured body, both on the cross, and after his death. Ubertino’s
Arbor Vitae combines this with elaborate descriptions of the instruments
of the passion, and with quite a few digressions on the unique quality
of the Virgin Mary’s compassion for her dying son.274
It has been noted that Ubertino’s Arbor Vitae was not a popular
work, even though the Latin version met with reasonable success.
Like the works of Bonaventura, the Arbor Vitae was meant for friars
with a considerable theological background.275 Nevertheless, many
Latin and vernacular abstracts and translations of the work found
their way into fifteenth- and sixteenth-century devotional manuscripts
associated with Franciscan tertiaries, beguines, and cloisters of the
Modern Devotion movement.276
Lignum Vitae: Book One is the root, Book Two the trunk, Book Three and Four
the branches and the twigs, Book Five the fruits). The work presents the possibil-
ity of imitating Christ by meditating on the deeds of Christ during His lifetime
(notably the crucifixion). The work thus offers a method or a road of perfection,
by which the self may be fully transformed into the likeness of Christ. Overall, the
Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu relies heavily on the writings of Bonaventura (esp. Breviloquium,
Apologia Pauperum, Lignum Vitae, De Triplici Via), and of Olivi. The author also makes
abundant use of Tommaso d’Aquino (Summa Theologiae, De Articulis Fidei et Ecclesiae
Sacramentis) and Bernard de Clairvaux (esp. Sermones super Cantica and the Sermones
per Annum).
274
Cf. Bestul, Texts of the Passion, 56–57.
275
Cf. Ibidem, 56–57; Cusato, ‘Two Uses of the Vita Christi Genre in Tuscany’,
142–143: ‘. . . Ubertino’s (. . .) intentions and audience are more similar to those of
Bonaventure: Indeed both men were writing to friars and for a wider clerical read-
ership (. . .) The Arbor vitae was thus not a book intended for the spiritual edification
of the laity.’ 34 Latin manuscripts contain (parts of ) the Arbor Vitae (10 mss con-
tain all the 5 books). For a complete listing, see B. Guyot, ‘L’Arbor vitae crucifixae
Iesu d’Ubertin de Casale et ses emprunts au De articulis fidei de s. Thomas d’Aquin’,
in: Studies Honoring Ignatius Brady, Friar Minor (New York, 1976), 300–304.
276
It is particularly in the Low Countries that we find many partial adaptations,
with titles like Der Rosengarten Jesu und Marias; Vanden inwindigen lijden ons liefs heeren
Jesu Christi; Oefening van St. Ubertinus; Hubertynus spreect vander maghet marien, as well as
many instances in which the Arbor Vitae is used as source material for other ver-
nacular works of private devotion, such as Johannes Brugman’s Devote Oefeninge (see
below) and Een trostelic Hantboucxkin, composed by the Carmelite Franciscus Amery.
Of special interest are the Seven Cranskens op des H. Ubertinus oeffeninghe (1509), written
Two other passion meditations in the Bonaventurian tradition,

namely the Meditationes Vitae Christi by Giovanni de’Cauli277 and Gia-
como da Milano’s Stimulus Amoris,278 met with even greater success.
Both works fruitfully combine Francesco’s veneration for the crucified
Christ with the twelfth-century tendency, taken up by Bonaventura
by an unknown friar minor from the Cologne province. The Seven Cranskens are
based on meditations found in the prologue of the Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Iesu, and
expand Ubertino’s meditations into lengthier meditative rosary prayers for the seven
days of the week, containing daily exercises, Pater Noster and Ave Maria prayers, and
additional meditations, again followed by Ave Maria prayers. There are at least two
editions of the Seven Cranskens, dating from 1509 and 1515 respectively. Cf. Callaey,
‘L’influence et la diffusion de l’Arbor Vitae’, 533–546; Bertilo de Boer, ‘De postin-
cunabel seven suverlike cranskens’, Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis van de Provincie der
Minderbroeders in de Nederlanden 22 (1956), 82–110; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia
Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 15–16. For more information on such matters,
see also O. van Asseldonck, ‘De invloed van Umbertino van Casale op het geestelijk
leven in de Nederlanden’, Franciskaans Leven 30 (1947), 112–114; K. Ruh, VL2 IV,
217ff.
277
On Giovanni de’Cauli ( Johannes de Caulibus), a friar from San Gimignano
or Siena, see especially Marco Arosio’s detailed lemma ‘Giovanni de’Cauli’ in DBI
LV, 768–774. On the manuscripts and various versions of the work, see C. Fischer,
‘Die ‘Meditationes vitae Christi,’ ihre handschriftliche Überlieferung und die Verfas-
sungsfrage’, AFH 25 (1932), 180ff.; L. Cellucci, ‘Le Meditationes vitae Christi e i
poemetti che ne furono inspirati’, Archivum Romanicum 22 (1938), 30–98; Köpf,
‘Leidensmystik in der Frühzeit der franziskanischen Bewegung’, passim; Sarah
McNamer, ‘Further Evidence for the Date of the Pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes
Vitae Christi’, FS 50 (1990), 247–248; C. Mary Stallings-Taney, ‘The Pseudo-
Bonaventure Meditationes Vite Christi: Opus Integrum’, FS 55 (1998), 253–280.
The work was repeatedly edited among the works of Bonaventura. A first critical
edition of the section devoted to the passion was provided by M. Jordan Stallings,
as the Meditationes de Passione Christi olim attributae S. Bonaventurae, ed. M. Jordan
Stallings, The Catholic University of America Studies in Medieval and Renaissance
Latin Language and Literature, XXV (Washington, 1965). A fully revised critical
edition of the whole work appeared as the Meditationes Vite Christi olim S. Bonaventuro
attributae, ed. M. Jordan Stallings-Taney, CCCM, 153 (Turnhout, 1997). See also:
Meditations on the Life of Christ. An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. Ital. 115, ed., trans. & introd. Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B.
Green (Princeton, 1961) and (for a modern French translation of the Latin text)
Méditations sur la vie du Christ, trans. Paul Bayart (Paris, 1958).
278
Falk Eisermann, Die lateinische und deutsche überlieferung des ‘Stimulus Amoris’, Diss.
(Göttingen, 1995); Idem, ‘‘Diversae et plurimae materiae in diversis capitulis.’ Der
Stimulus Amoris als literarisches Dokument der normativen Zentrierung’, in: Frühmittel-
alterliche Studien-Jahrbuch des Instituts für Frümittelalterforschung der Universität Münster, ed.
H. Keller & Chr. Meier (Berlin-NY, 1997), 214–232. Giacomo di Milano, the
Italian author of the first (shorter) version of the Stimulus Amoris, probably should
not be identified with a late thirteenth-century Franciscan lector from Milan bearing
the same name. Cf. De Conformitate, AF IV, 341. The shorter version has survived
in more than 90 manuscripts. A longer version from a later date has survived in
more than 130 manuscripts. The Stimulus Amoris used to be ascribed to Henry de
Baume (d. 1439) and to Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, and can be found in several
484 chapter seven
and Ubertino da Casale, to transform the biblical description of the

passion events into a very evocative and touching story, enticing
readers and listeners to identify with Christ’s suffering. Within this
pseudo-Bonaventurian corpus, we see an expansive accumulation of
evocative and ‘hyper-realistic’ elements that go much further than
the Gospel narrative (fully exploiting the available Gospel harmoni-
sations and the collected apocryphal information on the life of Christ).
The suffering of Christ and of the Holy Family gathered around the
cross is described in every detail: The depiction of Christ’s tortured
body and of the pains inflicted by the crucifixion process is painfully
realistic. So are the lamentations of Mary and Mary Magdalen. Their
suffering is given voice with recourse to a free use of non-biblical
utterances.
The Meditationes Vitae Christi, written in the early fourteenth century,
is probably the most popular and influential Franciscan passion devo-
tion treatise ever. At least two Latin revisions of the work survive:
a shorter version of 41 chapters and a longer one of 95 chapters.
Both these versions were widely copied as well as translated into var-
ious vernaculars. Both versions cover the complete story of Christ’s
life on earth, from the annunciation to the resurrection.279 A specific
part of the Meditationes Vitae Christi, namely the section devoted to
the passion proper, also survives separately in many manuscripts and
vernacular reworkings as the Meditaciones de Passione Christi.
Giovanni Cauli apparently wrote the Meditationes for a Franciscan
nun, a certain ‘Cecilia’ (a Poor Clare from a Tuscan monastery), to
guide her and her fellow sisters along the path of spiritual growth
in a series of individual and communal reading encounters, in which
the sisters could follow and mentally re-enact the life of Christ, and
(by means of a special treatise inserted after chapter 45) be taught
Opera Omnia editions of the latter. See for instance Bonaventura, Opera Omnia, ed.
A.-C. Peltier (Paris, 1868) XII, 631–703 (the long redaction). The work was expanded,
reworked and translated several times, a.o. by Walter Hilton (d. 1395). His trans-
lation has been edited as The Goad of Love. An Unpublished Translation of the Stimulus
Amoris (London, 1952). See on the many other vernacular translations in manu-
scripts and early printings K. Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik. Zweiter Band:
Frauenmystik und Franziskanische Mystik der Frühzeit (München, 1993), 442 & Gesamtkatalog
der Wiegendrucke IV (Leipzig, 1930) no. 4820–4832.
279
Completing a development that may already be seen in the Arbor Vitae by
Ubertino, and that was taken up again in the De Gestis Domini Salvatoris by Simone
Fidati da Cascia (d. 1348) and Ludolf von Sachsen’s Vita Christi. Cf. Bestul, Texts
of the Passion, 57; Cusato, ‘Two Uses of the Vita Christi Genre in Tuscany’, 140.
the spiritual merits of the active and the contemplative life. Later
copyists (particularly in the fifteenth century) divided the work into
piecemeal meditations for the canonical hours of each day of the
week, alternating with the set liturgical obligations.280
The original audience of the Stimulus Amoris (ca. 1300) was prob-
ably less well-defined, and neither is it completely geared to the pas-
sion of Christ. It reads as a spiritual vade mecum for friars, sisters,
and literate lay people alike. The oldest (short) version in 23 chapters
describes 1.) the necessary predisposition of body and soul to enable
meditative progress and to please God (chapters one to three); 2.)
the ways that lead to true contemplation (namely repentance, com-
passion for the suffering Christ and for the Virgin, and a true desire
to be with God, chapters four to nine); 3.) how the soul becomes
enflamed with the love of God (chapters ten to fifteen); and 4.) how
recourse to the passion of Christ and adoration of the Virgin Mary
is necessary for the true contemplative soul (chapters sixteen to twenty-
three).281
These pseudo-Bonaventurian works were extremely successful,
becoming at least as popular outside the Franciscan order as within.
One of their primary areas of influence in the fourteenth century was
in the Carthusian order, where Franciscan passion devotion materials,
together with Cistercian and Victorine elements, were a source of
inspiration for Ludolph von Sachsen’s monumental Vita Christi.282 As
280
The Meditationes were clearly not a direct witness to the Franciscan way of
preaching to the laity in fourteenth-century Italy, as has been proposed by Daniel
Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence (Columbia, 1989), 143–179. See the convinc-
ing refutations of Cusato (mentioned in the previous note) and Stallings-Taney, ‘The
Pseudo-Bonaventure Meditationes Vite Christi: Opus Integrum’, 253–280, 275–276.
281
Around 1400, the French friar and master of theology Simon de Courcy (cf.
MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 5657a f. 12v; CHUP IV 48 no. 1771) trans-
lated the Stimulus Amoris into French for Marie, the daughter of Duke Jean du Berry.
L’Éguillon d’amour divine: MS Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 2122. Cf. Murphy, A
History of the Franciscan Studium Generale at the University of Paris, 244. A Dutch trans-
lation of the Stimulus Amoris by the Dutch friar Lucas van der Heij was published
in 1508: Den Prickel der Minnen Gods (Leyden: Jan Severszoon, 1511). In 1517, this
same friar published Den spinrocken ghegeven voer een nyeuwe iaer den religiosen ioncfrouwen
van mariendael binnen diest mitten naycorf, samen met een Sermoen van de Moeder ons Heeren
op een gedaente van een naycorf (Leyden: Jan Seversz., 1517). These texts were based
on sermons delivered to the female Augustinians of Mariëndaal (Diest). Another
work by this friar is the Bouxken van den Oflaeten (Leyden: Jan Seversz, c. 1520),
which was based on a sermon delivered at the Calvary monastery of Emmerik in
1518. Cf. Schmitz, Het aandeel der minderbroeders in onze middeleeuwse literatuur, 76–78,
90; De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 25–26.
282
Ludolfus’ work exceeds all other works in size. Cf. especially Mary Immaculata
486 chapter seven
was the case with Bonaventura’s own works on the passion of Christ
and with Ubertino da Casale’s Arbor Vitae, the pseudo-Bonaventurian
works ascribed to Giovanni Cauli and Giacomo da Milano became
formative for the late medieval spirituality of the Devotio Moderna.283
Lately, scholars have shown a renewed interest in the privileged
function of Mary and Mary Magdalen as mourners and mental
sufferers in these Bonaventurian and pseudo-Bonaventurian passion
narratives, in the repression mechanisms behind these narratives’ rep-
resentation of the Jews as loathsome outcasts, and in their portrayal
of the tortured body of Christ as the ultimate focal point for the
commemoration of, the compassion for, and the (mental and physical)
conformity to the suffering Son of God.284 Moreover, one recent inter-
pretation, which in a most convincing manner places the Bonaventurian
and pseudo-Bonaventurian Franciscan passion narratives in the con-
text of the wider medieval passion devotion tradition, tries to integrate
these various approaches from an intertextual perspective, in which
passion narratives function as cultural signifiers, illustrating and trans-
forming later medieval discourses on redemption, dominance, exclu-
sion, punishment, and torture.285
It still remains to be seen to what extent the later thirteenth- and
early fourteenth-century passion devotion treatises written in the
(pseudo-)Bonaventurian tradition determined the form and content of
Bodenstedt, The ‘Vita Christi’ of Ludolfus the Carthusian, The Catholic University of
America. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin. Language and Literature,
XVI (1944); Charles Abbot Conway, The Vita Christi of Ludolph of Saxony and Late
Medieval Devotion Centred on the Incarnation: A Descriptive Analysis, Analecta Cartusiana,
34 (Salzburg, 1976).
283
On the reception of the pseudo-Bonaventurian works in the Modern Devotion
movement, see my remarks in previous notes, as well as the volume Devotio Moderna:
Basic Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), and especially the introduction by
John van Engen (pp. 49–51), and the remarks by Bodenstedt (pp. 53–92).
284
For an overview, see Die Passion Christi in Literatur und Kunst des Spätmittelalters,
ed. Walter Haug & Burghart Wachinger (Tübingen, 1993). Important landmarks
are also C.W. Bynum, ‘The Body of Christ in the Later Middle Ages: A Reply to
Leo Steinberg’, in: Idem, Fragmentation and Redemption. Essays on Gender and the Human
Body in Medieval Religion (New York, 1991); Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late
Medieval Italy. Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant (Cambridge, 1996).
In 1998, I drew attention to the presence of illustrated passion narratives in the
chronicles of Paolino da Venezia. See: Bert Roest, ‘A Meditative Spectacle: Christ’s
Bodily Passion in the Satirica Ystoria’, in: The Broken Body. Passion Devotion in Late-
Medieval Culture, ed. A.A. MacDonald, H.N.B. Ridderbos & R.M. Schlusemann
(Groningen, 1998), 31–54. See also Fleming, ‘The friars and medieval English lit-
erature’, 373.
285
This is the interpretatory matrix of Bestul, Texts of the Passion.
later Franciscan passion narratives. A scrutiny of fourteen- to sixteen-

century Franciscan sources allows us to identify a range of less well-
known treatises needing further study. In the fourteenth century
alone, leaving aside the continuing homiletic attention to the passion
of Christ, we can identify various smaller texts of passion devotion
among the works of Johannes Bloemendal286 and Guiral Ot (Gerardus
Odonis),287 as well as more substantial passion devotion treatises by
friars like Johann von Zazenhausen and Françesc Eiximenis.
The passion histories ascribed to the German friar Johann von
Zazenhausen (d. c. 1380), member of the Mainz convent and auxiliary
bishop of Trier after 1362, are of particular interest. He is believed
to have written two different passion histories, one in Latin, and one
in the German vernacular. The latter of these, written between 1362
and 1371 and dedicated to Archbishop Gerlach von Nassau, was
the most successful.288 Compared with many other Franciscan pas-
sion treatises, Johann’s passion histories follow a rather independent
course.289 Although they refer to Franciscan sources, they do not
286
See MS Mainz, Stadtbibliothek 331 ff. 43v–45v (Christus per suam vitam et spe-
cialiter mortem meruit nobis plura + An scilicet congruum fuerit humanam naturam per passionem
Christi reparari + Istam autem satisfactionem debuit homo deus facere + Tempus incarnationis
dicitur plenitudo temporis propter quinque).
287
See for instance his passion devotion poem De Septem Verbis D.N. Ihesu Christi in
Cruce, found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 3897 f. 73, and edited by A. Wilmart,
Revue Bénédictine 47 (1935), 257–261. The work was frequently edited among the
works of Bonaventura.
288
Aside from the Latin dedication and the Latin prologue, which includes a
short scholastic sermon on the salvific significance of Christ, described as the Book
of Life, the whole work is written in the German vernacular. It survives in the fol-
lowing manuscripts: Mainz, Stadtbibliothek. I 51 ff. 104ra–153va (mid 15th cent.);
Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek Cent. VI 54 (= Katharinenkloster Sig. E XXXIV)
ff. 211r–302v (1423); Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek cod. s.n. 3023
ff. 44r–146v (c. 1370–80); Trier, Stadtbibliothek 809 ff. 250r–325v (1341) & 818
ff. 1r–75r (1715); Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek theol. et philos. 4° 189 (olim Zwiefalten
149) ff. 1r–151v (1507); Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek HB II 58 ff. 1r–50v (second
half 15th cent.); Würzburg, Bibliothek des Franziskanerklosters I 93 ff. 1r–83v (late
14th cent.; Lost in WOII). The Latin prologue to the German passion history has
been edited by J. Oliger, ‘Die deutsche Passion des Johann von Zazenhausen’, FrSt
15 (1928), 245–248. The Latin passion history, the Tractatus de Passione Domini, MS
Mainz, Stadtbibliothek I 171 ff. 168r–237v, is slightly different in structure, begin-
ning and ending, yet is rather similar in style and content. For further information,
see Kurt Ruh, ‘Johannes von Zazenhausen’, VL2 IV, 827–830.
289
They seem to have more in common with (a contemporary reworking of ) the
passion devotion narrative of Michele da Massa. See H. Unger, Eine deutsche Bearbeitung
von Michaels de Massa Passionstraktat ‘Angeli pacis amare flebunt’ im Verhältnis zu dem lateinis-
chen Vorbild, Diss. (Munich, 1963), 58–60, 123.
488 chapter seven
contain the same levels of fictional embellishment. Neither do they

put similar emphasis on the graphic details of Christ’s bodily suffering.
In his passion histories Zazenhausen adheres more strictly to the bib-
lical sources (including some apocryphal texts) and prefers literal exe-
gesis to allegorical interpretation. These stories do, of course, inform
the reader about the eschatological significance of Christ’s suffering,
and exhibit an additional tendency to present Christ as an example
for Christian behaviour in everyday life.
Interesting as they are, Zazenhausen’s passion histories did not
have an overly large dissemination. A bigger impact as reserved for
the Vida de Jesucrist by Francesc Eiximenis (d. 1409), written at the
request of Pedro de Artès (a familiarius of king Martin I of Aragon).
The Vida survives in many Catalan manuscripts, at least three Castilian
versions and several French translations.290 In 1496, it was printed
in Castilian for the first time. Eiximenis’ Vida deals with the life of
Christ in no less than 691 chapters, making abundant use of the
evocative and emotional elements present in the Franciscan passion
devotion tradition. However, Eiximenis did not simply want to arouse
a strong sentiment of devotion towards the passion of Christ (and
the sufferings of Mary). In keeping with his other works of religious
edification, he shaped his life of Christ as a lengthy handbook for
lay edification, meant to instil a habitus of charity in his readers.291
As said before, the fifteenth century has frequently been hailed as
the period of Observant reform. Because the Observant contribution
to homiletic literature eclipsed that of the friars not associated with
the Observant movement, one would expect that the Observants also
took the lead in the production of passion devotion treatises. The
surviving source materials seem to corroborate this idea. Nevertheless,
we continue to see important non-Observant contributions. In the
realm of homiletic literature the passion sermons of the French the-
ologian Pierre aux Boeufs (d. 1425)292 stand out, as do those of the
290
Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles en la edad media’, 264; David Viera,
Bibliografía anotada de la vida i obra de Eximenis (Barcelona, 1980), passim.
291
Among other late fourteenth-century productions, we may also point out the
Verba Salvatoris Nostri Domini Iesu Christi in Missali Posita quae per Anni Circulum in Ecclesia
Leguntur by Andalo da Imola (fl. ca. 1380). See: MS Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana
542 (sec. XIV fin.). Pergamo, ‘I francescani alla facultà teologica di Bologna’, 23;
I codici medioevali della Biblioteca Trivulziana, cur. Caterina Santoro (Milan 1965), no. 198,
p. 121.
292
Pierre was regent master at Paris in 1421. MS Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal
German lector, guardian and provincial minister Conrad Böhmlin

from Eßlingen (d. 1449).293 Besides, independent passion treatises of
non-Observant provenance continued to appear as well, such as the
small exercises of passion devotion ascribed to the Spanish friar
Caldès294 and to the French friar Pierre de La Brosse,295 as well as
the more substantial Passio Jesu Christi produced by the German friar
2036 ff. 205r–329v, 330r–388v contains his Sermones de Passione Christi. These ser-
mons amount to an adaptation of the pseudo-Bonaventurian Meditationes Vitae Christi
(Inc: ‘Commence la vie et la passion de nostre seigneur Jhesu Christ quil souffry
en ce monde pour nous pouvre pecheurs selon Boneaventure. Laquelle frere pierre
aux beufs cordelier docteur en theologie a preschee devant le roy et autres a Paris.’
Expl.: ‘Cy fine la vye et la passion de messire Jhesus Christ. Deo graciae.’). The
cycle was printed as Magistri Petri ad Boves Sermones de Passione Christi (Poitiers: Jean
Bouyer, 1482). For another version of this sermon cycle, see MS Tours 489. A
different macaronic Sermo de Passione Domini/Passio Domini by Pierre can be found in
the incunable Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine Inc. 1481 (Inc.: ‘Hoc sentite in vobis
quod est in xristo ihesum. Ad philipenses iio et in epistola dominice curentis. Gallice.
Sentir de buons en esprit. La douleur de ihesu crist.’ Expl.: ‘Explicit sermo de pas-
sione xristi quem quondam compilavit doctor Magister petrus ad boves.’).
293
See in particular his 1436 Sermo Christus Passus est pro Nobis (‘. . . predie (. . .)
herre Conrat Boemele an dem fritage XIII tag noch ostern, zu sand Johanse über
die epistel Petri 2o Christus passus est pro nobis reliquens exemplum ut sequamini
vestigia eius, und seit von dem lyden unsers herren . . .’), held at Strasbourg on the
occasion of the festivities concerning the instruments of the passion, and found in
MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Germ. Quart. 206 ff. 207v–215v, and his Predig von dem
hailigen sacrament & Predig von deme liden unseres herren christi Jhesu: MS Maihingen,
Fürstliche Öttingen-Wallersteinsche Bibliothek MS III, 1 4° 9 f. 80a & f. 89a (‘Dyß
predige haut getän brueder Conratt bömlin Ain barfüß zu Straußburg. Disß ist ain
predig von dem hailigen sacrament etc. Venite ad me omnes, qui laboratis et onerati
estis, ego reficiam vos (Mat. 11, 28)’). At this juncture, we can also signal the ser-
mon De Acerbissima Passione Domini Nostri Iesu Christi attributed to the ‘turncoat’
Conventual and famous preacher Roberto Caraccioli (d. 1495). See: Il sermo ‘De
acerbissima passione Domini Nostri Iesu Christi’ di Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce, ed. Daniela
Degiovanni, Pluteus 8–9 (1990–1991), 255–385. Roberto’s ample homiletic produc-
tion includes several other passion devotion sermons worthy of further attention.
294
Caldès was the confessor of princess Maria d’Aragon. He wrote the Exercici
de la Santa Creu for her, which was finished on 20 August 1446. In 1683, the work
was reworked in the vernacular. See Exercici de la Santa Creu, ed. F. Francesch Marçal
(Mallorca, 1683). Cf. J.M. Bover, Biblioteca de escritores baleares (Palma de Mallorca,
1868) I, 142–143 (no. 201); Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles en la edad
media’, 284.
295
Not much is known about this friar, except that he wrote a small treatise Des
règles de la perfection, dedicated to all those who wanted to engage in a veritable devo-
tion ‘à nostre très doulx Sauveur Jhesu Crist crucifié.’ The author provides ‘35
règles de dévocion pour qui veut monter en la très haute montagne de perfection
et de sainte contemplation.’ The work seems especially directed at female religious
who go to mass daily and who should cultivate an evocative and tender devotional
attitude towards the suffering Christ. Des règles de la perfection: MS Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale français 2460 ff. 1–25 (15th cent.). For a short enumeration of these 35
devotional rules, see Éphrem Longpré, ‘La Brosse (Pierre de)’, DSpir IX, 25.
490 chapter seven
Johann Kannemann, lector and magister regens at the Erfurt studium,

Ulrich Horn von Eichstatt’s German reworkings of Latin devotional
texts, Antonio da Atri’s, Exercitio spirituale, and the learned passion
devotion treatises of Marco Vigerio da Savona (d. 1516).
Kannemann’s Passio Jesu Christi was probably based on actual ser-
mons, but was reworked into a separate treatise ‘to meditate the
death of Christ through compassion’ (‘ad meditandum mortem Christi
per compassionem’), so that ‘we might deserve to reach the glory
and joy of the blessed resurrection’ (‘pervenire mereamur ad gloriam
et gaudium beatae resurrectionis. . . .’)296 Antonio da Atri’s Exercitio
spirituale, written during the author’s sojourn at the Jerusalem convent,
contains versified meditations on the life and death of Christ, each
of which culminates in a dialogue between the human soul and God.
With the life and death of Christ as a basic framework, the work
offers meditations on creation, divine governance, redemption and
glorification through divine love.297 In his turn, Ulrich Horn, took it
upon himself to make Latin passion devotion materials in the German
vernacular available to his fellow friars and local tertiaries, translat-
ing a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century Latin passion trea-
tise that was inspired by the ascetical programme of Marquard von
Lindau, and stressing the need for charitable works and contrition.298
Finally, the versatile theologian and cardinal Marco Vigerio, grand-
296
Quoted from the incipit and the explicit of the Passio Jesu Christi as found in
MSS Moritzburg Cod, Qu. 3 ff. 109r–139r; Prague, Kapitelbibliothek 855 ff.
72r–100v; Breslau, I.Qu. 276 ff. 238r–267v & I.F. 751 ff. 243r–89v; Breslau, Stadtbibl.
300 ff. 239r–260a; Lüneburg, Ratsbücherei Theol. Fol. 72; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
Cod. Lat. 485 theol. qu. 79 ff. 300r–334r; Braunsweig, Stadtbibliothek cod. CLVI;
Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cod. Lat. 8109 ff. 187vb–209vb; Göttingen, Universitäts-
bibliothek Cod. Theol. 102 ff. 113–150. For more information, see Meier, Die
Barfüsserschule zu Erfurt, 53, n. 69. Kanneman’s Passio was repeatedly edited: Insignis
Duarum Passionum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Nostri Salvatoris Collectio Quorundam Divini
Verbi Dissentissimorum Praedicatorum (Cologne: Joh. Koelhoff, 1474), ff. 2–49; Collectura
Insignis Duarum Passionum Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi Quorundam Divini Verbi Dissertissimorum
Predicatorum (s.l., s.a.; probably Strasbourg, 1478); Passio Johannis Kanneman sacre the-
ologie professoris ordinis Minorum. Necnon alius tractatus de Christi passione. Una cum legenda
beate Katherine virginis (Basel, 1500), ff. 2–49. Cf. See also L. Oliger, ‘Johannes
Kannemann, ein deutscher Franziskaner aus dem 15. Jahrhundert’, FrSt 5 (1918),
63; Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, nos. 5479, 5480, 9759; Copinger, Supplement,
no. 9759.
297
Exercitio spirituale (Venice: Jacopo Pencio per Alessandro di Paganino Paganini,
1514); Exercitio spirituale (Urbino, 1536). Cf. Gabriela Zarri, ‘La vita religiosa fem-
minile: testi devoti in volgare’, in: I frati minori tra ’400 e ’500, Atti del XII Convegno
Internazionale Assisi, 18–19–20 ottobre 1984 (Assisi, 1986), 137–138.
298
On Ulrich Horn, see especially Kurt Ruh, ‘Horn, Ulrich’, VL2 IV, 141–143.
nephew of Pope Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere), devoted at least

three of his manifold but, as yet, not well-studied works to the life
and passion of Christ, namely the Decachordum Christianum, the Controversia
de Excellentia Instrumentorum Dominicae Passionis, and the De Vita, Morte
et Resurrectione Domini.299
During the fifteenth century and after, and in keeping with the
spiritual emancipation of female religious authors mentioned earlier,
the Poor Clares became productive authors of passion devotion trea-
tises in their own right, mostly in those newly reformed convents in
which a return to the 1253 Regula Prima of Chiara d’Assisi went hand
in hand with a thorough spiritual rejuvenation. Most relevant for our
purpose here are the literary products of Caterina Vigri of Bologna,
Eustochia Calafato, Isabella Villena, and Camilla Battista Varani,
nearly all of whom were the respected authors of a rich and varied
religious oeuvre.
The evocative and detailed Rosarium Metricum de Mysteriis Passionis
Christi Domini by Caterina da Bologna (Caterina Vigri, d. 1463) is
geared to the communal and individual prayer exercises of the nuns
in Caterina’s religious communities at Ferrara and Bologna, for whom
Caterina served as a novice master and abbess. Apparently, Caterina
composed the Rosarium to provide the nuns in her charge with an
adequate framework of prayers with which to approach Christ’s
suffering and Mary’s special compassion.300 The highly individual
Ulrich’s Betrachtung des Leidens Christi (1484) can be found in MS Nuremberg, Germ.
Nationalmuseum 18526 ff. 52v–152r.
299
Decachordum Christianum (Fano: G. Soncino, 1507/Paris, 1517/Hagenau,
1517/Douai, 1607); De Annuntiatione B. M. Virginis. Controversia de Excellentia Instrumentorum
Dominicae Passionis (Rome: M. Silber, 1512/ Paris, 1517/Hagenau, 1517/Douai,
1607); De Vita, Morte et Resurrectione Domini (Douai, 1616). On these and other works
by Vigerio, which focus on the theological virtues embodied in the various mem-
bers of the Holy Family, see Wadding, Scriptores, 167; Sbaralea, Supplementum II,
211–212; N. Papini, ‘Publici Lectores OFM Conv.’, MF 31 (1931), 174 & 33 (1933),
242; Giovanni Odoardi, ‘Vigerio, Marco’, Enciclopedia Cattolica XII, 1411–1412; D.R.
Campbell, ‘Vigerio, Marco’, New Catholic Encyclopaedia XIV, 663. In Mouchel, Rome
franciscaine, 106ff. we may find an insightful discussion of Vigerio’s learned rhetorics,
which also represents the annunciation encounter between the angel and the Virgin
as a metaphor of the dialogue between the Roman Church and the believer.
300
Cf. DSpir II, 288–290; Caterina Vigri da Bologna, Rosarium Metricum de Mysteriis
Passionis Christi Domini et de Vita B. Marie Virginis, ed. Mariafiamma Maddalena Faberi
et.al., in: I mistici francescani, III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 37–215. The spiritual tra-
dition cherished under the abbatiate of Caterina Vigri gave rise to other works.
Worth mentioning here is the Viaggio Spirituale per la Meditazione composed by the
Corpus Christi Poor Clares Dorotéa Paleotti and Bianca Maria Scappi in the first
492 chapter seven
works of Eustochia Calafato (Smeralda Calafato Colonna, d. 1486),

which were not printed but circulated in manuscript format inside
and outside the order, have a more personal touch and clearly bear
the marks of an intense life of prayer and religious conversations
with Christ on the cross. The spiritual libretto that she left behind
on this topic includes a Libro de la Passione, in which the praying nun
perceives the passion and is transformed by experiencing it.301
Isabella Villena (Eleanor Manuel de Villena, d. 1490), for nearly
thirty years abbess of the Valencian Trinitá convent, primarily wrote
for the novices and nuns in her charge. Her only surviving work is
a large and unfinished Vita Christi. Eventually, this was published by
Isabella Villena’s successor, abbess Aldonça de Montsoriu (at the
request of queen Isabella of Castile). Isabella Villena’s quite original
Vita Christi, which has been written in a refined and courtly Catalan
vernacular, contains no less than 291 chapters (in its surviving form)
and is a testimony to the author’s religious erudition. As its basic
sources she did not only use the Gospels and the available apocryphal
books, but also many late medieval works of passion devotion, the-
ological treatises and mariological works. In the Vita Christi Isabella
develops the theme of man’s frailty and his dependence on the work
of redemption. Hence, the overriding importance of Christ’s passion
and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Isabella also highlights the roles
of Mary (both as mother of Christ and as loving intercessor for
mankind) and Joseph. An interesting element is the way in which
Isabella elaborates the importance of Mary as the authoritative infor-
mant of and guide to the apostles, due to her special revelations and
privileged communications with the Divine. Mary is depicted as the
master and doctor of Divine love, having a special understanding of
the mysteries of faith, and being the perfect embodiment of the active
and the contemplative life.302
half of the sixteenth century. This ‘spiritual itinerary’ offers exercises on the life
and death of Christ that can be performed in different locations of the monastery,
thus transforming the topography of the monastery into the topography of the Holy
Land and the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem. This work is described in Zarri,
‘Écrits inédits de Catherine de Bologne et de ses soeurs’, 229, and survives in
Archivio Generale Arcivescovile di Bologna, Archivio Beata Caterina, carton 28,
Lode spirituale e Regole di San Gerolamo, Libro 6, no. 2.
301
Il Libro della Passione scritto dalla beata Eustochia Calafato Clarissa messinese (1434–1485),
ed. F. Terrizzi (Messina, 1979); Costanza, ‘Ricerca bibliografica sulla vita di Eustochia
Calafato, beata messinese’, 157–174; Idem, ‘Ricerca bibliografica sulla beatificazione
di Eustochia Calafato, beata messinese’, 3–20.
302
Vita Christi, ed. Aldonça de Montsoriu (Valencia, 1497); Vita Christi (Barcelona,
The most famous of all these female religious authors of devotional

texts on the suffering Christ is Camilla Battista da Varano (d. 1524).
Among her various spiritual writings, one particular work of passion
devotion stands out, namely I dolori mentali di nostro signore Gesù nella
sua passione (finished on 12 September 1488). Camilla dedicated the
Dolori mentali to her spiritual counsellor, friar Pietro de Mogliano. It
presents Christ’s mental anguish and suffering, but also the unsurpass-
able love for mankind that inspired His actions on earth, and the
impact that Christ’s sacrifice should have on the religious life of every
individual. The work bears witness to the ways in which the spiri-
tual legacy of Ubertino da Casale was re-enforced at the turn of the
sixteenth century, and it is deemed to be a master-piece of Franciscan
ascetical and spiritual writing.303
As these works by Franciscan nuns indicate, the passion of Christ
attracted many Franciscan authors involved in ideological programmes
of Observant reform. The first Observants found fault with the
Franciscan order’s development into a movement of professional the-
ologians and church diplomats. In reaction, they reached back to the
legacy of the Franciscan Spirituals; a legacy that decried the order’s
embrace of speculative theology, its hunt for papal privileges and its
1513), modernising the style; Vita Christi (Barcelona, 1527), more in line with the
first edition; Vita Christi, ed. R. Miquel y Planas, 3 Vols. (Barcelona, 1916).
303
Camilla Battista da Varano, Le Opere Spirituali, ed. G. Boccanera (Iesi, 1958)
contains Camilla Battista Varani’s La vita spirituale (pp. 5–67) and I dolori mentali di
N.S. Gesù Cristo nella sua Passione (pp. 60–109). See also Le opere spirituali della b. Battista
Varani, ed. M. Santoni (Camerino, 1894). The first edition of the Dolori Mentali
appeared in 1488. An English translation appeared as The Mental Sorrows of Jesus
Christ, trans. J. Berrigan (Saskatoon, 1986). Camilla wrote the Dolori Mentali at the
request of sister Pacifica d’Urbino. It is written in the form of a long conversation
between Christ and an anonymous nun at the Santa Chiara convent. Contrary to
most of the passion devotion treatises written by her male predecessors and con-
temporaries, Battista particularly focuses on Christ’s mental anguish. Wood, Women,
Art, and Spirituality, 118: ‘Blessed Battista concentrates on the mental pains of Jesus,
which surpass his bodily torments because they result from the persistent sinfulness
of humanity; yet, paradoxically, her method in the treatise explicates this mental
pain through corporeal analogies. Christ tells her that as the head of the body, he
endures pain from everyone who has ever lived and from anyone who will ever
exist; furthermore, he suffers for all, whether members of the elect [suffering, per-
secuted or martyred] or the damned [the pain of their sins, their fear and their
punishments in hell]. The quantity and quality of the Lord’s pain differs accord-
ing to the varieties of sins, and he describes the degrees of his pain for Blessed
Battista by comparing it to the pain incurred by cutting off a limb. (. . .) Battista
closes her memoir devastated by the bittersweet realization that the most generous
Jesus must forever suffer for perpetually ungrateful sinners like herself.’
494 chapter seven
destruction of the original vita evangelica in total poverty. These early

Observants retreated into small hermitages, to live the evangelical
life in poverty, far away from the larger Franciscan study houses,
and far away from the urban centres where, according to Spiritual
and early Observant critics, the Franciscan ideal had compromised
itself. In this re-orientation, the budding Observant groups embraced
those elements of the monastic and mendicant meditative and contem-
plative heritage that seemed to support their search for evangelical
perfection; they were particularly interested in texts by and on
Francesco d’Assisi and in works by Spiritual ‘forerunners’ of the
Observant cause (Angelo Clareno, Ubertino da Casale, and non-
Franciscan fellow travellers like Simon de Cascia). The passion nar-
ratives originating in the context of this early Observant renewal—
insofar as the religious practices of these early Observant friars resulted
in a literary substratum at all—on the whole were very much tailored
to the internal meditative and contemplative needs of the friars.304
Whereas the early champions of the Franciscan Observance retreated
to hermitages, in order to foster an inward conversion to the true
Franciscan life, their early fifteenth-century successors returned to
the pastoral field, in order to foster the conversion of the world at
large. In that context they immediately began to pay more attention
to the religious and theological education of their own novices, preach-
ers, and confessors, and began to see to the religious education of
the laity, with whom they were in closer contact from c. 1400
onwards. As said before, this amalgam of incentives probably explains
the large Franciscan Observant output of catechetical, homiletic and
devotional texts in the fifteen and sixteenth centuries. Some of these
texts functioned within an established religious community without
further dissemination, whereas others found their way all over Europe.305
Many of these catechetical, homiletic and devotional texts contain
larger or shorter passion narratives. As the fifteenth-century Observants
made preaching their primary concern, most of their writings mirror
304
On the more eremitical strands within the Franciscan order that kept alive
the Franciscan meditative legacy, strands that also inspired early Observant spiri-
tuality, see Ugolino Nicolini, ‘L’eremitismo francescano Umbro nei secoli XIII–XVI’,
in: Il B. Tomasuccio da Foligno terziario francescano ed i movimenti religiosi popolari umbri nel
trecento, ed. Raffele Pazzelli (Rome, 1979), 79–96.
305
On this Werdegang of the Observant movement, see Elm, ‘Die Franziskaner-
observanz als Bildungsreform’, 201–213, and Roest, A History of Franciscan Education,
158–168.
their homiletic activities, making it difficult to distinguish between

‘independent’ Observant passion devotion treatises and the published
Observant quadragesimal sermons that, more often than not, had
the passion of Christ as their central theme. Cases in point are the
Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Iesu Christi by Bernardino da Siena,
the Orationes de Corpore Christi by Alberto da Sarteano (d. 1450),306 the
Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi by Giovanni di Capistrano (d. 1456),307
the Tractatus de Passione Domini by Antonio da Bitonto (d. 1465),308
Ludwich Schönmerlin’s De Doloribus, Anxietatibus et Amaritudinibus Christi
(ca. 1485),309 the Meditationes Passionis Christi by Pietro Arrivabene from
Mantua,310 Olivier Maillard’s Histoire de la Passion Douloureuse de Notre
306
Alberto da Sarteano, Oratio de Corpore Christi, ed. Floro Biccellari, SF 36 (1939),
298–304.
307
Rome, BAV Cod. Pal. Lat. 469 ff. 1r–46v. Apparently, more manuscripts are
listed by Hofer, Johannes Kapistran I, 450.
308
Antonio da Bitonto, Tractatus de Passione Domini: MS Washington D.C., Holy Name
College no. 22 (which amounts to an extract from his Sermones Quadragesimales. I have
not been able to check whether this ‘Tractatus’ can be found in Antonio’s Sermones
Quadragesimales de Vitiis (Venice: Joannes Hamann per Nikolaus de Frankfordia, 1499).
309
Ludovicus Schönmerlin OMObs was lector at the Than convent (1483). His
German version of Roberto Caracciolo’s lengthy Good Friday Sermon De Doloribus,
Anxietatibus et Amaritudinibus Christi (Sermo 69 of Roberto’s Quadragesimale) can be
found in: MS Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4700, ff. 15r–145v. It amounts to a
sermon-treatise on the passion of Christ, with theological elucidations.
310
Pietro Arrivabene’s versified Meditationes Passionis Christi was likewise based on
previously delivered passion sermons. The work contains twenty two meditations,
which together provide a more or less linear narrative, interspersed with special
devotional moments, during which the reader is expected to take in the pictured
events and ponder their meaning. In the prologue, Pietro explains that in his work
the devout Christian soldier will be brought to the love of Christ and to a close
acquaintance with the sacred passion. Pietro also produced an Italian version of his
Latin text, dedicating his translation to the Poor Clare Chiara da Montefeltro (in
the outside world Isabella di Rimini, the widow of Roberto Malatesta, Lord of
Rimini). It was printed as: Meditationes Passionis Domini Nostri Iesu Christi (Milan:
Leonardo Pachel, 1488). The Latin work begins as follows (f. 1a): ‘Incipit pro-
hemium in meditationibus passionis domini nostri Iesu Christi, ubi miles devotus
hortatur ad ipsius domini nostri Iesu amorem et ipsius beneficia continue recolenda
precipueque ad meditandam ipsius sacratissimam passionem.’ The Italian version,
the Opera devotissima continente piissime meditazioni della passione di Cristo (Mantua:
Francescho di Bruschi, 1511), which at its very end contains a recapitulative Pasion
in versi vulgari pervenuta a le man mie in 52 terzines, gives additional information on
the homiletic origin of Pietro’s passion treatise. The vernacular version tells us
(f. 5r–v): ‘. . . ho pensato in questa mia ultima età reducere in sermon vulgare le
devotissime meditatione, che sono vintidue, de l’acerbissima morte et passion de
Christo, da me predicate quaranta anni lo venere sancto in varie et diverse cità et
terre de Italia non senza grande effusione et spargimento de lachrime et mie et de
li popili audienti.’ Cf. Cesare Cenci, ‘Fra Pietro Arrivabene da Canneto e la sua
attività letteraria’, AFH 61 (1968), 289–344 & 62 (1969), 115–195.
496 chapter seven
Doux Sauveur et Rédempteur Remémorée es Sacrés et Saints Mystères de la

Messe (1493),311 Conrad Oesterreicher’s Venustissima Materia Passionis
Christi Jesu (1502),312 the sermons and songs on the passion produced
by the Polish friar Ladislaus von Gielniow (early sixteenth century),313
and Daniel Agricola’s Passio D.N.J.Chr. Secundum Quatuor Evangelistas.314
311
A number of Maillard’s French sermons was published separately. See: Histoire
de la Passion Douloureuse de Notre Doux Sauveur et Rédempteur Remémorée es Sacrés et Saints
Mystères de la Messe, ed. Lambert (Paris, 1493). Several later editions followed, among
which I would like to mention the nineteenth-century Histoire de la Passion Douloureuse
de Notre Doux Sauveur, ed. G. Peignot (Paris, 1835) and the recent Istoire de la Passion
douloureuse, ed. Tamara Steiner (Pieterlen-Berlin-Brussels, 2001).
312
Conrad Oesterreicher (fl. ca. 1500), a friend of Daniel Agricola, was active
in the Munich convent. A series of his reworked passion sermons was published
under the title Venustissima Materia Passionis Christi Jesu (1502). In this work, the
suffering and death of Christ is presented in the form of a long legal process, in
which many figures from the Old and New Testament appear. It is made clear
that Christ has to be condemned to death because of natural law (charity demands
the death of Christ in order to save mankind), the old law (truth demands his
death), and the law of grace (it is necessary that Christ dies to save man). Conrad
highlights the enormity of Christ’s suffering and provides preachers with sketches
and themes for sermons for Lent and Passion week. For editions, see: Venustissima
Materia Passionis Christi Jesu a Quodam Fratre Minore de Observantia in Civitate Monacensi
Superioris Bavarie Predicata, Vulgata et Solerter Perspicata (Memmingen: Albert Küne,
1502); Passionis Domini et Redemptoris Nostri Jesu Christi, Filii Dei et Hominis, Materia
Pulcherrima sub Forma Judiciarii Processus, ante Octaginta Annos Monaci in Superiori Bavaria
Predicata et in Publicum Divulgata, Auctore F. Conrado Oesterreicher, Ordinis Minorum de
Observantia et apud Franciscanos Monacenses Concionatore (Ingolstadt: Wolfgang Eder, 1581);
Ein ordentlicher gerichts Proceß, Wie Christus nach dem Natürlichen, geschriebnen und evangelis-
chen Gesatz von wegen deß gantzen Menschlichen Geschlechts nach Art der Rechten verurteylt und
verdammet worden, Neben viel heylsamen Betrachtungen deß Leydens und Sterbens JESU CHRISTI
Erstlich Vor achtzig Jaren von einem fürtreflichen Prediger Franciscaner Ordens zu München, F.
Conrad Oesterreicher, in Latein angestellt und außgegangen, Anjetzt (. .) verteutscht Durch M.
Georg Müller (Ingolstadt: Wolfgang Eder, c. 1581). A modern translation appeared
as: Sehr anmutige Materie über das Leiden Christi, von Konrad Oesterreicher, Franziskanerprediger
in Münich, ed. P. Minges (Regensburg, 1923).
313
Ladislaus von Gielniow (ca. 1440–4 May 1505) left a substantial number of
sermons for Sun- and feast days, many of which addressed the passion of Christ
and its moral and eschatological implications. In addition, he composed a series of
religious songs, to be sung/recited during and after listening to the sermon. See
Kantak, ‘Les données historiques sur les bienheureux Bernardins (Observants) polon-
ais’, 444–451; Clément Schmitt, ‘Ladislas de Gielniow’, DSpir IX, 60.
314
The Observant friar Daniel Agricola (d. ca. 1540), active in Basel and Freiburg,
is predominantly known for his Tractatus de Passione Domini (ca. 1509), which was
printed repeatedly: Tractatus de Passione Domini/Passio D.N.J.Chr. Secundum Quatuor
Evangelistas (Basel, 1509/Basel: Johann. Froben, 1512/Basel: Michael Furter, 1513/1516;
Basel: Thomas Wolf, 1521). The work was also edited in the Postilla Guillermi super
Epistolas et Evangelia per totius anni circumcitum, de tempore, sanctis et pro defunctis (Basel:
Adam Petri de Langendorff, 1510). It is quite possible that Daniel’s motivation for
writing the work was fully practical. Landmann, ‘Zum Predigtwesen’, 310–311 sug-
gests: ‘Die Postilla Guillermi (. . .) ließ nämlich die Karwoche unberücksichtigt. So
In most of these cases, we are dealing with reworked thematical

sermons, expanded into passion treatises, and sometimes published
independently from the sermon cycles from which they originated.
One of the largest of these thematic sermon-treatises, Bernardino da
Siena’s Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, produced between
ca. 1430 and 1436, merits specific attention, as it has survived in
many manuscripts and in a range of printed editions, both as an
independent work, and as a lengthy Good Friday sermon (for Feria
Sexta in Parasceve) in his Quadragesimale de Christiana Religione.315 In both
cases, we are confronted with an edited text meant for circulation
in Observant Franciscan circles, to provide fellow friars with pol-
ished model sermons (which they could use in preparation for their
homiletic obligations) and to offer them materials that could be used
in the Observant training centres of moral theology.
The lengthy text of the Tractatus de Passione Domini (more than 100
pages in its current critical edition) is a highly organised narrative
skeleton, geared to the memory training techniques of the day. The
modern reader will be struck by the completely systematic organi-
sation, the thorough theological treatment of the subject matter with
rather strict adherence to the evidence of the biblical text, and the
intriguing elaboration of the theme of divine love.
The whole sermon is organised around the theme of Psalm 37,9
(38,8): Afflictus sum et humiliatus sum nimis, rugiebam a gemitu cordis mei
(Afflicted and humiliated beyond measure, I called out from the sor-
row of my heart) and around Paul’s exhortation in his letter to the
Philippians 2,5: Hoc enim sentite in vobis quod et in Christo Iesu (Feel that
in you which was also in Christ). These two biblical points of depar-
ture underline the importance of feeling and experiencing the suffering
Christ beyond mere cognition and understanding, so that we may
hat nun, wahrscheinlich auf Verlangen des Druckers Adam Petri, Daniel Agricola
in ähnlicher Anordnung erstens einen erzählenden Evangelientext hergestellt, indem
er die vier Leidensberichte unter genauer Quellenangabe miteinander verband, zweit-
ens diesen Text mit einer reichen Interlinearglosse versehen, drittens eine eigene
Erklärung mit Einleitung und Einteilung für die Predigt hinzugefügt und viertens
die einzelnen Leidensereignisse mit einem anziehenden Kranz von Aussprüchen der
Väter und großen Heiligen eingerahmt. (. . .) Wie die Postilla Guillermi sollte die
Passion den einfachen Priestern dienen und wohl auch den Priesteramtskandidaten
zur schulmäßigen Vorbereitung auf ihr Amt.’
315
Bernardino da Siena, Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, in: S. Bernardini
Senensis Opera Omnia (. . .) Studio et Cura Patrum Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 9 Vols. (Ad
Claras Aquas/Quaracchi, 1950–1965) II, 187–293.
498 chapter seven
become one with the suffering Christ. As Bernardino teaches his

audience, in the context of passion devotion there is a great difference
between cogitare, intelligere and sentire.316
After assigning each of these modes of understanding its proper
place in man’s approach of the suffering Christ, Bernardino elaborates
the sermon’s main theme (Afflictus sum etc.) to develop a triad of sub-
themes: the so-called ‘sensus’ or meaning of Christ’s pains (dolores),
the meaning of Christ’s griefs (maerores), and the meaning or role of
his vituperators (vituperiores). These sub-themes constitute the sermon’s
three principal parts through which the order of the passion is made
explicit, and through which the evangelical story of Christ’s passion
is given its proper context. Again, each of these principal parts is
divided systematically. Thus the first principal part consists of four
times three contemplations, on the beginning of the passion, its
progress, its growth and its completion, respectively, in accordance
with the various Gospel accounts. Every aspect of these contempla-
tions is further divided, thus dealing with the literal and spiritual
meaning of the events in an exegetical manner.
A detailed analysis of the structure and content of Bernardino’s
homiletic Tractatus de Passione Domini lies beyond the scope of this
book. Yet it is possible to gain insight into Bernardino’s systematics
and also into his theology of love by taking a closer look at the sec-
ond principal part, which is subdivided into three ‘contemplations’
(admirandas contemplationes) concerning Christ’s love, the horror of the
world, and the sorrow of the devout. The first of these contemplations,
pertaining to Christ’s love, is elaborated with recourse to the seven
words on the cross. These seven words are treated as seven inflaming
loves, and analysed in order to explain the whole redemption of
mankind as a result of the love of Christ. In this context, Bernardino
for instance discusses Christ’s amor remissionis (the love of mildness,
meaning forgiving His enemies) and Christ’s amor donationis, or the
love of giving (the gift of His blood and the gift of eternal life to
the good thief ).
Bernardino’s analysis of Christ’s words to the good thief (amor dico
tibi, hodie mecum eris in paradiso) is particularly interesting. This biblical
utterance entices the preacher to work out a full-scale sola fides the-
316
‘Magna quidem differentia est inter cogitare, intelligere et sentire de Christo
Iesu’, Bernardino da Siena, Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Iesu Christi, 188, line
16–17.
ology. Focussing on the amor donationis, the text discusses the reward
granted the robber, his merit, and the privilege bestowed upon him.
The reward is rather straightforward, as is the privilege. Yet the
thief ’s supposed merit leads Bernardino to a theological analysis of
the former’s exceptional theological and moral virtues as, through
faith alone, he was able to perceive the true nature of Christ, and
hence was worthy of salvation. At the moment of Christ’s ultimate
humiliation, when even the Virgin was totally overcome with grief
and remained silent, only the good thief with unshakeable faith pro-
fessed his belief in the Son of God.
In the section on the horror mundi (the second large contemplation
of this part), the perspective changes. From Christ speaking from the
Cross, the focus shifts to the onlookers, or rather to the admiratio
multorum in the face of Christ’s suffering and the mental anguish of
Mary and Mary Magdalen. This admiration and anguish is followed
by a consideration of the obduratio multorum—in particular the obduratio
of the Jewish leaders and the Jewish onlookers who, in Bernardino’s
analysis, refused to see what they could see with their own eyes—
and the ablutio multorum (cleansing) through Christ’s purifying blood
sacrifice. The cleansing is directly connected with the piercing of
Christ’s side, and the flow of blood and water resulting from it. The
preacher’s elaboration of this piercing ranges from Mary’s mortal
suffering (when she is confronted with this additional violation of
Christ’s body), to the wider significance of the blood and water
streaming from Christ’s wounds.
The third contemplation of the second part closes with the sorrow
of the devout after Christ’s death. This contemplation centres on the
deposition, washing and clothing of Christ’s body and His burial.
Bernardino again re-emphasises the suffering of Mary and Mary
Magdalen. Whereas in the previous contemplations the mental anguish
of the holy women and other biblical figures remained subservient
to the eschatological and soteriological significance of the passion, the
care for the dead body of Christ can give free reign to the sorrow
of those that remain behind. Now that the labour of redemption has
been performed, time has come to grieve without restraint. The final
principal part of the treatise then neatly winds up the appropriate
remaining theological questions pertaining to the passion; questions
concerning Christ’s nature as a member of the Trinity, the redemp-
tion of evil and sin, the liberation of the patriarchs, the justification
of mankind, past and present, and man’s glorification in the future.
500 chapter seven
In his vocabulary, Bernardino carefully follows the conceptual lan-

guage of the scholastic christological tradition. In his recourse to the
Franciscan passion devotion traditions he chooses elements from
Bonaventura, Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean Olieu) and Ubertino
da Casale rather than from the theologically less-refined Meditationes
Vitae Christi. We are, in short, confronted with a rather sophisticated
work. It is tempting to situate it first and foremost in the context of
Bernardino’s teachings of moral theology at the Observant study
houses in Umbria and Tuscany. However, Bernardino’s extant ped-
agogical writings (such as his Sermo de Scientiarum Studiis) show that
he desired to heighten the level of religious instruction for every-
body, and wished to make possible preachers of everyone, at least
within the sphere of the household.317 Bearing this in mind, we may
venture that Bernardino would have been more than willing to pre-
sent theological elaborations found in sermons-treatises like the Tractatus
de Passione Domini Nostri Iesu Christi to a wider audience of lay people.
Friars from various Observant denominations became active prop-
agators of passion devotion, in the process stimulating kindred expres-
sions of devotion towards the Holy Family and the Holy Name of
Jesus.318 The bulk of all this lies either hidden in the Observant
homiletic output or was published in sermon-treatises of the kind
just mentioned. Yet Coletans and regular Observants alike did supple-
ment their sermons with additional devotional works. A good exam-
ple from the Coletan side is Henry de Baume’s short Méditation de
la vie, passion, quinze douleurs principales et mort de nostre sauver, problably
written in the 1430s for female Colettine communities in France,
317
A. Galletti, Una predica inedita di S. Bernardino intorno al valore morale e pratico dello
studio (Città di Castello, 1913); D. Pacetti, ‘La necessità dello studio. Predica inedita
di S. Bernardino da Siena’, Bullettino di Studi Bernardiniani 2 (1936), 310–321; Elm,
‘Die Franziskanerobservanz als Bildungsreform’, 210–211.
318
Bernardino’s propagation of the cult of the Holy Name goes back at least to
1418, when, according to the testimony of Andrea Bigli, Bernardino for the first
time urged his Milanese audience to take home with them images of the Holy
Name. After some initial problems with theologians and inquisitors, who took
Bernardino to task for spreading heresy, our Observant preacher and his colleagues
were responsible for the dissemination of the cult of the Holy Name throughout
the Italian Peninsula. In his sermons on the Holy Name, Bernardino seemingly
reached back to De Laude Melliflui Nominis Domini Nostri Iesu Christi by Guibert de
Tournai, some pseudo-Bonaventurian works and the Arbor Vitae by Ubertino da
Casale. B. De Gaiffier, ‘Le mémoire d’André Biglia sur la prédication de Saint
Bernardin de Sienne’, Analecta Bollandiana 53 (1935), 319ff.; Melani, ‘San Bernardino
da Siena e il Nome di Gesù’, 247–300.
the members of which spent their lives in total seclusion, prayer,

and lengthy devotional and liturgical occupations. Henry’s Méditation,
found in the so-called Dossier Clarisses of the Bibliothèque municipale
of Besançon, and edited by Elizabeth Lopez in 1994,319 totally sub-
scribes to the Colettine programme of amour, humilité, charité and
taps into the rich literary archive concerning the sorrows of Christ
and Mary.
In accordance with the humility topoi to be found everywhere in
Colettine writings and in treatises produced by the Coletan Franciscan
friars in the service of Colettine communities, Henry’s meditative
exercises are prefaced with self-effacing introductory prayers to the
Holy Trinity. The nuns supposedly were to recite these prayers at
the beginning of each devotional exercise.320 The meditations them-
selves incite the Colettine nuns to meditate in a very bittersweet and
tender way on the annunciation, the birth of Christ, His circumci-
sion, the adoration of the Magi, the flight to Egypt, and His baptism
at the age of thirty.321 These first parts on the life of Christ before
His passion conclude with a pious invocation-prayer, as do nearly
all of the subsequent meditations on Christ’s fifteen grand douleurs.322
319
Henry de Baume, Méditation de la Vie et de la Mort de N.S.J.C., ed. Elizabeth
Lopez, Revue Mabillon 5 (1994), 117–141. The text of the Méditation can be found
on pages 132–141.
320
They all start with prayers that more or less run as follows: ‘And first a prayer
to humble oneself and to give thanks and praise to God, saying: ‘O very blessed
saintly Trinity, one God in the three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I thank
and praise You from the whole of my very poor and unworthy heart for all the
goods of creation and for Your dignified and loving redemption . . .’ (‘Et pre-
mierement une oraison en soy humiliant et rendent graces et louanges a Dieu en
disent: ‘O tres benoite sainte trinité ung Dieu en trois personnes Pere et Filz et
saint Esprit, je vous rens graces et louanges de tout mon tres povre et indigne cuer
de tous les biens de creation et de vostre digne et amoureuse redemption . . .’).
Henry de Baume, Méditation, ed. Elizabeth Lopez, Revue Mabillon 5 (1994), 132, no. 2.
321
Every element of the life of Christ is a point of departure for a tender med-
itation, as we can see, for instance, in the description of the circumcision, which
alludes to the young Christ’s tender crying at the occasion: ‘Et comme au .VIIIe.
jour nostre Seigneur Jhesu Crist fut circoncis en espandent son precieux sanc et la
il ploura moult tendrement’, Henry de Baume, Méditation, ed. Elizabeth Lopez, Revue
Mabillon 5 (1994), 133, no. 4.
322
Thus, the invocation prayer that concludes the life of Christ before the pas-
sion urges the Lord to provide the necessary grace for meditating on the life of
Christ in a fashion beneficial to the soul of the praying nun and her fellow creatures
(‘Sy vous pere, mon tres doulz Seigneur, que vous me donnéz grace de tellement
les panser et mediter que ce soit au salut de mon ame et de toutes creaturez creez
a vostre ymaige.’ Henry de Baume, Méditation, ed. Elizabeth Lopez, Revue Mabillon
5 (1994), 133, no. 6.). The invocation prayers in the subsequent meditations on the
502 chapter seven
In content, the fifteen douleurs faithfully follow the main episodes

of the passion, with due reference to the alleged cruelties of the felons
juifz, and with heavy emphasis on the sufferings of Mary. In Henry’s
Méditation, the whole passion is told in short and elementary, yet
totally self-contained units, each of which offers sufficient informa-
tion for meditative purposes without opening up further theological
perspectives. The nuns’ affective religious response thus remains fully
under control. With Henry’s Méditation, we have left behind Bernardino
da Siena’s sophisticated and lengthy analytical commentaries. We
have come down to a level of purely emotional spirituality that steers
free of all difficult soteriological and christological questions. Frequently,
the message is simple and explicit, and the proper emotional responses
are immediately given.
fifteen grand douleurs of Christ likewise draw the appropriate lesson for the sinful
nun, to be said aloud in prayer (The meditation on the third ‘douleur’ (on Christ’s
mercy for the robber) thus concludes with the prayer ‘Si vous Pere, mon tres doulx
Seigneur, que par le merite de ce benoit miracle que vous me vuillés visiter espi-
ciallement en ma povre conscience et ressusciter et garir ma povre ame de tous
pechés.’ Henry de Baume, Méditation, ed. Elizabeth Lopez, Revue Mabillon 5 (1994),
134, no. 8.). Between the twelfth and fifteenth douleur the narrative also uses the
words of Christ on the cross as a secondary structuring element, enabling the author
to include extra invocation prayers for each of Christ’s utterances, and to clarify
the eschatological meaning of Christ’s passion. The fifteen douleurs suffered by Christ
are all phrased in the second person plural (‘You saw, You were crucified, You
were thirsty’ etc.); acknowledging, as it were, Christ (or a crucifix) being present
before a meditating nun, who directly addresses her Saviour by acknowledging His
feats. It is a direct speech mode that the meditating nuns can reiterate verbally
when reading aloud (This is furthermore suggested by phrases as: ‘O mon tres
amoureux Sauveur et Redempteur Jhesus, le premiere de ces douleurs que vous
avéz souffert . . .’ Henry de Baume, Méditation, ed. Elizabeth Lopez, Revue Mabillon
5 (1994), 133, no. 7). The fourteenth douleur in particular shows perfectly how the
pains and the words of Christ form the background to the invocation prayers that
should direct the nun’s meditation. Speaking out to Christ, the meditating nun
implied here laments Christ’s corporal thirst, and Christ’s even greater thirst for
our salvation (‘la .XIIIIe. douleur fut car vous avoiez moult grant soif corporelle-
ment mais vostre plus grant soif estoit de nostre sauvement et de acomplir ce qui
estoit escript de vous’). This lament is immediately followed by the prayer that
‘. . . my very sweet Lord, will give me hunger and thirst for justice and the desire
that all creatures created in Your blessed image might be saved (‘. . . mon tres doulx
Seigneur, que vous me donnés fam et soif de justice et desir de sauvement de toutes
creatures crees a vostre benoite ymaige’). Directly thereafter the implied meditat-
ing nun recalls Christ’s sixth word from the cross: ‘La .VIe. parolle que vous dittes:
Consummatum est. C’est a dire que tout est ecomply; ce pourquoy vous estoies
descendus du ciel en terre’, which in turn is immediately followed by the appro-
priate invocation prayer: ‘Sy vous pere, mon tres doulx Sauveur, que vous me don-
nés grace de accomplir ce que je vous ay promis parquoy en la fin je en puisse
avoir la vie perdurable . . .’, Henry de Baume, Méditation, 139, ed. Elizabeth Lopez,
Revue Mabillon 5 (1994), no. 27.
This tendency seems to hold true for many fifteenth-century

Observant meditative texts on the passion of Christ, written for use
during the regulated moments of spiritual exercise within male and
female religious communities, such as the passion meditation treatises
of the Observant friar Johannes Brugman (d. 1471), whose legendary
preaching has been preserved in a Dutch proverb to this day.323
Brugman wrote at least two passion devotion treatises, one in Latin
and one in the Dutch vernacular. The latter of these, the Devote
Oefeninge (alias Leven van Jesus), which by now has received considerable
scholarly attention, seems directly inspired by the work of Ubertino
da Casale, and stresses the necessity for an emotional response to
Christ’s suffering.324
Less well-known, and slightly more intellectual is Brugman’s Latin
Devotus Tractatus (. . .) ad Exercitia Passionis Domini per Articulos Distinctos,
which also heavily relies on Ubertino, but which draws on a wider
selection of Franciscan and non-Franciscan traditions.325 Brugman
probably wrote the Devotus Tractatus for his fellow friars in the late
1450s, in between his activities as an itinerant preacher and as a
lector at the Franciscan convent of St. Omaars (St. Omer). The
Devotus Tractatus is definitely a practical work, meant to encourage
novices and younger friars to engage in the exercitia passionis.326 In
line with the practical instructive character of the work, Brugman
follows a ‘negative strategy’ in the first eleven articles of his Devotus
Tractatus. These articles explain what stands in the way of passion
devotion. Only after all these impediments have been identified and
understood, and after the doubts and fears of those who, for a vari-
ety of reasons, are reluctant to proceed with the exercitia passionis have
323
The Dutch proverb ‘Praten als Brugman’ (speaking like Brugman) is still used
to characterise people who talk endlessly.
324
Devote Oefeninge (alias Leven van Jesus), ed. Moll (1954), Devote Oefeninge (alias Leven
van Jesus) ed. M. Heijer, in: St. Franciscus (1933–1935); Leven van Jesus van Pater Jan
Brugman, ed. M. Goossens, Gekruiste handen (Roermond-Maaseik 1947).
325
The work develops devotional themes in line with the mainstream Franciscan
traditions as put forward in Bonaventura’s De Triplici Via, the works of David von
Augsburg, and Ubertino da Casale’s Arbor Vitae. Yet it is also clear that Brugman
is relying on insights from Bernard de Clairvaux, Hugues de St. Cher, Seuse and
on exemplary elements derived from the works of Giacomo da Varazza. Johannes
Brugman, Devotus Tractatus (. . .) ad Exercitia Passionis Domini per Articulos Distinctis, ed.
F.A.H. van den Hombergh, in: Idem, Leven en werk van Jan Brugman, 139–299.
326
As a work of religious training with an emphasis on exercitia, Brugman’s text
stands in a long tradition of Franciscan treatises for the training of novices and
young friars.
504 chapter seven
been assayed,327 is it possible to invite the friends of Christ (i.e. the

friars) to the modus per perveniendi ad compassionem.328
To cater to the envisaged spiritual needs of the Poor Clares of
Nuremberg, a community well-known for its literate religious culture,
the Observant preacher and confessor Stephanus Fridolin (c. 1430–
1498) wrote two complementary treatises on the outer and inner
sufferings of Christ and His mother, namely the Geistlicher Mai and
the Geistlicher Herbst. Both of these met with considerable success out-
327
Brugman lists eleven preliminary steps in as many articles. These provide a
moral evaluation of the state of Christianity as a whole (of course a lamentable
one), and seek to discover within Christianity the problems and impediments that
prevent those who are willing to follow the suffering Christ in the proper manner.
Although Brugman subscribes to all the stereotypes concerning the Jews as the
detractors of the Christian faith, Christianity’s most dangerous foe throughout is
the familiaris inimicus: the Christian who subscribes to the tenets of faith but whose
way of life, mental disposition, and idle curiosities prevent him from seeking the
cross, and turn him into a dangerous and even contagious example to his fellow
Christians (read: his fellow friars). This procedure also allows Brugman to enter
upon a lengthy diatribe against laxity, moral depravity and the scholarly and eccle-
siastical ambitions of religious people, thus promoting the basic tenets of the Observant
programme of moral and religious reform. Second, these preliminary articles (notably
articles three, five, six, seven and eight) reach out to friars and novices who shrink
back in the face of the enormity of the exercitia passionis, showing them that these
exercises do not constitute a task beyond the capabilities of the ordinary friar, that
these exercises can be done everywhere (in the context of each and every activity,
spiritual and mundane), and that their fruits are incontestable.
328
Articles twelve and thirteen (the latter may be a latter addition by Brugman)
discuss in greater detail the modus per perveniendi ad compassionem (taking as a theme
the verse 4, 6 from the Song of Songs: Vadam ad montem mirre) to arrive at a con-
sideration of the bitter fate of Christ. Stylistically, the mode of compassion is evoked
by the sequential use of the exhortatory and confirmational verbs ‘come and see’/‘I
will go and will see’ (veni et vide/vadam et videbo), creating a situation of observation
in which the mental eye is stimulated to dwell upon the process of the passion and
the sufferings of Christ, Mary, and Mary Magdalen. Interestingly, the Gospel nar-
rative of the passion itself is not discussed at length. Throughout the process of
exhortation and affirmation to come and behold the various episodes of the pas-
sion, the readers are supposed to be fully knowledgeable about the narrative sequence
of deeds and actions that constitute the passion of Christ from the last supper to
the burial of Christ’s body. Brugman’s Devotus Tractatus thus presupposes a passion
narrative in the mind of its readers, and predominantly teaches the modus per per-
veniendi ad compassionem by explaining the way to contemplate the well-known events
with the mental eye so that, with recourse to memory and with the help of the
imagination, the passion is re-inscribed on the soul, a process through which the
friars may conform themselves to Christ and follow His example by means of a
moral transformation. In this process, the theological significance of the passion,
Christ’s divine nature, as well as other christological and eschatological issues are
dealt with in a manner suggesting that the intended audience is already well-
acquainted with the narrative itself. In that sense, Brugman’s text seems to sup-
plement the elementary religious and theological instruction provided in Observant
convents to beginning friars.
side the walls of the cloister in the sixteenth century.329 Between 1496
and 1503, Gabriele da Perugia (d. 1513), in his turn, wrote the Libro
Devote, Dicto Libro de Vita sopra li Principali Misteri de Christo Benedicto et
de la Matre Sua for the Poor Clares of Perugia.330
329
The Geistlicher Mai deals with the exterior or outward sufferings of Christ and
His mother, the capital sins, the principal virtues, and the Eucharist. This work is
probably based on prior sermons delivered to the Nuremberg Poor Clares and can
be found in the following manuscripts: Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 4473 ff.
1r–339v (1529); Munich, Staatsbibliothek Cgm. 5951 ff. 1v–188r (second half 16th
cent.); Harburg, Fürstliche Oetingen-Wallersteinsche Bibliothek III 2 4° 3 ff. 1r–134r
(anno 1552); Harburg, Fürstliche Oetingen-Wallersteinsche Bibliothek III 2 4° 34
ff. 278r–281v & 317v–318r (fragments). The Geistlicher Mai was first printed as: Gar
ein schone nuczliche leer, Eingeschlossen Gaystlichen personen, Genandt der gayslich Mayen lieblich
zelesen (Landshut: Johann Weyssenburger, 1533). Subsequently, its was printed as
Hier hebt sich an der geistlich May darin der Mensch gelernet wirdt zu suechen die ding die der
Selen ewigen nutz und freüd bringen und ist außgetailt in vier wochen (Munich: Andree
Schobsser, 1549); Der Geistlich May. Ist Gedruckht in verlegung der durchleüchtigen Hochgeborenen
Fürstin Frawen Jacobe Hertzogin in Obern vnd Nidern Bayern (Munich: Andree Schobsser,
1550). It was also printed together with the Geistlicher Herbst as: Der Geistlich May vnd
Geistliche Hörpst. Außgelegt auff das außwendig vnd inwendig bitter Leyden vnsers aller liebsten
Herren vnd Seligmachers IESU CHRISTI (Dillingen: Johannes Mayer, 1581). Extracts
made by a female monastic reader of the work were printed as Der Seelen Lustgärtlein
(Dillingen, 1581). A first critical edition appeared in the nineteenth century: Der
Geistliche Mai und der Geistliche Herbst. Ausgelegt auf das auswendige und inwendige bittere
Leiden underes allerliebsten Herrn und Seligmachers Jesu Christi, ed. Franz Hattler (Freiburg
i. Breisgau, 1887). The Geistlicher Herbst, which focuses on the interior or inner pas-
sions of Christ, has a comparable origin in sermons held before the Nuremberg
Poor Clares. It has survived in the manuscripts Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek
Cod. III, 2, 8°, 10 ff. 3v–60v (1514: This manuscript also contains on ff. 67–77 a
sermon on the passion of Christ by the confessor Johann Freytag); Munich,
Staatsbibliothek Cgm 8499 ff. 3r–58v; Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek Cod. 8°
Aa 152 ff. 75v–110r. It was first printed as: Das puchlein wird genendt der edel Weinreb
Jesu (s.l. & s.d., begin 16th cent.) Cf. Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum no. *16155.
Thereafter it was two times printed as Der Geistlich Herpst. Auszgelegt auff das inwendig
leiden vnsers allerliebsten Herren Jesu Christi (Dillingen: Sebald Mayer, 1575). It was also
printed together with the Geistlicher Mai: Der Geistlich May Vvnd Geistliche Hörpst. Außgelegt
auff das außwendig vnd inwendig bitter Leyden vnsers aller liebsten Herren vnd Seligmachers IESU
CHRISTI (Dillingen: Johannes Mayer, 1581). For critical editions, see: ‘Das bittere
leiden unseres Herrn und Heilandes Jesu Christi. Betrachtungen nach dem Barfüßer-
mönch P. Stephan Fridolin von Windenheim (gestorben 1498)’, in: Gaben des katholis-
chen Pressvereins in der Diözese Seckau (1887), 3–117; Der Geistliche Mai und der Geistliche
Herbst. Ausgelegt auf das auswendige und inwendige bittere Leiden underes allerliebsten Herrn
und Seligmachers Jesu Christi, ed. Franz Hattler (Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1887). The pas-
sion devotion sermon of Johannes Freytag in MS Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek
Cod. III, 2, 8°, 10 ff. 67–77 (‘Her nach volgen vii lycht, die da außweyßen oder
außpreyten den glancz der verstendnuß, das wyr den hern am creucz mugen erken-
nen, gepredygt von dem wyrdigen vater Johannes Freytag zu der selben zeit peycht
vater im xvcxiiii jar.’), probably preached in 1514 at the convent of the Bamberg
Poor Clares, has been edited in Franziskanisches Schrifttum im deutschen Mittelalter. Band
II: Texte, 91–99. Cf. AF VIII, 776,22.
330
MS Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale 1074 & 993.
506 chapter seven
This Libro de Vita, written at the request of ‘molti devoti et maxime

religiose’ in Perugia, is predominantly based on the Meditationes Vitae
Christi by Giovanni de’Cauli (da Calvoli) and on an Umbrian trans-
lation of the Arbor Vitae by Ubertino da Casale. It explains, in an
Umbrian dialect, the most important evocative elements of the pas-
sion of Christ and the sufferings of Mary. Many dialogues and ‘inter-
nal monologues’ enhance the evocative and emotional character of
the story. The work played an important role in the spiritual life of
the Perugia Poor Clares, helping them to develop in their hearts an
ardent and ‘liquefying’ love of the heart (‘liquefa el core’) for Mary
and the suffering Christ.331
From the mid-fifteenth century onwards we see the appearance of
Observant passion devotion treatises with a more differentiated implied
readership. Several of these texts were written for lay people right
from the outset: for individual aristocratic and royal protégés of
331
The internal structure of the work is already indicated in the prologue (MS
Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale 1074 f. 3r): ‘(. . .) perchè la presente opera tucta tracta
de Iesù, però io l’ò distinta et divisa in tre parte overo libri, et questo secondo li
tre stati del benedecto Iesù. Et nel primo libro se tracterà de tucte quelle cose et
misterii che forono innante a la sua benedecta passione. Nel secondo se dirà de
essa passione et morte molto ampliamente. Nel tertio poi et ultimo se dirà de la
sua gloriosa resurrectione, con le apparictione per fino a lo advenimento de lo
Spiritu Sancto, come pone meser sancto Bonaventura nelle soie meditatione. Da
poi ponerimo uno nobile tractato de la Messa et le soi significatione . . .’ Gabriele
did not spread his meditative exercises over the canonical hours of the day. Instead,
he emphasised the precept that meditation on the passion should take place always
and everywhere. He does, however, give instructions on the way in which devote
prayers should be performed (on one’s knees, with the eyes directed heavenwards
and one’s hands folded). This was the way in which Christ would have prayed to
the Father. Hence, it was good to follow this example of humility. Cf. MS Perugia,
Biblioteca Comunale 1074, f. 221v. Gabriele also makes it clear that meditation on
the life of Christ is not enough for a good Christian life: good thoughts have to
be followed or accompanied by good works and the expression of good will in all
our deeds and thoughts (MS Perugia, Bibioteca Comunale 1074, f. 290v). Special
emphasis is laid on the need for acknowledging one’s sinfulness, the frequent con-
fession of sins, and proper contrition and satisfaction (Ibidem, f. 106v). In this
process, the preparation for communion gets a detailed analysis, which starts with
a symbolic interpretation of the Jewish Passover meal and identifies the various ele-
ments of this meal with the Christian virtues that lead us to the lamb of the Lord
(Ibidem, f. 283v). Most fundamental is alway the virtue of love. In the Perugian
manuscripts, the Libro di Vita is interspersed with several poems of a lauda charac-
ter. Some of these poems are derived from an Umbrian version of Ubertino da
Casale’s Arbor Vitae. Others may have been the product of Gabriele’s own pen. It
is quite possible that he inserted (parts of ) compositions already used by Perugian
nuns and tertiaries in their devotional gatherings. See: Giuliana Perini, ‘Un ‘Libro
di Vita’ di Gabriele da Perugia composto tra il 1496–1503’, CF 41 (1971), 60–86.
Franciscan confessors, or members of the urban laity, whose initiation

into the tenets of the Christian faith by means of homiletic efforts
was to be complemented with additional materials of religious instruc-
tion. On top of Franciscan vernacular reworkings of existing classics,
such as Giovanni de’Cauli’s Meditationes Vitae Christi, the Stimulus
Amoris,332 and Ludolph von Sachsen’s Vita Christi,333 a whole series of
new passion devotion treatises saw the light that aimed for the
sanctification of everyday life by means of daily and/or weekly exer-
cises. Good examples are the Livre de dévotions by the French Observant
friar Bonaventure (c. 1440),334 and Cristoforo Picinelli da Varese’s
Rosarium de Vita et Morte Christi.335
It would seem that such passion devotion exercises became par-
ticularly popular in the Low Countries and in the Iberian peninsula.
From the Low Countries, for instance, stem the passion devotion
exercises of Dietrich Colde (d. 1515), a former Augustinian who had
joined the Franciscan Observants shortly after 1483. He published
332
In 1535, the Observant friar Matthias Weynsen from Dordrecht published in
Antwerp De verweckinghe der godlijcker liefden, a Dutch translation of Giacomo di Milano’s
Stimulus Amoris. It is not known whether Matthias himself was the translator, or
whether he merely facilitated the publication.
333
Andreas (fl. late fifteenth century), an Observant Portuguese friar about whom
almost nothing is known, revised a Portuguese translation of Ludolph von Sachsen’s
Liber de Vita Christi. See: M. Martins, ‘A versão portuguesa da Vita Christi e os seus
problemas’, Estudos de Literatura medieval (Braga, 1956), 105–110. Ambrosio de Montesino
(d. 1513) finished in 1499 in Cifuentes his own Castilian translation of the first part
of Ludolph von Sachsen’s Vita Christi. See: Vita Christi cartuxano romanzado, 4 Vols
(Alcala de Henares, 1502–1503/Sevilla, 1530–1531/Sevilla, 1537–1543/Sevilla,
1543–1555). It was a co-production with cardinal Cisneros and was sponsored by
queen Isabella de Castile.
334
This Livre de Dévotions consists of 38 small works or ‘dévotes oroisons.’ The
work can be found in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Français 190 ff. 103–180
(xv s.); MS Chantilly, Musée Condé 1474 (xve s). These prayer exercises seem to
e
be heavily inspired by the pseudo-Bonaventurian Meditationes Vitae Christi, and focus

on the passion, the Virgin, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Some ‘oroisons’ in
the Livre de Dévotions (such as the Bon et salutaire advertissement pour à toute heure dire à
Nostre Seigneur, MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Français 190 f. 139, and the La
manière de vivre dévotement chascun jour de la septmaine, MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale
Français 190 f. 176) also contain some references to the devotional letters and the
Opera Tripartita by Jean Gerson. Cf. Paulin Paris, Les manuscrits français de la Bibliothèque
du Roi (Paris, 1838) II, 115–121; H. d’Orléans, Chantilly. Le cabinet des livres. Manuscrits
(Paris, 1900) I, 131–132 (no. 141); E. Vansteenberghe, Revue des sciences religieuses 15
(1935), 548–549; É. Longpré, ‘Bonaventure’, DSpir I, 1856–1857.
335
Cristoforo’s Rosarium de Vita et Morte Christi was published as an appendix to
the Interrogatorio ossia Regola della Vita Christiana (Milan, 1493). Cf. Hain, Repertorium
Bibliographicum, no. 9259.
508 chapter seven
two works of passion devotion in the Dutch vernacular: Een corte

oefeninghe vander Passien and Die doernen Crone onses heren Ihesu Cristi. The
first of these texts is a rather short set of prayers to Christ and Mary,
based on an existing Latin Anima Christi prayer.336 The better known
Die doernen Crone consists of a series of 17 to 22 meditations (depend-
ing on the edition) on Christ’s suffering. Each of these meditations,
which Dietrich might well have compiled from existing sources, start
or finish with a standardised Ave Christe formula (‘Wees gegruet goed-
ertieren ihesu criste, du biste vol ghenaden . . .’). The meditations
were meant to be performed on Sundays, in front of a carved or
painted crucifix (‘kniend oder stehend oder liegend vor dem Bilde
unseres Herrn . . .’).337
Besides Dietrich Colde’s works of passion devotion, a number of
other Dutch and Flemish Observant passion devotion treatises came
into being. The authorship of some of these is quite certain, such
as the Latin passion devotion texts of Frans van Zichem (d. c. 1559).338
Other productions have remained anonymous, notably the Flemish
Pectorale Dominicae Passionis (before 1497),339 the early sixteenth-century
‘Wreath of Love’ (Cransken van Minnen),340 the contemporary ‘Walk of
336
It would seem that Dietrich was not the first to rework the Latin Anima Christi
text into Dutch. In its turn, Dietrich’s effort was followed by others. Hence, we
can point to another ‘Franciscan’ Dutch translation of the Latin Anima Christi text,
which appeared in the 1518 edition of the Cransken van Minnen (see below). A German
translation of Dietrich Colde’s text appeared in Groeteken, Dietrich Kolde von Münster,
129–130. The text was also edited by J. Goyens, in: Idem, Un héros du Vieux-Bruxelles,
150–152.
337
The work was included as chapter 52 in the Deventer edition (1492–1500)
of the Kerstenspieghel, Colde’s most famous work. Die doernen Crone was edited sepa-
rately as well. See for instance: Die corte doernen crone (Gouda, 1496); Dye corten door-
nen Crone (Amsterdam: Doen Pietersz., 1518–1532). For a more complete survey of
the existing editions, see B. De Troeyer, ‘Dietrich von Münster (um 1435–1515)’,
FrSt 65 (1983), 156–204, 191–192. A modern edition appeared in Der Christenspiegel
des Dietrich Kolde von Münster, ed. Clemens Drees, Franziskanische Forschungen, 9
(Werl, 1954), 337–345. For a German translation, see also Groeteken, Dietrich Kolde
von Münster, 113–118.
338
Septem verborum, que Christus ex cruce protulit, brevis et pia explicatio pro concione habita
(Antwerp, 1556). The work is dedicated to Bernardo de Fresneda (confessor of the
Spanish King Philip II).
339
De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliografia Franciscana Neerlandica ante Saec. XVI I, 139–140.
340
This work’s full title is Een cransken van minnen is dit boecxken genoemt ende sijn al
ghebedekens van die passie ons heren vergadert van eenen devoten broeder vander observancien, wiens
naem geschreven moet staen in dat boeck des levens (Delft: Henricz Lettersnijder voor Michiel
Hillen van Hoochstraten te Antwerpen, 1518). This booklet is a compilation of many
late medieval sources, reconfigured and translated into the Dutch vernacular. As
flowers’ (Die wandelinghe der bloemen), produced by a Dutch-speaking

Observant friar from the Cologne province and probably written for
female penitents in Amsterdam,341 and the Fasciculus Mirre, which also
has come down to us under the Dutch title Dat Cleyne Bondeken van
Mirre. The last-mentioned work (ca. 1520), which should not be con-
fused with a Spanish Fasciculus Myrrhe from a slightly later date (see
below) and which was first published under the aegis of the Franciscan
friar Matthias Weynsen, was edited at least 24 times between 1517
and 1565. Thus it became one of the most important Dutch pas-
sion devotion treatises in the sixteenth century. In 1677 it received
a new lease of life (resulting in four additional editions until 1705),
the introduction makes clear, it covers more than just the passion: ‘Dit is een
boecxken van minnen ende is een rosecransken om dancberheit te tonen onsen
heer iesum christum ende is roerende van dat beginsel sijns geboorte met sijn hei-
lighe leven ende sijn bitter passie met die verrisenis ende opvaert. Met die seven
ween ende seven blijscappen van Maria, elck vervolghende in sijn plaets. Welck
boecxken heeft vergadert een broeder vander observancie uut veel devote boecken,
en heeftse gedeelt in lv gebeden.’ Hence, it amounts to a series of 55 prayers or
devotional considerations about the life of Christ and the Virgin. For more infor-
mation, see: Schmitz, Het aandeel der minderbroeders in onze Middeleeuwse Literatuur, 131;
De Troeyer, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 41.
341
It contains exercises of passion devotion for all days in the week, for the seven
daily offices (getijden), with additional prayers and exercises to strengthen the virtues
(in this, the work freely follows Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s Epistola Continens Viginti
Quinque Memoralia). The full title of this ‘Walk’ is Een wandelinghe der Kersten menschen
met Ihesu den brudegom der sielen inden hof der bloemen. It is also known as Indica mihi
(after the first words of the text). For a manuscript copy, see the Archive of the
Friars Minor at St. Truiden, MS MF 45. At the end of the manuscript we find a
description of its immediate intended readership: ‘Voleijndt dese teghenwoerdighe
oefeninghe doer die begheerten der devoter biechtkinderen. Op dat si hen altijt
souden moghen becommeren mitten brudegom der sielen Opten xvi dach van feb-
ruario Int iaer ons heren xvc in die goede stadt van amstelredamme Bi mi die
naem bekent moet wesen onder die observanten inden hemel alsoe hi nu bekent
is inder aerden Jhesus Maria Barbara Disce mori B/V.’ It was printed several times:
Een wandelinghe der Kersten menschen met Ihesu den brudegom der sielen inden hof der bloemen
(Leyden: Jan Severz, 10 November 1503); Een wandelinghe der Kersten menschen met
Ihesu den brudegom der sielen inden hof der bloemen (Amsterdam: Hugo Jansz. van Woerden,
1506 (2x)); Een wandelinghe der Kersten menschen met Ihesu den brudegom der sielen inden hof
der bloemen (The Hague: Hugo Jansz. van Woerden, 1518); Een wandelinghe der Kersten
menschen met Ihesu den brudegom der sielen inden hof der bloemen (Antwerpen: Simon Cock,
1530). A modern edition (based on the St. Truiden manuscript) appeared as: Indica
mihi (. . .), handschrift der XVe eeuw, in het licht gegeven door P. Fr. Stephanus
Schoutens, Minderbroeder (Hoogstraten, 1906). Parts of the work also appeared
separately, a.o. as Die bloemkijns der passien. See: M. Verjans, ‘Het handschrift “Indica
mihi” (1503) en de drukjes “Wandelinge der kersten menschen” (1503) of “Wandelinge
der bloemen” (1518)’, OGE 8 (1934), 202–206; W. van Eeghen, ‘Wandelinghe der
Kersten Menschen (1503)’, De Brusselse Post 9 (1959), no. 2–3; De Troeyer, Bio-
Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI I, 5–6.
510 chapter seven
when the Franciscan friar Franciscus Cauwe came out with a fully
updated and stylistically revised version.
The Fasciculus Mirre or Dat Cleyne Bondeken van Mirre was inspired
by Ludolph von Sachsen’s Vita Christi and in three books provides
1.) an evocative description of the bodily and moral sufferings of
Christ; 2.) a method for engaging in passion devotion exercises; and
3.) ten chapters of seven or more articles, each with a large number
of actual exercises for all the passion events between the last supper
and Christ’s ascent to heaven. The exercises of the third book are
spread out over the week and are organised in such a way that,
depending on the time available, they may be performed in four
(more concise or more extended) different ways. It is one of the few
early sixteenth-century passion devotion treatises offering a systematic
set of daily exercises for the laity.342
From the Spanish provinces stem the passion devotion exercises
of Iñigo de Mendoza (c. 1424–1502), the Passio Duorum ascribed to
Luis Escobar, Francisco Tenorio, and Francisco Sanchez del Campo,
the anonymous Fasciculus Myrrhe,343 the Memorial de la Vida de Nuestro
Redemptor, attributed (probably unjustly) to the Spanish friar Alonso
de Madrid (d. c. 1535), the Tratado del Adorno del Alma by Francisco
Ortiz Yáñez (1497–1547), several works by Francisco de Osuna and
Bernardino de Laredo, and the large but idiosyncratic El Monte
Calvario by Antonio de Guevara. Many of these works clearly stand
in the (pseudo-) Bonaventurian tradition.
The Franciscan poet Iñigo de Mendoza, active in the closing
decades of the fifteenth century, produced several works on the pas-
sion of Christ. His Tratado breve y muy provechoso de las ceremonias de la
Misa cun sus contemplaciones is both an explication of the elements of
the Mass and a set of thirteen meditative exercises to guide lay peo-
ple in their meditation of Christ’s passion. Mendoza’s poetry, which
I have touched upon in Chapter IV, frequently dealt with the same
342
See: Fasciculus Mirre/Dat Cleyne Bondeken van Mirre (Delft: Hugo Jansz., 1517).
For the other 27 editions until 1705, see B. De Troeyer, ‘Het Fasciculus Myrrhe’,
Franciscana 14 (1959), 1–18; Idem, Bio-Bibliographia Franciscana Neerlandica Saeculi XVI
I, 31–35.
343
Fasciculus myrrhe. El cual trata de la Pasión de nuestro redentor Jesucristo. Nuevamente
impreso y corregido (Sevilla: Juan Varela de Salamanca, 1524/Sevilla: Dominico de
Robertis, 1536/Amberes: Martín Nucio, 1553). A reprint can be found in Justas
poéticas sevillanas del siglo xvi (1531–1542), Floresta: poéticas españolas, VI (Oxford-
Valencia, 1955). Cf. Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 433.
subject matter. Among his many Coplas, collected in various fifteenth-

and sixteenth-century Cancioneros (collections of popular religious poetry
for the laity), we come across the Vita Christi fecho por coplas, for
instance, which also circulated independently from the 1480s onwards.344
Spanish libraries house a variety of passion devotion treatises that
all bear the title Passio Duorum (in full: Tratado de devotíssimas y muy
lastimosas contemplaciones de la pasión del Hijo de Dios e compasión de la
Virgen sancta Maria su madre, por esta razón llamado Passio duorum). One
of these possibly was a combined effort of the Castilian friars Francisco
Tenorio and Luis Escobar. Their version is a devotional work of 88
chapters along the lines of the (pseudo-)Bonaventurian passion devo-
tion tradition. This particular Passio Duorum quickly became very pop-
ular and had a considerable impact on early modern Spanish
mysticism.345 As a popular religious work, it drew the attention of
the Spanish inquisition (especially the passages that affirmed that the
Virgin had fainted under the cross), which necessitated some ‘cor-
rections’ in later editions.
The success of this Franciscan Passio Duorum was matched by a
few other Spanish Franciscan passion devotion treatises, such as the
Spanish Fasciculus Myrrhe, which, like its Dutch namesake, seems to
be of Franciscan provenance but can not be attributed with cer-
tainty to any particular friar,346 and the Memorial de la Vida de Jesucristo
344
Tratado breve y muy provechoso de las ceremonias de la Misa cun sus contemplaciones
(Sevilla: Tres Compañeros Alemanes, 1499/Alcalá de Henares, 1519/Alcalá de
Henares, 1541). Iñigo’s religious poetry, including the Vita Christi was collected in
his Cancionero. This Cancionero saw two modern editions in the twentieth century:
Iñigo de Mendoza, Cancionero castellano del siglo XV, ed. R. Foulché-Delbosc, NBAE,
19 (Madrid, 1912); Iñigo de Mendoza, y sus Coplas de Vita Christi, ed. J. Rodriguez-
Puertolas (Madrid, 1968). Independently, the Vita Christi came out for the first time
in 1482. See for instance: Vita Christi fecho por coplas (Zamora: Antonio de Centenera,
1482).
345
Passio Duorum/Tratado de devotíssimas y muy lastimosas contemplaciones de la pasión
del Hijo de Dios e compasión de la Virgen sancta Maria su madre, por esta razón llamado
Passio duorum (Valladolid, 1526/Sevilla, 1534/Valencia, 1538/Sevilla, 1539/Medina
del Campo, 1543/Sevilla, 1550/Toledo, 1567/Alcalà de Henares, 1568/Alcalà de
Henares, 1579/Medina del Campo, 1582/Perpignan, 1586/Medina del Campo,
1587/Alcalà de Henares, 1595/ Alcalà de Henares, 1597/Barcelona, 1611/Madrid,
1623). The work also received translations into Tagalo (1649), Portuguese (1745),
and Italian (c. 1730). Another Passio Duorum is ascribed to Francisco Sanchez del
Campo. Cf. Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 571–572; Juan
Meseguer Fernández, ‘Passio duorum’. ‘Autores ediciones, la obra’, AIA 29 (1969),
217–268.
346
Fasciculus Myrrhe. El cual trata de la Pasión de nuestro redentor Jesucristo. Nuevamente
impreso y corregido (Sevilla: Juan Varela de Salamanca, 1524/Sevilla: Dominico de
512 chapter seven
(also known as Siete meditaciones de la semana santa). The latter Memorial

used to be ascribed to Alonso de Madrid (d. c. 1535) and can be
found in several old editions of Alonso’s famous Arte para servir a Dios.
Written at the request of an unknown woman of noble descent, the
Memorial offers spiritual food for the soul, namely materials for con-
templation and spiritual action for each day of the week.347 Most of
these materials are drawn from the Gospel, the apocryphal books
and the usual medieval ‘biographical’ sources on the life of Christ.
They are collected in a set of meditations that chronologically fol-
low the main events of Christ’s life and passion, and in between
devote ample space to the mysteries and the sufferings of the Virgin.
Like several of his Observant contemporaries, Francisco Ortiz
Yáñez enveloped his passion devotion materials in a larger meditative
framework. His De Ornatu Animae/Tratado del Adorno del Alma, which
was published after the author’s death in 1547, and almost imme-
diately came under scrutiny by the Spanish inquisition, can also be
interpreted as a passion devotion treatise in the (pseudo-)Bonaventurian
tradition.348 Yet the Tratado does not stop at instilling the right emo-
tional response to Christ’s suffering. It aims for a total reconstruction
of the self. To that effect it relates in nineteen chapters how Christ
(His exemplary life and His teachings) is the perfect model for our
soul, to be emulated as completely as possible.
Comparable aims inspired the literary endeavours of Francisco de
Osuna and Bernardino de Laredo. Francisco’s Abecedario Espiritual,
which we will encounter again in the next paragraph, hoped to bring
about this transformation of the religious self through a long itiner-
ary of mental prayer and meditation. The starting point for this
Robertis, 1536/Amberes: Martín Nucio, 1553. A reprint can be found in Justas

poéticas sevillanas del siglo xvi (1531–1542), Floresta: poéticas españolas VI (Oxford-
Valencia, 1955). Cf. Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 433.
347
In the prologue, the author states: ‘Y de esta causa, muy noble Señora, por
despertar almas, encender en vuestra ánima la devoción por ella misma deseada,
determiné de recoger brevemente, como en un memorial, la santísima vida de nue-
stro muy dulce Redemptor (. . .) En siete meditaciones o contemplaciones repar-
tidas por siete días de la semana. Por que así como el gusto del cuerpo se deleita
y es recreado con diversidad de manjares y aún es evitado el hastio, así vuestra
devota ánima reciba recreación y deleite en tener cada día algun misterio singular
en que pensar.’ Cited from Jean Christiaens, ‘Alonso de Madrid. Contribution à
sa biographie et à l’histoire de ses écrits’, Lettres Romanes 9 (1955), 251–268, 439–462
(441–442).
348
De Ornatu Animae/Tratado del Adorno del Alma (Alcalá, 1548/Alcalá, 1549/Madrid,
1547/Saragossa, 1552).
transformation of the self was the mental incorporation of the mes-

sage of Christ’s passion. Hence, the first part of Osuna’s Abecedario
cycle almost exclusively dealt with the passion, as is also indicated
in the work’s initial title.349
In the spiritual works of the Franciscan physician and spiritual
author Bernardino de Laredo (1482–1540) this transformatory goal
is most clearly expressed in the Subida del Monte Sion, the 1538 edition
of which had a lasting impact on Spanish spirituality.350 It consists
of three books, each elaborating a different aspect of Christ’s exhor-
tation ‘Qui vult venire post me, abneget semetipsum, tollat crucem
suam et sequatur me.’ (cf. Matthew 16, 24). Each book covers a
meditative period of three weeks. The meditations of the first book
centre on self-knowledge. Book two concentrates on all the possible
repercussions of Christ’s humanity (with particular concentration on
the mysteries of the nativity, the passion, and Christ’s glorification
in Heaven). Finally, book three deals with the perfect kind of contem-
plation that leads to a unification with God. On the whole, the Subida
subscribes to the Dionysian and Bonaventurian approach to mystical
ascent (cf. De Triplica Via) with its purgative, illuminative, and unifying
ways, and its elaboration of unifying mysticism comes close to the
programme as put forward by Francisco de Osuna.351 Yet book two
may be said to be a self-contained, complete passion devotion treatise,
with which the reader could prepare himself for further stages of
mystical ascent.
349
Primera parte del libro Abecedario espiritual que trata de las circunstancias de la Sagrada
Pasión de Hijo de Dios (Sevilla, 1527/28/Burgos, 1537/Medina, 1544/Saragossa,
1546/Sevilla, 1554/Venice, 1583 (Italian translation)).
350
Subida del Monte Sión (two main redactions: Sevilla, 1535 [first edition]; Sevilla,
1538 [second edition]/Medina del Campo, 1542/Valencia: F. Mey, 1590/Alcalá
de Henares, 1617). A modern re-issue of the second edition can be found in: Misticos
Franciscanos Tomo II, Biblioteca Autores Cristianos, 44 (Madrid, 1948), 15–443, and
in: Bernabé de Palma, Via Spiritus—Bernardino de Laredo, Subida del Monte Sión, ed. Teodoro
H. Martín, Clasicos de Espiritualidad (Madrid, 1998). The second edition of the
Subida presents a mysticism of love (downplaying the intellectual faculties) in stronger
terms than the first version, and shows more terminological innovation, with the
help of concepts taken from the pseudo-Dionysian tradition, from Hugh of Balma,
Hendrik Herp, and Francisco de Osuna.
351
Some scholars (notably Fidel de Ros, Un maître de Sainte Thérèse. Le père François
de Osuna. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa doctrine spirituelle (Paris, 1936)) perceive in this kind of
mysticism a typical Spanish Franciscan school of mystical thought (with Bernardino
Laredo, Francisco de Osuna, Pedro de Alcantara, and Francisco Ortiz as its main
protagonists).
514 chapter seven
A special case is El Monte Calvario, written by the humanist, but

anti-Erasmian Franciscan theologian Antonio de Guevara (1480–1545).
A first version of the work probably saw the light as early as 1529,
yet the two-volume issue of 1542 is the first surviving complete edi-
tion.352 The first volume of El Monte Calvario is a learned exposition
of Christ’s passion in 58 chapters. Compared with other Franciscan
passion treatises of that period it is a rather intellectual narrative,
based on predominantly patristic sources. It keeps its distance from
the (pseudo-)Bonaventurian tradition. The complementary second
volume, which also can be found independently as Las Siete Palabras,
offers a lengthy and learned commentary of all the words spoken
by Christ during his existence on earth, as recorded in the Gospel,
culminating with the words spoken on the cross. For this commen-
tary, Antonio again predominantly relied on patristic sources, com-
plementing these with borrowings from the first and third Abécedario
by Francisco de Osuna.
By the time the two-volume edition of El Monte Calvario came out,
the rapidly growing Capuchin order had already developed an impor-
tant spiritual profile. Soon, the majority of Franciscan passion devo-
tion treatises would be of Capuchin provenance. The first signs of
this emerging Capuchin productivity are works of passion devotion
written by Ludovico Filicaia,353 António de Portalegre,354 Bernardino
da Balvano,355 and Bernardino Ducaina da Montolmo,356 the first
editions of which began to appear just before the Council of Trent.
352
El Monte Calvario, 2 Vols (Salamanca, 1542).
353
See for instance Ludovico’s La Vita del nostro salvatore Jesu Christo, overo sacra sto-
ria evangelica tradotta non solo di latino in volgare, ma etiam in verso per dare materia al let-
tore di più suavemente côrre el frutto necessario alla vita di ciascuno fedel christiano dallo evangelico
arbore, per me inutile servo di Christo frate Lodovico da Filicaia da Firenze, frate capuccino
(Venice: Nicolò de Buscarini, 1548).
354
Meditação da inoctissima morte e payxão de nosso señor em estile metrificado (Coimbra,
1547). Cf. Lopes, ‘Franciscanos portugueses predentinos. Escritores, mestres e leitores’,
504–505.
355
He is supposed to have written the two-volume Meditationes de Vita Christi et
Eius Matris Virginis Mariae, about which I have as yet not found more information,
as well as the Il mistero della flagellazione di N.S. Gesù Cristo ridotto in forma di meditazione
per tutti i giorni della settimana (Venice, 1537, 1559 & 1589) and the De Novem Effusionibus
Sanguinis D.N.J.C. (Venice, 1559/Paris, 1601). See: DBI XV, 198–200; F. Wagemans,
‘Bernardin de Balbano’, DSpir I, 1515; Lexicon Capuccinum (Rome, 1951), col. 201;
Ottaviano Schmucki, ‘Lo “Specchio di oratione” del P. Bernardino da Balvano,
OFMCap.’, IF 65 (1990), 5–32.
356
Bernardino produced a concise Meditazione della Passione of 50 little ‘contem-
plazioni’, exhorting the reader to combine each of these with a short but intensive
D. Encompassing handbooks of religious education
The urge to offer the laity adequate religious instruction for all occa-
sions, and the concern to equip lay believers with a sufficient amount
of doctrinal knowledge, if only to avoid the dangers of heresy, could
lead to veritable encyclopaedic edificatory manuals. One of the first
of such texts is El Crestiá, written by the Catalan theologian Francesc
Eiximenis (ca. 1330–1409) during his sojourns at the convents of
Barcelona and Valencia. Originally, El Crestiá was envisaged as a
thirteen-volume work that was supposed to deal with all fundamental
aspects of Christianity, and would teach and exhort every faithful
Christian how to take care of his or her soul, follow the roads leading
to God, and steer clear of the dangers of life. Eiximenis is said to
have embarked on this massive project at the request of King Pedro
III, the magistrates of Barcelona, and leading members of the urban
patriciate, all of whom desired to know the road to Paradise. Eventually,
‘only’ five of the thirteen envisaged volumes did appear, namely the
Primer del Crestiá, the Segon del Crestiá, the Regiment de la cosa pública,
the Terç del Crestiá, and the Dotzén del Crestiá.357
affective prayer. These Meditazione della Passione del nostro Signor Iesu Cristo have been
edited in: I fratri cappuccini III, 532–540. For more information, see C. Cargnoni,
‘Bernardino da Montolmo’, DBI IX (Rome, 1966), 208–9; Cargnoni, ‘Fonti, ten-
denze e sviluppi (. . .)’, 325f. Cargnoni suggests that the spirituality of these Meditazione
is related to that found in the Corona del Nome di Iesú by Molfetta, and in the pas-
sion devotion treatises of Bernardino da Balvano, Paolo Manassei and Mattia
Bellintani da Salò.
357
The bibliography on Eiximenis and his multi-volume Llibre del Crestiá is dense.
Most helpful are Andrés Ivars, ‘El escritor Fr. Francisco Eximénez en Valencia
(1383–1408)’, AIA 14 (1920), 75–104, AIA 15 (1921), 289–331, AIA 19 (1923),
359–398, AIA 20 (1923), 210–248, AIA 24 (1925), 325–382, AIA 25 (1926), 5–48,
289–333; Nolasque d’El Molar, ‘Eximenis (Eiximenis, Ximénez; François)’, DSpir
IV, 1950–1955; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles en la edad media’,
261–269; Jaume Massó i Torrents, ‘Les obres de fra Francesch Eiximeniç (1340?–
1409?). Essaig d’una bibliografia’, Anuari de l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans 3 (1909–1910),
588–692. This is reprinted in: Studia bibliographica, Estudis sobre Francesc Eiximenis, I.
ed. Emili Grahit et al., (Gerona, 1991), and should be used together with the follow-
ing works of David J. Viera: Bibiografia anotata de la vida i obra de Eiximenis (Barcelona,
1980); Idem, ‘Manuscritos eiximenianos no catalogados por J. Massó Torrents’, EsFr
80 (1979), 157–165; Idem, ‘Más sobre manoscrutos, incunables y ediciones rares de
la obra de Francesc Eiximenis’, AIA 47 (1987), 57–62. As these studies show, the
works of Eiximenis survive in many manuscripts. Some editions of individual volumes
of the Llibre del Crestiá are mentioned in the following notes. Some passages from
individual books of El Crestiá can also be found in: Lo crestià (Selecció), ed. A. Hauf,
Les millors obres de la literatura Catalana, 98 (Barcelona, 1983).
516 chapter seven
The first of these, the Primer del Crestiá, was written between 1378
and 1381. In no less than 381 chapters it unfolds a lengthy exposi-
tion on the origin, the nature and the dignity of Christian faith. The
work emphasises that God had created mankind as His beloved
offspring and takes man into Himself by love, not unlike the spiritual
unity brought about between humans who love each other properly.
Central in this approach between man and his creator is the redeeming
sacrifice of Christ, to which the faithful have continual access through
the Eucharist.358 Having thus dealt with the dignity of faith in the
Primer del Crestiá, the Segon del Crestiá, written between 1382 and 1383,
in 239 chapters analyses all temptations encountered by Christians
in the course of their life. This allowed for a proper treatment of
sins and their counteracting virtues.359
The third volume in the series, the Regiment de la cosa pública from
1383, moves into a slightly different direction. The Regiment tells us
that, through baptism, mankind shares one faith and one hope. This
implies that all people should try to be unified in their search for a
true Christian life. To that end, people should love their community
and contribute to the foundations of a truly beneficial terrestrial city
of Christian convivium. These fundaments are concord, observance of
the law, justice, fidelity and prudence in political matters. An earthly
community based on such foundations will be stable and durable,
since it reflects the holy city of Paradise. Not surprisingly, Eiximenis
made extensive use of John of Wales’ Communiloquium and Breviloquium
de Virtutibus.360
More popular than any of these prior volumes was Eiximenis’ Terç
del Crestiá, which, like the Regiment, was written in Valencia in 1383
and which has survived in many manuscripts. This volume of the
358
Primer del Crestiá (Valencia: Lamberto Palmart, 1483). See also Francesc Eiximenis:
Lo Crestià (selecciò), ed. Albert Hauf (Barcelona, 1983).
359
This volume was never printed but circulated in a considerable number of
manuscripts. See for instance MSS Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 1791; Barcelona,
Biblioteca Central 2215; Valencia, Biblioteca Metropolitana 291.
360
Regiment de la cosa pública (Valencia, 1499); Regiment de la cosa pública, ed. Daniel
de Molins (Barcelona, 1927/reprint 1980); Regiment de la cosa pública, ed. M. Sanchis
Guarner (Valencia, 1972). See also Angel López-Amo, ‘El pensamiento político de
Francesc Eiximenis en su tratado de Regiment de princeps’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho
Español 17 (1946), 5–139; M.J. Péláez, Estudios de historia del pensiamento político y jurídico
cataláne italiano (Barcelona, 1993), 37–80, 81–107, 109–129; Marc B. Escolà, ‘Sobre
la teoria del poder en el tractat de Francesc Eiximenis: Regiment de la cosa pública’,
Finestrelles 6 (1994), 189–204. Eiximenis eventually included the Regiment de la cosa
pública in the Dotzén del Crestiá (chapters 357–395).
Llibre del Crestiá contains no less than 1060 chapters. It partly reca-
pitulates the second volume, in that it displays the sins that mar
Christian life on earth, as well as the additional challenges faced by
each of us. Eiximenis goes to great lengths to point out that all these
hurdles and challenges should strengthen our desire to reach Paradise.361
The final surviving volume of the series is the Dotzén del Crestiá,
which Eiximenis probably finished by 1385. In five parts and 907
chapters it describes the ways in which God takes man unto Himself
in the social life. With recourse to Augustine and the Victorines,
Eiximenis tells us how God shows Himself in the wonders of creation,
and has created in man’s heart an image of the divine city itself.
As a composite of body and soul, man is a well-ordered city reflecting
the glories of Heaven in a microcosmos-macrocosmos relationship.
But original sin has disrupted this order and instead has given human
beings a penchant for disorderly and criminal behaviour that cont-
aminates and obscures their vision of Heaven. As God has given
human beings a natural inclination to live in society, society itself
(that is, the communities in which humans spend their life) should
be equipped to support its members in obtaining a correct knowl-
edge of the spiritual city and the desire to dwell in it. Furthermore,
society should facilitate the means necessary to this end, which implies
an organisation of society as sketched in the Regiment de la cosa pública.
In the course of his narrative, Eiximenis includes a variety of escha-
tological ideas concerning the arrival of a 1000-year Sabbath, in
which human society would reflect the divine city in the most per-
fect way. Many of these eschatological notions were directly derived
from the works of Jean de Rocquetaillade and the church father
Lactantius.362
No Spanish work of spiritual edification composed during the
fifteenth century could vie with the scope and ambition of Eiximenis’
361
The first complete edition came out in the twentieth century: Terç del Crestià,
ed. Martí de Barcelona & Norbert d’Ordal, 3 Vols, Els nostres clàssics, collecció
B, 1, 2, 4 (Barcelona, 1929–32); Com usar bé de beure i menjar, ed. Jorge E. Gracia,
Clàssics Curial, 6 (Barcelona, 1977) (= Terç del Crestiá, chapters 350–397).
362
Dotzén del Crestiá, ed. Lamberto Palmart (Valencia, 1484) (first four parts); Dotzé
Llibre del Crestiá, Seconda part, volum primer, ed. Curt Wittlin, Arseni Pacheco, Jill
Webster, Josep M. Pujol, Josefina Fíguls, Bernat Joan i August Bover, Obres de
Francesc Eiximenis, 2 (Girona, 1986); Dotzé Llibre del Crestiá, Seconda part, volum
segon, Curt Wittlin, Arseni Pacheco, Jill Webster, Josep M. Pujol, Josefina Fíguls,
Bernat Joan, Andreu Solé, Teresa Romaguera i Xavier Renedo, Obres de Eiximenis,
4 (Girona, 1987).
518 chapter seven
multi-volume Llibre del Crestiá, the influence of which was strongly

felt in many less ambitious fifteenth-century productions of Franciscan
and non-Franciscan origin. Yet the ongoing developments in Spanish
mysticism and spirituality were bound to result in new works of syn-
thesis in the end. Eventually, two Observant friars rose to this chal-
lenge in the early decades of the sixteenth century, namely Alonso
de Madrid (ca. 1485–1535) and Francisco de Osuna (ca. 1492–1541).
Not much is known about the religious career of Alonso de Madrid.
Probably, he was active as a teacher and confessor at the Franciscan
Salamanca convent from the 1520s onwards. In between and prob-
ably as an offshoot of his teaching assignments, Alonso around 1521
wrote his famous Arte para Servir a Dios, shortly thereafter followed
by his more modest Espejo de Illustres Personas. The first edition of his
Arte appeared in 1521, not a single copy of which has survived. The
work was subsequently reworked by the author and saw its definitive
(third) edition in 1526. Between that year and the end of the sixteenth
century, the Arte went through more than twenty Spanish editions.363
363
Arte para Servir a Dios: a.o. MSS Oxford, Bodleian Lyell. Empt. 14 (an. 1588);
Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 472. For information on old editions, see J. Goyens,
‘Alphonse de Madrid’, DSpir I, 389–391; P. Guillaume, ‘Un précurseur de la Réforme,
Alonso de Madrid’, RHE 25 (1929), 260–274; Fidèl de Ros, ‘Aux sources du combat
spirituel’, Revue de l’Histoire Ancienne et Médiévale 30 (1954), 117–139; Jean Christiaens,
‘Alonso de Madrid. Contribution à sa biographie et à l’histoire de ses écrits’, Lettres
Romanes 9 (1955), 251–268, 439–462; Fidel de Ros, ‘Bibliographie d’Alonso de
Madrid’, CF 28 (1958), 306–331; Idem, ‘Bibliographie d’Alonso de Madrid’, CF 28
(1958), 306–331; Donato de Monleras, Dios, el hombre y el mundo en Alonso de Madrid
y Diego de Estella, Diss. (Rome, 1958) (Donato de Monleras published a lengthy arti-
cle with the same title in CF 27 (1957), 233–281, 345–384 & 28 (1958), 155–210);
Fidel de Ros, ‘Les éditions de l’Arte para servir a Dios d’Alonso de Madrid hors
d’Espagne’, CF 31 (1961), 218–229, 645–656; Idem, ‘En torno a la biografía de
Fr. Alonso de Madrid’, EsFr 63 (1962), 335–351; Manuel de Castro, ‘Fr. Alonso
de Madrid, OFM, era de Madrid?’, Rivista de Literatura 33 (1968), 111–117; Rodríguez,
‘Autores espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 517–519. The first surviving edition
seems to be the Arte para servir a Dios. Compuesta por fray Alonso de Madrid, dela orden
de san Francisco (Alcalá, 1526). This edition, like many thereafter, also contains the
Espejo de illustres personas. There are several modern editions as well: Arte para servir
a Dios, ed. M. Mir, in: Nueva Biblioteca de autores espanoles. Escritos misticos Espanoles
(Madrid, 1911) I, 588–649 (not very dependable); Arte para servir a Dios, ed. A. López,
Biblioteca Franciscana. Serie Ascética, I (Madrid-Barcelona, 1926 & 1942) (not a
critical edition but a good modern rendition of the 1526 text); Arte para servir a Dios,
ed. Juan Bta Gomis, Místicos franciscanos Españoles Tomo I, Biblioteca de Autores
Cristianos (Madrid, 1948) (= BAC), pp. 85–182 (not always very reliable and partly
re-issued in 1960). Quite early, the Arte received a Latin translation: Methodus apte
Inserviendi Deo, sive Ars Inserviendi Deo (Louvain, 1560/1576/Ingolstadt, 1578/Paris,
1584/Lyon, 1598/Venice, 1603/Cologne, 1606/Cologne, 1608/Cologne, 1625/
Several of these contain additional devotional pieces (such as texts

by Bernard de Clairvaux, Anselm de Turmeda, Savonarola, Teresa
de Jesus etc.). The Arte was edited seven more times in the rework-
ing of the Alcalà theologian Ambrosio de Moralés (1513–1591), the
chronicler of King Philip II and a former penitent of Alonso.364
In the editions following that of 1526, the Arte opens with a pro-
logue explaining that mastering an art requires proper training. In
this case the training is aimed at mastering the art of serving God
in a way deserving of eternal life. This prologue is followed by three
sections of aproximately equal length, each of which is divided in
notables or chapters. The first of these sections unfolds seven general
principles according to which each Christian should act. The second
part in nine chapters explains how these general principles should
be put into practice, so that the soul may find relief from the flaws
it sustained through original sin, and can start cultivating the virtues.
In three chapters, the third part then offers an instruction on the
love that man owes God, his neighbour and himself.
The Arte is both an edificatory and ascetical work, in principle
meant for all Christians.365 It offers a simple and structured means
to learn to serve God by pure love, through a thorough training of
the will. It maintains that, after long training and many devotional
Louvain, 1652/La Rochelle, 1687/Ingolstadt, 1717). For early French translations

of Alonso’s works, see for instance: La méthode de servir Dieu; le miroir des persones illus-
tres, le mémorial de la vie de nostre sauveur, trans. G. Chappuys (Paris, 1587/Lyon,
1593/Douai, 1600/Rouen, 1610).
364
A first edition of this modified version, which presents a streamlined text in
a more modern Spanish vernacular (and which also contains some doctrinal reori-
entations, in that, contrary to Alonso, Ambrosio explicitly supports the importance
of secundary motives (like the hope for divine reward) for leading a spiritual life,
and puts a much greater emphasis on man’s inability to achieve things indepen-
dent of divine aid), appeared around 1585. For more information on subsequent
editions of this revised version (which only contains the text of the Arte and leaves
out the Espejo), see the literature mentioned in the previous note. A Latin transla-
tion of the Arte, by Juan Heuten ( Johannis Heutenius), received seven editions of
its own (from 1650 onwards).
365
Throughout and after the sixteenth century, the Arte seemingly functioned pre-
dominantly as a novice training manual in many Franciscan and non-Franciscan
houses. It also had a profound influence on the spirituality of Teresa de Avila and
her circle, as well as on the spiritual teachings of Francisco de Sales, Benedict of
Canfield, and Ignacio de Loyola). P. Guillaume, L’Arte para servir a Dios et son influence
sur Sainte Thérèse, 2 Vols., Diss. (Louvain, 1924); P. Meseguer, ‘Fr. Alonso de Madrid
y San Ignacio’, Manresa 25 (1953), 159–183; Fidel de Ros, ‘Alonso de Madrid y
Melquíades’, Revue d’ascétique et mystique 30 (1954), 29–37.
520 chapter seven
exercises, and with the ongoing help of the Holy Spirit, the soul will
learn how to do everything out of love for God, Who is our final
cause. This love should be totally disinterested (a point modified in
the reworking of Ambrosio de Morales), and the soul should forget
about the glories of eternal life or the eternal punishments as a moti-
vation for spiritually correct action. Love should be the soul’s only
motivation. Central in this process of mastering the art of serving
God is the human will, which should be enticed to submit at all
times to the will of God, which is a will of infinite excellence. The
quality of our love for God is determined by and shown in our
actions, towards God Himself as well as towards our neighbours, as
all these actions and the attempt at cultivating our virtues should be
an expression of love.366
Alonso’s more modest Espejo de Illustres Personas, which first came
out in Burgos in 1522 but which after 1526 normally was included
in editions of the Arte para Servir a Dios, is a manual of spiritual
edification for the nobility. Written at the request of Maria Pimentel
Osorio, Marquise of Villafranca del Bierzo (for whom Alonso may
have acted as confessor and spiritual counsellor), it explains, in a
short prologue and sixteen chapters, how the great of the (Spanish)
realm can serve God and devote themselves to the spiritual life,
notwithstanding their many social and political duties. Using many
examples of great people who lived a virtuous life in the past, the
work offers both general guidelines and specific exercises for every-
day devotions. A special chapter is devoted to the ‘study of the book
of life’, that is Christ, in His words, deeds and sacrifice.367
366
Cf. Fidel de Ros, ‘Alonso de Madrid, théoricien du pur amour’, Archivum
Historicum Societatis Jesu 25 (1956), 351–379; Domingo Savall, ‘Fr. Alonso de Madrid.
La pedagogia de su Arte para servir a Dios’, Revista Catalancia 6 (1960), 187–199;
Fidel de Ros, ‘Alonso de Madrid, educator de la voluntad y doctor del puro amor’,
in: Corrientes espirituales en la España del siglo XVI (Barcelona, 1963), 283–296.
367
Espejo de Illustres Personas, ed. M. Mir, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles
(Madrid, 1911), 636–649; Espejo de Illustres Personas, ed. Juan Bta Gomis, Místicos
franciscanos Españoles Tomo I, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (Madrid, 1948), 183–215.
None of these editions seem very dependable. To Alonso are also attributed (with-
out much proof ) a Memorial de la Vida de Nuestro Redemptor and a catechistic Tratado
de la Doctrina Christiana. The Memorial de la Vida de Nuestro Redemptor/Memorial de la
Vida de Jesucristo/Siete Meditaciones de la Semana Santa can be found in several old edi-
tions and translations of the Arte. It amounts to a passion devotion treatise with
devotional exercises and contemplative prayers for each day of the week. A special
place is reserved for the mysteries of the Virgin. The work was written at the
request of an unknown woman of noble descent. In the prologue, the author states:
Much larger than the Arte and, in scope, approaching the works
of Eiximenis, are the six volumes of Francisco de Osuna’s Abecedario
Espiritual. After a thorough schooling in the Spanish Franciscan school
network and at the university of Alcalá de Henares, Francisco spent
a number of years (between 1523 and 1528) at the Recollect Nuestra
Señora de la Salceda convent in the Guadalajara province, as well
as at other convents of the Recollect reform. In these meditation-
oriented Franciscan communities, Francisco practised the recogimiento
style of mental prayer and meditation (according to Recollect statutes,
Francisco would have spent the morning hours in prayer and med-
itation on the passion of Christ, and the night hours in meditative
exercises aimed at deepening the knowledge of the self ). In these
surroundings, he started writing his multi-volume Abecedario and other
works of spiritual edification. In the 1530s, when Francisco embarked
on a more international career as a preacher, confessor and order
administrator, he managed to get several of these works published
in Paris (1533) and Antwerp (1535–1536).368
The six volumes of the Abecedario, based on the meditative exercises
engaged in by Osuna and his circle of spiritual friends and disciples
‘Y de esta causa, muy noble Señora, por despertar almas, encender en vuestra
ánima la devoción por ella misma deseada, determiné de recoger brevemente, como
en un memorial, la santísima vida de nuestro muy dulce Redemptor (. . .) En siete
meditaciones o contemplaciones repartidas por siete días de la semana. Por que así
como el gusto del cuerpo se deleita y es recreado con diversidad de manjares y
aún es evitado el hastio, así vuestra devota ánima reciba recreación y deleite en
tener cada día algun misterio singular en que pensar.’ (Cited from Jean Christiaens,
Les Lettres Romanes 9 (1955), 441–442). On the Tratado de la Doctrina Christiana (Alcalá
de Henares: Miguel de Eguía, 1526), see Guerrero, ‘Catecismos de Autores Españoles
de la primera mitad del siglo XVI (1500–1559)’, 225–260 (231).
368
Aside from the multi-volume Abecedario, Francisco wrote a Eucharist treatise
(Gracioso Combite, published in Sevilla, 1530), a catechistic work on Christian life in
the world (El Norte de los Estados, published in Sevilla, 1531), several volumes of ser-
mons (Latin translations of his Spanish sermons, the first volume of which was pub-
lished in Toulouse, 1533, whereas a second volume was published at Paris, november
1533), a commentary on the Annunciation, as well as separate meditations and ser-
mons for Advent and Lent. Several of these works have been touched upon else-
where in this book. See in general Fidel de Ros, Un maître de Sainte Thérèse. Le père
François de Osuna. Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa doctrine spirituelle (Paris, 1936); Rodríguez, ‘Autores
espirituales españoles (1500–1700)’, 548–552 (with a lot of extra bibliographical
information, as well as additional information about early editions); H.J. Prien, ‘Ein
spanischer Katechismus aus dem Jahre 1529 von Franziskus de Osuna’, Zeitschrift
für Kirchengeschichte 83 (1972), 365–390; Melquiades Andrés Martín, ‘Osuna’, DSpir
XI, 1037–1051; Erika Lorenz, Praxis der Kontemplation. Die Weisung der klassischen Mystik
(Munich, 1994); Pedro Jódar Martínez, Jesucristo y la vida espiritual en los escritos de
Francisco de Osuna, Diss. (Pamplona, 1998).
522 chapter seven
at the convents of the Recollect reform, came out as individual vol-

umes between 1527 and 1544.369 The first volume, published around
1530 as the Primera Parte del Libro Abecedario Espiritual is almost com-
pletely devoted to the passion of Christ and offers the meditations
and prayers necessary to elicit the required evocative mental iden-
tification with Christ’s suffering. Both the second volume and the
volumes four to six, published in the 1530s and 1540s, present a
veritable plethora of meditative exercises to deepen self-knowledge
and the love of God, focussing respectively on asceticism and the
search for inner or interior man (book two), the importance of spir-
itual love (book four), the theory and practice of evangelical poverty
as the obvious way to follow in Christ’s footsteps (book five), and
the significance of the five wounds of Christ as the starting point of
spiritual reflection (book six).
Most popular of all was the third volume, the Tercer Abecedario, the
first volume in the series to be published (in 1527). It concentrates
on the so-called recogimiento style of spiritual prayer and meditation,
the core of which consists of emptying the mind completely (the pro-
cedure of nada penser), so that mind and soul can become an unper-
turbed receptacle of the Divine and then may be transformed into
a light of God. Just like Alonso de Madrid’s Arte Para Servir a Dios
mentioned before, the Tercer Abecedario shows some influence of the
fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Franciscan alumbrados tradition.
Although after the 1520s this tradition increasingly came under attack
369
Abecedario Espiritual, 6 Vols. (Toledo-Sevilla, 1527–1554). The works came out
individually under the following titles: Primera Parte del Libro Abecedario Espiritual que
trata de las circunstancias de la Sagrada Pasión de Hijo de Dios (Sevilla, 1527/28/Burgos,
1537/Medina, 1544/Saragossa, 1546/Sevilla, 1554/Venice, 1583 (Italian transla-
tion)); Seconda Parte del Libro Abecedario Espiritual donde se tratan diversos ejercicios (Sevilla,
1530/Burgos, 1539, Burgos, 1545/Sevilla, 1554/Burgos, 1555); Tercer Abecedario
(Toledo: Ramón de Petras, 1527/Valladolid, 1537/Burgos, 1544/Sevilla, 1554/Burgos,
1555/Madrid, 1638/Madrid, 1911/London, 1931 & 1948 (English translation)); Ley
de Amor y Cuarta Parte del Abecedario Espiritual (Sevilla, 1530/Burgos, 1536/s.l.,
1542/Valladolid, 1551/Valladolid, 1554/Sevilla, 1554); Quinta parte del Abecedario espir-
itual (Burgos, 1542, Burgos, 1554/Sevilla, 1554/Munich, 1602 & 1603 (German
translations, under the title Trost der Armen & Spiegel der Reichen); Sexta Parte del Libro
Abecedario Espiritual (Medina del Campo, 1554/Sevilla, 1554/Rome, 1616 (Latin
translation)). See also the following editions: Franciscus de Osuna, Versenkung (ABC
des kontemplativen Betens), ed. E. Lorenz (Freiburg, 19943); Tercer Abecedario, ed. Miguel
Mir, Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, XVI (Madrid, 1911); Tercer Abecedario
Espiritual, ed. Melquíades Andrés, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (Madrid, 1972);
Místicos franciscanos españoles II. Tercer abecedario espiritual de Francisco de Osuna, ed.
S. López Santidrián, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 592 (Madrid, 1998).
by the Spanish inquisition, this influence did not hamper the pop-
ularity of the Tercer Abecedario. In fact, the quick and lasting dissem-
ination of the Tercer Abecedario, with its well-organised and systematic
approach to prayer and meditation, did much to establish a Spanish
tradition of composing alphabetically organised spiritual handbooks,
as well as being an important source of inspiration for Teresa de
Jesus, Juan de la Cruz, and a number of other Spanish mystics.370
With the Abecedario Espiritual, we have reached an apex of Franciscan
spiritual edification, moving into outright mysticism. Yet from the
start it is clear that Osuna in principle wanted each and every Chris-
tian to set their sights on this high level of Christian spirituality.
Hence, hard-core meditation and mysticism are no longer deemed
the prerogative of the select few, but have become a viable, even
necessary spiritual road for every person claiming to be a practising
Christian.
Franciscan large-scale edificatory projects in Italy never quite moved
in the same way towards spiritual ascent, but instead remained focused
on moral and doctrinal edification. The Italian production of such
comprehensive texts was very closely linked with the moral and doc-
trinal teachings in the large sermon cycles held by the friars during
Lent and at other important occasions.
Not all such works were of Observant provenance, although the
Observants undoubtedly produced the most successful ones. Several
interesting specimen are from the hand of Francesco Michele del
Padovano (d. ca. 1472), a humanistically inclined Conventual friar
370
For more information, see P. Michel-Ange, ‘La vie franciscaine en Espagne
entre les deux couronnements de Charles-Quint’, Rivista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos
26 (1912), 157–214, 345–404 & 28 (1913), 167–225 & 29 (1913), 1–63, 157–216
& 31 (1915), 1–62 & 32 (1915), 193–253; P. Groult, Les mystiques des pays-Bas et la
littérature espagnole du XVI e siècle (Louvain, 1927), 79–131; S.C. Franklin, ‘Francisco
de Osuna (. . .)’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 9 (1932), 58–168; G.M. Bertini, Frate
Francesco da Osuna. Via alla mistica (Brescia, 1933); Julio Aramendia, ‘Las oraciones
39 (1935), 245–253, 291–292, 345–352; Bataillon, Érasme et l’Espagne, passim; Fidel
de Ros, ‘Influencia de Francisco de Osuna en Laredo y [Fr. Bartolomé de] los
Mártires’, AIA 3 (1943), 378–390; P. Benito, ‘Sur une traduction anglaise du Troisième
Abécédaire’, Bulletin hispanique 45 (1943), 62–68; H.J. Prien, F. de Osuna. Mystik und
Rechtfertigung (1967); M. Andrés, Francesco de Osuna. Tercer Abecedario Espiritual (Madrid,
1972); L. Calvert, Francis de Osuna and the Spirit of the Letter (Chapel Hill, 1972);
A. Vermeylen, ‘François d’Osuna’, DHGE XVIII, 737–741; J.C. Nieto, ‘The Franciscan
alumbrados and the prophetic-apocalyptic tradition’, Sixteenth-Century Journal 8 (1977),
3–16.
524 chapter seven
who taught as magister regens of the St. Croce studium generale at Florence
between 1433 and 1439–1441 (and held the office of dean of the
Florentine university thereafter). Besides his sermons and scholarly
works connected with his teaching obligations, Michele wrote at least
five independent edificatory treatises of intermediate length, namely
the Speculum Christianae Probitatis, the Christianorum Institutionum Liber,
De Insensata Cura Mortalium, De Floccipendendo Vulgo et Contemnendis Eius
Ineptiis et de Quidditate Fortunae, and De Brevitate Vitae Humanae.371
The first of these, the Speculum Christianae Probitatis, in 38 chapters
dwells on Christian virtues and related theological themes to guide
preachers and confessors, as well as a wider literate audience.372 The
371
De Insensata Cura Mortalium, De Floccipendendo, and De Brevitate Vitae Humanae
were published with several other of Francesco Michele’s works by Fabio Siri OFM,
who presented them as his own works. See: Tractates Morales Quibus Fidelis Homo ad
Pie Sancteque Vivendum Dirigitur (. . .) F. Fabii Syrii a Monte Regali, Minoritae Conventualis,
doctoris theologici . . . (Perugia, 1670). For more information on Francesco Michele and
also on the manuscripts mentioned in subsequent footnotes, see U. Morini, ‘Fra
Francesco da Firenze detto il Padovano’, MF 32 (1932), 175–176; Lynn Thorndike,
A History of Magic and Experimental Science during the first thirteen centuries of our era (New
York, 1923–1958) IV, 313–330; Pratesi, ‘Francesco Micheli del Padovano di Firenze’,
passim; Idem, ‘Discorsi e nuove lettere di Francesco Micheli del Padovano’, pas-
sim; Piana, Chartularium Studii Bononiensis S. Francisci, 63*, 91; Kristeller, Iter Italicum
II, 64, 154, 199; Piana, La Facoltà teologica dell’Università di Firenze nel Quattro e Cinquecento,
143, 519.
372
MS Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 3003 (3135): 1.) De excellentia condi-
tionis humane, ff. 8r–12v; 2.) De adversione hominis, ff. 12v–15r; 3.) De repellendis
humanis indigentiis, 15r–19v; 4.) De obiurgatione et contraversia discendi, ff. 19v–27r;
5.) De comparatione scientie et sapientie, ff. 27r–35v; 6.) De doctrina et eius neces-
sitate, ff. 36r–43r; 7.) De non amando sed contenpnendo mundo, ff. 43r–50v; 8.)
De non despicienda sed amanda paupertate, ff. 50v–61r; 9.) De non detestandis
sed contenpnendis divitiis, ff. 61r–65v; 10.) De seculari nobilitate contenpnenda et
spirituali magnipendenda, ff. 65v–71r; 11.) De vitandis ignobilis vulgi variis inep-
tiis, ff. 71r–72v; 12.) De vitandis humanis laudibus et obprobiis perferendis, 73r–75r;
13.) De fugienda potius quam querenda presidentia maxime spirituali, ff. 75r–82r;
14.) De obedientia et reverentia sacerdotibus exibenda, ff. 82r–91v; 15.) De contem-
nendis prosperis, ff. 91v–95v; 16.) De quibusdam mulieribus potentibus prospera
spernentibus, ff. 95v–99v; 17.) De vitandis pompis in vestibus et ornatu, ff. 99v–105v;
18.) De vitandis carnis delitiis, ff. 105v–114r; 19.) De vitandis carnis illecebris,
ff. 114r–117v; 20.) De excellentia virginitatis, ff. 117v–124r; 21.) De viduitate ser-
vanda, ff. 124r–126r; 22.) De statu uxorio, ff. 126r–131r; 23.) De statu penitentie
ad quam vocamur, ff. 131r–142r; 24.) De perferendis patienter adversis, ff. 142r–146v;
25.) De adversis habendis pro commodis et prospera pro adversis, ff. 146v–153r;
26.) De non metuenda morte, ff. 153r–158v; 27.) De vitando otio vite humane
inimico, ff. 158v–166r; 28.) De repellenda a se pessima invidia, ff. 166r–171v; 29.)
De detractione et murmuratione fuganda, ff. 171v–179r; 30.) De adulatione et men-
dacio, ff. 179r–182r; 31.) De caritate numquam relinquenda, ff. 182r–195v; 32.) De
fide firmiter habenda, ff. 195v–222r; 33.) De infidelitate, ff. 222r–228r; 34.) De
quadam communi errore infidelium, idest de iudicio, ff. 228r–234r; 35.) De spe the-
ologica virtute, ff. 234r–237r; 36.) De misericordia habenda ad afflictos, ff. 237r–238v;
second of the list, the Christianorum Institutionum Liber, may be seen as

a thorough reworking of the Speculum, offering 40 chapters of essen-
tial moral and doctrinal advice on a variety of issues, ranging from
man’s proper nature and the meaning of his fall and redemption,
to the virtues and behaviour necessary for salvation.373 The third
one, De Insensata Cura Mortalium, which Francesco Michele wrote
around 1466 for his Florentine benefactor Pietro dei Medici, is a
traditional contemptus mundi treatise in ten chapters, showing in elegant
Latin, interspersed with many well-chosen scriptural, patristic and
classical citations, the illusory character of material wellfare (probably
without having much of an impact on Pietro dei Medici’s lifestyle).374
37.) De dignitate veritatis, ff. 238v–241r; 38.) De pacis utilitate, ff. 241r–245r. See

AFH, 14 (1921), 249. The manuscript is dated 28 August 1458.
373
MS Rome, Biblioteca Angelica 1093: Prefatio, ff. 1r–1v; 1.) De excellentia
conditionis humane, ff. 1v–5v; 2.) De aliis divinis operibus que merito perfecta esse
dicuntur, ff. 5v–7v; 3.) De hominis lapsu, ff. 7v–14v; 4.) De christiana morte et eius
memorie utilitate, ff. 14v–20r; 5.) De funere et exequiis, ff. 20r–23r; 6.) De huma-
narum incommoditatum remediis, ff. 23r–28r; 7.) Quarum rerum intellectus humanus
capax sit, ff. 28r–30v; 8.) De differentia inter scientiam et sapientiam, ff. 30v–41r;
9.) Quomodo doceri et accipi ab hominibus sapientia et copia litterarum debeat,
ff. 41r–44v; 10.) De illis qui alios regere debent, ff. 44v–51r; 11.) De reverentia
clericis a secularibus exibenda, ff. 51r–57r; 12.) De vaga et herronea vite presentis
peregrinatione, ff. 57r–61r; 13.) Quomodo locupletes in divitiis salvari possint,
ff. 61r–65r; 14.) Quomodo pauperes sua sorte contenti esse debent et paupertas
ipsa appetenda non recusanda est, ff. 65r–74r; 15.) Quod rebus ut aiunt fortune
prospere cedentibus non est letandum neque credendum, ff. 74r–77r; 16.) De vera
sive potius christiana nobilitate, ff. 77r–79r; 17.) De quibusdam claris mulieribus
pro Christo mundum spernentibus, ff. 79r–83v; 18.) De vario falsoque vulgi iudi-
cio non curando et de populorum frequentia vitanda, ff. 83v–85v; 19.) De cavendis
hominum laudibus et ipsorum opbrobiis perferendis, ff. 85v–87r; 20.) De adversis
equo animo perferendis, ff. 87r–90v; 21.) Quod utiliora sunt flagella Dei quam
impunitates peccatorum, ff. 90v–93v; 22.) De penitentia, ff. 93v–99v; 23.) Non est
indulgendum gule, ff. 100r–104v; 24.) De honesto cultu corporibus adhibendo,
ff. 104v–109v; 25.) Quod luxurie vitium apprime fugiendum est, ff. 109v–112r; 26.)
De excellentia virginitatis, ff. 112r–119v; 27.) De viduitate servanda, ff. 119v–122r;
28.) De castitate matrimoniali servanda, ff. 122r–124v; 29.) De otio fugiendo,
ff. 124v–126v; 30.) De detractione ac murmuratione fugiendis, ff. 126v–130r; 31.)
De adulatione et mendacio fugiendis, ff. 130r–131r; 32.) De veritate ac mendacio,
ff. 131r–132v; 33.) De miseratione erga afflictos, ff. 132v–134v; 34.) De amanda
et sectanda iustitia, ff. 134v–137r; 35.) Quod invidie stimulis est resistendum,
ff. 137r–139r; 36.) De discretione, ff. 139v–140r; 37.) De charitate thesauro omnium
virtutum, ff. 140r–147r; 38.) De fide, ff. 147r–168r; 39.) De fiducia et spe, ff. 168r–
169v; 40.) De incredulitate sive infidelitate, ff. 169v–174v. The whole work was
written in or after 1460, and dedicated to the Florentine youth Braccio Martelli
(Braccio di Domenico). According to its preface, it was inspired by the pastoral let-
ters of Jerome. Throughout the text, Michele managed to show off his erudition,
citing a host of classical and Patristic sources.
374
De Insensata Cura Mortalium, ad Illusos Vitae Huius Amatores Libellus: MSS Florence,
526 chapter seven
Comparable issues are at stake in the De Floccipendendo Vulgo et

Contemnendis Eius Ineptiis and the De Brevitate Vitae Humanae. The former
is mainly of interest for the way in which it makes a strong case for
the fundamental difference between (earthly) fortune and the working
of divine providence. Christians should rely on the latter, even when
they do not feel blessed in their material existence.375 The latter
work, the De Brevitate Vitae Humanae, written before 1469, is a short
digression on the ‘condition humaine’ in the present world, in which
man is hampered by his vices (esp. gluttony). It again highlights the
transitory quality of human life in general and especially in the world
at present: In antiquity, man’s life span was longer, not only because
of divine intervention, but also as the result of a more ascetical
lifestyle. Now, however, at the end of times, when everything is old
and decrepit and man’s depravity had increased, human life span is
short.376
Within Italian Observant cycles, the tone for all-encompassing spir-
itual edification had been set by the homiletic efforts of Bernardino
da Siena and the other ‘pillars of the Observance’ responsible for
giving body to the Observant ‘Bildungsreform.’ The importance of
an overall Christian education, touching on all aspects of life of indi-
viduals, family, and larger communities actually had been a topic in
several sermons of Bernardino and Giovanni da Capistrano.377
An early example of these edificatory concerns outside the realm of
homiletics is constituted by the various treatises of the Observant friar
Silvestro Radicundulo da Siena (d. after 1454), a disciple of Bernardino
da Siena and himself a well-respected preacher in Lombardy, Venice,
Rome, and Dalmatia. Like several of his colleagues, Silvestro was
heavily involved in peace brokering and social reform in the towns
where he exercised his apostolate, such as Como, Lugano and Piacenza.
On top of his sermons and an as yet not found confession manual
(Tractatus Contritionis Confessionis Satisfactionis et Conscientiae), Silvestro
Biblioteca Nazionale Magl. XXXV cod. 254; Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Landau-
Finaly 152 ff. 24v–55v.
375
De Floccipendendo Vulgo et Contemnendis Eius Ineptiis et de Quidditate Fortunae/De Vulgo
et Eius Somniis Ineptiis: MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Landau-Finaly 152 ff.
100r–118v. Check also Munich, Staatsbibliothek Clm. 23593 ff. 91r–100v.
376
Ad Amicum Quandam Vitae Praesentis plus quam Expedit Amatorem/De Brevitate Vitae
Humanae ad Amicum Quendam Vitae Praesentis plus quam Expedit Amatorem: MS Munich,
Staatsbibliothek Clm. 23593 ff. 91r–100v.
377
Mecacci, ‘L’educazione cristiana nelle opere di S. Bernardino da Siena’, 21–50,
90–122; Elm, ‘Die Franziskanerobservanz als Bildungsreform’, passim.
composed three treatises that had a bearing on his activities as peace

broker and social reformer, namely the Tractatus de Caritate Dei et
Proximi, which has not yet been found, the Tractatus de Unitate, Pax
et Concordia Civium, and the Tractatus de Perfectione Iustitiae. These latter
two texts are not very extensive and can not be compared with the
encyclopaedic works of Eiximenis cum suis. Yet these treatises of
Silvestro do unfold an all-encompassing vision of Christian behav-
iour in society, and as such are worth mentioning.
The first of his surviving treatises, the short Tractatus de Unitate,
Pace et Concordia Civium, was written to promote urban peace in Como
and other Italian communities having warring Guelf and Ghibbelline
factions, impressing on these factions a vision of social concord and
unity, from which could spring a balanced and thriving Christian
community, benefiting all parties concerned.378
378
MS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale cod. VII.E.31 ff. 13r–27r. Inc.: ‘Verum quia
tanta est vis caritatis tantaque celsitudo dilectionis a qua unitas, pax atque concor-
dia veraciter emanat, quod in rebus humanis nil dulcius et suavius atque iucundius
inveni, hinc est quod cum Dominus Deus noster (. . .) Prefate igitur unionis sanc-
tissime, pro qua sacrosancta mater Ecclesia orat, tria singularissima mysteria declara-
buntur: primum est mira commendatio vel exaltatio, et hoc cum dicitur: fratres in
unum; secundum est virtuosa exibitio sive exercitatio, cum dicitur: habitare; tertium
est fructuosa operatio, cum premittitur: Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum.’
Hence, this treatise consists of three articles. Article one (ff. 13r–21r) deals with the
commendatio vel exaltatio: ‘Primo consideranda est mira exaltatio sive commendatio,
quam videlicet tria manifestant: primum est dilectio; secundum dilatio sive diffusio;
tertium insidiatio.’ Article two (ff. 21r–23v) deals with the virtuosa exibitio sive exerci-
tatio: ‘Secundo consideranda est unionis virtuosa exercitatio, idest qualiter cives inter
se habere se debent, ut talis unio, pax et concordia semper vigeat apud illos. Maxima
enim virtus est scire in medio nationis perverse bene conversari, quos sine dono
Spiritus Sancti, idest dono scientie, fieri non potest. Proinde civitas vere, etsi cas-
trum sit, civitas dici potest, cum cives insimul vere uniti sint, et hoc tripliciter: primo
corde, secundo ore, tertio opere. Hic est funiculus triplex qui difficile rumpitur,
Ecclesiastes 4. Item delectabile et utile et honestum. Secundum enim Philosophum
tria sunt valde eligibilia, videlicet honestum, delectabile et utile; primum ad virtutes,
secundum ad corporalia, tertium ad temporalia refertur.’ Article three (ff. 24r–27r)
thereafter deals with the fructuosa operatio: ‘Tertio consideranda est nostre unionis
fructuosa operatio, idest quot bonos fructus unitas nobis afferat, qui duodecim, tan-
quam duodecim fructus ligni vite in medio paradisi plantati, connumerantur: primus
dicitur cognitio vel distinctio, secundus approbatio, tertius habitatio, quartus exau-
ditio, quintus prosperitas, sextus securitas, septimus iucunditas, octavus victoria,
nonus firmitas sive stabilitas, decimus facilitas, undecimus sanctitas, duodecimus clar-
itas.’ The whole work ends with the following expl.: ‘Quoniam illic, scilicet in uni-
tate, mandavit Dominus benedictionem et vitam, benedictionem enim gratie et vitam
glorie usque in seculum. Ad quam perducat qui in unitate perfecta vivit et regnat
in seculorum secula. Amen.’ (citations taken from the description in Martinus
Bertagna, ‘Frater Silvester de Senis, O.F.M., concionator saeculi XV’, AFH 45
(1952), 152–170 (165).
528 chapter seven
Silvestro’s main work was the substantially longer Tractatus de

Perfectione Iustitiae, which develops the theme of justice in three intro-
ductory adminicula and in an additional three books.379 The first
adminiculum (ff. 38–123v in the surviving manuscript) deals with the
fear of God (timor Dei), which should incite city dwellers to abstain
from bad actions. This part also contains a section De sacramento peni-
tentie et origine eius (ff. 109r–123v), discussing the evangelical origin of
the sacrament of penance, its necessity, its value and its eventual
sweetness (in preparing the soul’s access to eternal life). The second
adminiculum (ff. 125r–136v) presents the counterparts to the timor Dei,
namely divine love and divine grace (de amore vel gratia Dei, qua bonum
facere incipimus), which enable us to do good. Silvestro took the oppor-
tunity to discuss the life of action under the different dispensations
of nature, grace and glory, teaching that natural life is short, weak
and miserable, whereas the life of grace has many benefits and virtues,
and eventually will lead to the life of glory, in which all human
deeds will be perfect and unified. The third adminiculum (ff. 157v–169v)
hammers on the necessity of patience to cope with the discomforts
and problems in the here and now (incommoda vitae praesentis). This
patience will be strengthened by a strong faith and a fitting desire
for the blessed life in the hereafter.
It is only after these three ‘introductory’ adminicula that Silvestro
unfolds the main argument of his treatise, namely Christian justice.
Silvestro had planned to devote three books to this theme, respec-
tively addressing 1.) the importance of abstaining from evil thoughts,
words, and actions (de prima parte iustitie, que est recessus a malo scilicet
culpe, videlicet cordis, oris et operis, ff. 169v–220r); 2.) the scope and
379
Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale VII.E.31 ff. 37r–256v. Rubr.: ‘Tractatus qui de
perfectione iustitie intitulatur, compilatus per me fratrem Silvestrum de Senis.’ The
work opens with psalm 33: ‘Venite filii audite me (. . .) inquire pacem et persequere
eam; ps. 33. Ad perfecte iustitie summa eiusque apicem recto tramite pervenire
cupientibus, quam omnes electi sancti et dilecti votis omnibus venerantur (. . .) In
quibus sacratissimis verbis ad perfectionem iustitie et salutem animarum nostrarum
tria principaliter precipiuntur observari: Primum est recessus a malo, cum premit-
titur: Diverte a malo; secundum est processus ad bonum, cum sequitur: et fac
bonum; tertium est patientia in malo scilicet pene, cum concluditur: inquire pacem
et persequere eam. Et sic iste tractatus tres continet libros, de quibus per ordinem
dicemus. Sed quia hec tria iustitie opera de se ardua sunt, ideo adminicula depos-
cunt, sine quibus prefata minime adimpleri possunt. Hinc est quod prima pars iusti-
tie, que est recessus a malo, timore incipitur. (. . .) Secunda pars, que est processus
ad bonum, amore perficitur (. . .) Tertia vero, que est patientia vel tollerantia in
penis, per possessionem pacis (. . .).’
intention of proper Christian action in the social life (quod ad perfec-

tionem iustitie moralis precipitur observari, est processus ad bonum, ff. 220v–256v),
which is centred on evangelical prayer, fasting and charitable works
(oratio, ieiunium et elemosyna); and 3.) the necessity of patience and
endurance (patientia in malo). At present, the last of these books, which
in content may have been very similar to the third introductory
adminiculum, is missing from the surviving manuscript.380
The Italian Observant edificatory output probably found its apex
in the works of Cherubino da Spoleto (1414–1484), a spiritual dis-
ciple of Bernardino da Siena, Giacomo della Marca and Antonio da
Bitonto.381 Between 1441 and 1484, Cherubino embarked on long
preaching tours all over the Italian peninsula, promoting in Observant
fashion the emergence of devotional confraternities and the move-
ments of social peace (including the vehement anti-Judaic tendencies
connected with them). Besides his quadragesimal sermons (which, as
we have seen in Chapter I, have a strong didactic and catechetical
character), Cherubino wrote a series of complementary treatises for
the laity, on the education of children, the proper behaviour of
spouses, and the disciplining of body and mind in spiritual life; these
were the Tractatus de Cura Filiorum,382 the Regola della Vita Matrimoniale,383
the Regola e Modo del Vivere nel Stato Viduale,384 and the Regola della Vita
Spirituale.385
380
See for more information Bertagna, ‘Frater Silvester de Senis, O.F.M.’, 166–170,
as well as G. Oddi da Perugia, La Franceschina (Florence, 1931) I, 239, 399; Mariano
di Firenze, Compendium Chronicarum Ordinis Fratrum Minorum, AFH 3 (1910), 711.
381
On Cherubino’s life and works, see R. Rusconi, ‘Cherubino da Spoleto’, DBI
XXIV (Rome, 1980), 446–453; Zarri, ‘La vita religiosa femminile tra devozione e
chiostro’, passim; Patton, Preaching Friars and the Civic Ethos, 67–69; Canonici, ‘Fra
Cherubino da Spoleto predicatore del sec. XV’, 107–125.
382
De Eruditione Liberorum/Tractatus de Cura Filiorum: MSS Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale
VIII.AA.30 ff. 79a–87d; Terni, Biblioteca Comunale 43 ff. 220v–232r.
383
Regola della Vita Matrimoniale (Florence, 1477); Regole della Vita Matrimoniale, ed.
F. Zambrini & C. Negroni (Bologna, 1888). This work can sometimes be found in
old editions of the Regola della Vita Spirituale as well.
384
The Regola e Modo del Vivere nel Stato Viduale was printed together with other
‘treatises’ of Cherubino drawn from his quaresimal sermons: Conforto Spirituale
de’Caminanti a Porto di Salute; Regole del Vivere nel Stato Virginale e Contemplativo; Regola e
modo del vivere nel stato viduale; Versi devotissimi de l’anima inamorata in miser Jesu Christo
(Venice: Melchior Sessa, 1505). The Regola e Modo del Vivere nel Stato Viduale states
that true widows show their virtue by living frugally and wearing sober clothing:
they should be living mirrors of their internal spiritual virtue. The same point was
made in the sermons of the Observant Franciscan friar Iacopo Mazza da Reggio
Calabria (and no doubt by various other Franciscan preachers from that period).
385
Regula di Vita Spirituale/Regola della Vita Spirituale (Florence, 1477/Florence:
530 chapter seven
The most important and successful of these were the Regola della
Vita Matrimoniale and the Regola della Vita Spirituale. The latter of these
two offers lay people seven rules for living a proper Christian life.
These rules disclose what for Christian people are proper and improper
thoughts, affections, words, actions, conversations, and prayers, and
present their readers with the tools to obtain a pure conscience. In
the intended spiritual transformation a major role was reserved for
a devout immersion of the faithful in appropriate works of Christian
literature: passion devotion narratives, and patristic florilegia drawn
from the works of Climacus, Jerome and Augustine. Its intended lay
reading public notwithstanding, the various early manuscripts of the
Regola della Vita Spirituale predominantly circulated among female reli-
gious communities. The same can be said of several treatises that
were compiled from his sermon cycles, such as the Conforto Spirituale
de’Caminanti a Porto di Salute and the Regole del Vivere nel Stato Virginale
e Contemplativo. The Regola della Vita Spirituale reached a wider audience
after the book appeared in print in and after 1477 (the first printed
edition was dedicated to the Florentine merchant Giacomo Bongianni).
The Regola della Vita Matrimoniale, which is of later date, calls for
a life of devotion within well-regulated married life, in which the
wife and children stand under the spiritual direction of the male
head of the household, who has to teach them the basic prayers and
the commandments, as well as the devotional acts proper for lay
people. This very patriarchal vision of Christian conjugal harmony
taught by Cherubino and his Observant colleagues was to make a
deep imprint on the Catholic ideal of Christian society. In this work,
like in his Regola della Vita Spirituale, Cherubino insists that the spir-
itual life of married couples should benefit from the reading of devout
literature, commending his own works to this purpose, for instance,
as well as the Quadriga Spirituale of Niccolò da Osimo.386
Francesco Dino di Iacopo Fiorentino, 1487/Florence, 1490). Written before 1464,

it received at least 32 editions before the later nineteenth century. For more mod-
ern editions, see: Regola della Vita Spirituale, ed. F. Zambrini (Imola, 1878); Sesta e
settima regola spirituale: Orazione e mundificazione, ed. Mario Sensi, in: Mistici Francescani,
III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 451–505.
386
Zarri, ‘La vita religiosa femminile tra devozione e chiostro’, 156–157: ‘. . . i
coniugi, come insegna Cherubino, sono chiamati a una vita di devozione; nell’am-
bito della famiglia l’istruzione della moglie avviene sotto la guida del marito: l’uomo
dovrà insegnare alla donna, se questa non li conosce, le preghiere e i commanda-
menti, dovrà educarla alla confessione e indurla a frequentare le prediche, leggere
con lei libri spirituali. In accordo con l’orientamento della pastorale francescana e
The spiritual works of Cherubino da Spoleto bring to mind the

catechistic handbooks of his slightly younger colleague Marco da
Montegallo (1425–1496, namely the Tabula de la Salute Humana, the
Libro dei Commandamenti di Dio, and the Libro intitulato de la Divina Lege
et Comandamenti de Esso Omnipotente Dio), which have been presented
in Chapter IV of this book. Marco’s catechisms may be more concise
than the Regole by Cherubino da Spoleto, but they convey comparable
aims and also provide lists of necessary books for those who want
to live a truly Christian life.387
A final Observant friar whom I would like to mention in this con-
text is Iacopo Mazza da Reggio Calabria (fl. ca. 1500). Between 1499
and 1519, this provincial minister of the Observant Calabria province
came out with a confession manual (the afore-mentioned Lucerna
Confessoris), and also published two works on Christian virtues, namely
the Scala de virtuti et via de paradiso and the so-called Amatorium. Both
of these carefully outline the lifestyle, spiritual obligations and correct
devotional disposition of people at different stages of their lives, dis-
tinguishing between adolescents, married people, widows, widowers,
and the male and female virgins devoted to a life of abstinence.388
E. Political education
Several edificatory texts discussed in the above had a ‘political’ side,

in that they offered advice on and rudimentary blueprints for the
promotion of a viable Christian commonwealth, or came up with
behavioural guidelines for those in power. Elements of this may be
con il carattere essenzialmente etico della Regola matrimoniale i libri consigliati da

Cherubino sono prevalentemente di carattere morale: il Trattato sopra i peccati mor-
tali di sant’Antonino e la Quadriga spirituale di Nicolò da Osimo; il religioso non
manca tuttavia di raccomandare la Regola della vita spirituale da lui stesso composta,
introducendo così anche nella vita familiare gli indirizzi della devotio.’
387
For an up-to-date overview of Marco’s life, work and cult, see Marco da
Montegallo (1425–1496). Il tempo, la vita, le opere. Atti del convegno di Studio scoli Piceno
12 ottobre 1996 e Montegallo 23 agosto 1997, ed. Silvano Bracci, Centro Studi Antoniani
30 (Padua, 1999).
388
Scala de virtuti et via de paradiso necessaria ad omni fidelissimo cristiano noviter composta
(Messina, 1499); Tractato perutile et delectabile nominato amatorium acto ad ordinare lo amore
humano alli debiti virtu et deviario de omne illicito amore in che solum consiste virtu novamente
composto (Naples, 1517). This latter work was composed at the request of the vice-
roy of Naples, Raymond Cardona. See Sbaralea, Supplementum II, 13, 389; Clément
Schmitt, ‘Mazza ( Jacques)’, DSpir X, 871–872.
532 chapter seven
found in the above-mentioned works of Juan Bautista Viñones, for

instance, and also in the lengthy treatises of Eiximenis and Cherubino
da Spoleto.
As the careers of friars like Eiximenis and many of his predeces-
sors and successors make clear, it was quite common for Franciscan
friars to become involved with the moral and religious formation of
future rulers. This was nothing new, of course. The friars followed
in the footsteps of older monastic and clerical tutors of the nobility,
many of whom contributed to the rise of a distinguished genre of
educational writings: the so-called mirrors of princes. The basic source
text for this genre was the Secretum Secretorum, supposedly Aristotle’s
advice to Alexander the Great on the art how to be king. Originally,
this work was a tenth-century Arabic text. It had been partially trans-
lation into Latin by John of Spain around 1150, and a more complete
translation was made by Philip of Tripoli in the first half of the thir-
teenth century. Thereafter it was re-edited several times, a.o. by the
Franciscan friar Roger Bacon.389
Among the mendicants, the Dominicans probably were the quick-
est to leave their mark on this sub-genre of political education, which
by that time began to combine more fully the traditional monastic
educational ideas on Christian education with political and ethical
concepts taken from the Roman and the Arabo-Aristotelian legacy
(notably the writings of Plutarch and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics
and Politics). As early as the mid-thirteenth century the Dominican
Vincent de Beauvais achieved a synthesis of mendicant ideals of lay
education in his De Morali Principis Institutione and in his De Eruditione
Filiorum Nobilium (written at the request of Queen Margaret of France
for the benefit of her eldest surviving son, the future Philip III).390
389
N. Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry. The education of the English kings and aristoc-
racy 1066–1530 (London-New York, 1984), 88–90, 98. For the reception history of
the Secretum Secretorum, see esp. F. Wurms, Studien zu den deutschen und den lateinischen
Prosafassungen des pseudo-aristotelischen ‘Secretum Secretorum’ (Hamburg, 1970). For Bacon’s
version, see 79–81. There are many examples of comparable works. See for instance
John of Salisbury’s Policraticus (dedicated to Thomas Becket, the educator of the old-
est son of the English king), Helinand de Froidmont’s De Bono Regimine Principum
(Chronicon, Liber XI, Ch. 38), and Gerald of Wales’ De Principis Instructione (ca. 1216).
390
For an exhaustive treatment of Vincent de Beauvais’ educational ideas, see
A.L. Gabriel, The Educational Ideas of Vincent of Beauvais, Second Edition (Notre Dame
Ind., 1962); J.M. McCarthy, Humanistic Emphases in the Educational Thought of Vincent
of Beauvais, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 10 (Leyden,
1976).
Very influential as well was a slightly younger ‘classic’ of aristocratic

education: De Regimine Principum by the Augustinian friar Egidio da
Roma (ca. 1278).391
Several mid- to late thirteenth-century encyclopaedic works of
Franciscan provenance included sections on the education of aristo-
cratic children and on the behaviour of secular rulers. Cases in point
are the De Proprietatibus Rerum (ca. 1235) by the English Franciscan
scholar Bartholomew Glanville (Bartholomaeus Anglicus),392 and John
of Wales’ Communiloquium (ca. 1266), the first section of which is fully
devoted to the conduct of the ruler.393 Yet the first genuine Franciscan
contribution to the mirrors-of-princes genre was the Eruditio Regum et
Principum, composed in 1259 by Guibert de Tournai at the request of
king Louis IX of France.394
This latter work mainly deals with the tasks of lay authority, and
with the knowledge and virtues that Christian kings and noblemen
must cultivate in order to perform these tasks properly. The Eruditio
Regum et Principum is divided into three parts, shaped as letters address-
ing prospective rulers. The first part dwells on diligence and the fear
of God as the foundations for ethical rule (four chapters on the rev-
erentia Dei and twelve on the diligentia sui ). Part two discusses the
mutual discipline required of subjects and the ruling classes (17 chap-
ters on the disciplina debita potestatum et officialium, and ten chapters per
oppositum de disciplina ipsorum). The third part shifts the attention to
the love and the protection of the subjects (affectus et protectio subditorum,
391
Among other early printed Latin editions, see De Regimine Principum (Augsburg,
1473).
392
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum (Cologne, 1472). For Bartho-
lomew’s educational ideas, see especially books six and seven. There exist several
late medieval translations. See for instance: On the Properties of Things. John Trevisa’s
Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum, ed. M.C. Semour et al.
(Oxford, 1975).
393
For a detailed analysis of the Communiloquium as a form of pedagogical writing,
see Swanson, John of Wales. A Study of the Works and Ideas of a Thirteenth-Century Friar,
63–119.
394
Eruditio Regum et Principum et Tres Epistolae ad Regem Franciae Ludovicum: MSS
Deventer, Athenaeumbibliotheek 10 V 3 (an. 1468); Bruges, Stadsbibliotheek 490
ff. 63r–89v; Oxford, Jesus College 18 ff. 24–67; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouv.
Acq. Lat. 480 ff. 37v–89r; Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana XXXI Sin. Cod. 8
ff. 214–226; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional II–2 ff. 1–28; Rome, Biblioteca Borghesiana.
241 ff. 274r–340v. For an edition of the text, see Guibert de Tournai, Eruditio Regum
et Principum, ed. A. de Poorter, Les Philosophes Belges, Textes et Études, IX (Louvain,
1914). See also the review by A. Callabaut, AFH 12 (1919), 298–302.
534 chapter seven
in seven chapters). Guibert states that the king and his officials are
servants of justice and the keepers of moral and religious discipline
within their realm. After all, the only raison d’être of authority is the
people’s welfare. The major inspiration for the Eruditio may have
been Plutarch’s Institutio Trajani, which Guibert would have known
via the compilations of Vincent de Beauvais (The chapters of the
Speculum Majus dealing with the scientia politica). In addition, Guibert
used a wide range of scriptural, patristic, philosophical, juridical,
medical, mythological and scientific authorities.
Very similar in its objectives, albeit rather different in its historical
approach is De Preconiis Hispaniae by the Spanish Franciscan encyclo-
paedist, historiographer and educator Juan Gill de Zamora (ca. 1241/
50–ca. 1318). After Gill had completed his lectorate course at Paris
around 1277, he first taught as a convent lector at Toulouse and
then at Zamora, soon to become involved in educational and diplo-
matic activities at the court of Alfonso X of Castile. In the course
of his life Gill produced a large literary output which, notwithstanding
important editorial efforts, as yet has not been given its proper due
in the context of later thirteenth-century Franciscan intellectual his-
tory.395 Between 1278 and 1282, when he was in charge of the edu-
395
For an initial overview of Juan Gill de Zamora’s extant works, the manu-
scripts and the available editions, see: G. Cirot, De Operibus Historicis Iohannis Aegidii
Zamorensis qui tempore Adelphonsi decimi Regis Castellae scribebat (Bordeaux, 1913); Fr. Juan
de Zamora. De preconiis Hispanie. Estudio preliminar y edición crítica, ed. Manuel de Castro
(Madrid, 1955), introduction; Manuel de Castro, ‘Jean-Gil de Zamora’, Catholicisme
VI (Paris, 1964), 645–647; Idem, ‘Gil de Zamora’, DSpir VI (Paris, 1967), 367–369,
with additional bibliographical information in DHGE XX, 1308–1309 and DHGE
XXVII, 64; Idem, Manoscritos Francescanos de la biblioteca nacional, 82–86, 180–181, 183,
329, 413, 410; Ch. Faulhaber, ‘Pedro de Blois, fuente del “Dictaminis Epithalium”
de Juan Gill de Zamora’, AIA 33 (1973), 251–268; Manuel de Castro, ‘La “Legenda
prima” de S. Antonio según Fr. Gill de Zamora’, AIA 34 (1974), 511–612; J.W.
Marchand & S.W. Baldwin, ‘A Maculist at the court of Alfonso el Sabio: Gil de
Zamora’s lost treatise on the immaculate conception’, FS 47 (1987), 171–180; Avelino
Domínguez García, ‘El mundo médio de la “Historia Naturalis” (ca. 1275–1296) de
Juan Gil de Zamora’, Dynamics 14 (1994), 249–267; Bengt Löfstedt, ‘Zum “Dictaminis
Epithalium” des Juan Gil de Zamora’, Habis 22 (1991), 383–398; F. Lillo Redonet,
‘El sermonario inédito de Juan Gil de Zamora a la luz de las “artes praedicandi”’,
in: Actas: I congresso nacional dde Latín medieval, ed. M. Pérez García (Léon, 1995),
285–292; Juan Tomás Pastor García, ‘Juan Gil de Zamora’, in: La filosofia española
en Castilla y León, de los orígenes al Siglo de Oro, ed. M. Fartos Martínez & V. Velázquez
Campos (Valladolid, 1997); Fernando Lillo Redonet, ‘El códice 414 de la biblioteca
de Asís y los sermones de Juan Gil de Zamora’, AIA 58 (1998), 145–172. See also
the introduction of the edition of Gil’s most important work: Historia Naturalis, ed.
Avelino Domínguez García & Luis García Ballester, Estudios de historia de la ciencia
y de la técnica 11, 3 Vols. (Barcelona-Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 1994).
cation of the ‘infante’ Sancho (the later Sancho IV/Sanchez IV), Gill
composed his De Praeconiis Hispaniae, which embeds the knowledge
and the virtues necessary for a future king in a patriotic, thematically
organised historical narrative, relating the history of the subsequent
Spanish peoples and their heroes in their struggles against intruders,
such as the Arabs. It speaks of Spain’s rich natural resources, the
virtues of its rulers and its renowned military commanders, the great
works of its scholars, its geography, the various bodies that constitute
the commonwealth, the mutual obligations of rulers and subjects to
maintain its welfare, and the proper arts of government and war.396
Gill’s work may be seen as the starting point of a significant
Spanish Franciscan tradition of political education that continued
well into the sixteenth century. Substantial contributions in this field
can be found in the works of Alvaro Pelayo (c. 1275–1349), Francesc
Eiximenis (ca. 1330–1409, whose Regiment de la Cosa Pública, as stated
above, eventually found its place in his Dotzén del Crestiá, chapters
357–395), Juan Garcia de Castrojeriz (fl. 15th cent.), Iñigo de Mendoza
(c. 1424–1502) and Antonio de Guevara (1480–1545). Nearly all
these friars were accomplished theologians with ties with the royal
courts of Aragon or Castile, and wrote their works of political educa-
tion with the moulding of future monarchs and monarch’s consorts
in mind.
Alvaro Pelayo’s Speculum Regum (written at Tavira between 1341
and 1344), which has come down to us in Latin and in Castilian, was
dedicated to Alfonso XI of Castile and Cardinal Gill de Albornoz.397
To all appearances it is a large and rather traditional princes’ mirror,
396
This work, which survived in about eleven manuscript, was edited as: Fray
Juan Gil de Zamora, O.F.M. De preconiis Hispaniae. Estudio preliminar y edicion critica, ed.
Manuel de Castro y Castro OFM (Madrid, 1955). For a first analysis of Gill’s recep-
tion of new Aristotelian political conceptions and his incorporation of these in a
traditional framework of Christian rulership, see Frank Tang, ‘De sterke’ koning.
Juan Gil de Zamora en zijn vorstenspiegel’, Theoretische Geschiedenis 21 (1994), 385–403.
397
Speculum Regum: MSS Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque Municipale Lat. 123; Munich,
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 3568; Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Bibliothèque
Royale 9596; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 3782 & 4994; Troyes,
Bibliothèque Municipale Lat. 91; Rome, BAV Barberini Lat. 1447. The Latin ver-
sion was edited as Speculum Regum, ed. M. Pinto Meneses, 3 Vols. (Lisbon, 1955–1963).
It might be interesting to compare Alvaro’s Speculum Regum with Dante’s De Monarchia.
For more information, see G. Schrick, Der Königsspiegel des Alvarez Pelayo (Bonn, 1953);
J. Morais Barbosa, La teoria política de Alvaro Pais no ‘Speculum Regum’ (Lissabon, 1972);
Isaac Vázquez, ‘Aportaciones historico-literarias a la historia del pensamiento medieval
en España’, Antonianum 47 (1972), 656–681.
536 chapter seven
with a strict behavioural programme, emphasising the importance of

cultivating the virtues conducive to Christian rulership. Not unlike
Gill de Zamora’s De Preconiis Hispanie, yet less practically oriented,
Alvaro concluded his Speculum with a discussion of righteous war.398
As a genuine hierocratic canonist and mendicant theologian, Alvaro
Pelayo underscored the total dependence of temporal power on the
spiritual power of the papacy, elements of which are also visible in
his more famous Summa de Statu et Planctu Ecclesiae.399 Whereas this
view on the relationship between temporal and spiritual power may
not have endeared the court of Alfonso XI to Alvaro’s narrative,
they would have approved of Alvaro’s strong defence of monarchy
as the best form of government and as an image of divine rule.
Egidio da Roma’ De Regimine Principum continued to be popular
on the Spanish Peninsula, a phenomenon that can also be charted
elsewhere.400 This popularity engendered a series of commentaries,
translations and glosses. One of these was the Glosas al Regimiento de
Príncipes by the Spanish Franciscan Juan Garcia de Castrojeriz, which
amounts to a complete Castilian reworking of the original text.401
398
For Alvaro’s view on warfare, see also Epistolae ad Alphonsum IV (1335): MS
Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Bibliothèque Royale 9596/7 ff. 116–117.
399
There are three versions of this work, respectively dating from 1330–1332,
1335 and 1340. Alvaro shows himself to be a staunch defender of the papal plen-
itudo potestatis, as opposed to the views of Marsilio di Padova and William of Ockham.
For a modern edition, see De planctu et statu ecclesiae, ed. Vittorino Meneghin in,
Idem, Scritti inediti di fra Alvaro Pais (Lissabon, 1969); Estado e Pranto da Igreja (Status
et planctus Ecclesiae) VI–VII, ed. & trans. Miguel Pinto de Meneses (Lisbon, 1996/1997);
Estado e Pranto da Igreja (Status et planctus Ecclesiae) VIII, ed. & trans. Miguel Pinto de
Meneses (Lisbon, 1998). See especially R. Scholz, Unbekannte kirchenpolitische Streitschriften
(Rome, 1911–1914) I, 197–207 & II, 491–529; N. Jung, Un franciscain, théologien du
pouvoir pontifical, Alvaro Pelayo (Paris, 1931); M. Damiata, Alvaro Pelayo teocratico scon-
tento (Florence, 1984).
400
From England stems for instance friar Stephen Baron’s Tractatulus de Regimine
seu Caritate Principum: MS London, British Library MS Royal 12 A. xvi (early 16th
cent.). This work was printed soon after its completion: Tractatulus de Regimine seu
Caritate Principum (London: W. de Worde, after 1509). See A Handlist of the Latin Writers
of Great Britain and Ireland Before 1540, ed. Richard Sharpe (Turnhout, 1997), 620.
401
Glosas al Regimiento de Príncipes: MSS El Escorial h. III. 2; El Escorial h. I. 8;
El Escorial K.I.5; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional 10223. For more manuscripts, see
A. García de la Fuente, ‘La obra “De regimine Principum” dei Beato Egidio de
Roma y su traducción castellana’, Religión y Cultura 11 (1930), 358–373 & 12 (1930),
208–223; F. Rubio, ‘De Regimine Principum de Egidio Romano en la Literatura
Castellana de la Edad Media’, La Ciudad de Dios 173 (1960), 32–71 & 174 (1961),
645–667; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales españoles en la edad media’, 248–249.
Juan Garcia’s reworking has been edited as: Glosa Castellana al ‘Regimiento de Príncipes’
de Egidio Romano, ed. & est. Preliminar Juan Beneyto Pérez (Madrid, 1947).
This reworking itself became the point of departure for another adap-
tation, namely the Dechado e Regimiento de Príncipes que Hizo a la Reina
Doña Isabel by the Spanish friar and religious poet Iñigo de Mendoza
of Burgos, who spent a considerable number of years at the courts
of King Enrico IV and of the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella
(until 1495). Adapting his message of political education to accom-
modate the intended female aristocratic audience around Queen
Isabella, Iñigo wrapped his edificatory message in a symbolic nar-
rative built around the cardinal virtues.402
Much more innovative were the various courtly manuals of Antonio
de Guevara, advisor and royal preacher at the court of Charles V,
and bishop of Guadix and Mondoñedo. Delving into classical sources,
in proper humanist fashion, and combining these with well-established
concepts of courtliness and political virtue, Antonio produced a set
of manuals for prospective rulers and their immediate entourage.
Tailored to the needs of the former were the Libro Áureo de Marco
Aurelio,403 the Vidas de los Diez Emperadores Romanos,404 published by
Antonio between 1528 and 1539, both of which were closely mod-
elled on classical examples, and his Libro Llamado Relox de Príncipes.405
For the courtiers around the ruler, he wrote a complementary Aviso
de Privados y Doctrina de Cortesanos406 and a Menosprecio de Corte y Alabanza
de Aldea.407 All these works extol the Stoic virtues of self-constraint
and imperturbation in the face of adversity, which could easily be
linked with the corresponding Christian virtues of patience and
endurance.408
402
Dechado e Regimiento de Príncipes que Hizo a la Reina Doña Isabel (Zamora, ca.
1495/Saragossa, ca. 1495). For more information, see M. Menéndez y Pelayo,
Antología de poetas líricos españos (Santander, 1944) V, 373–386; M. de Castro, ‘Mendoza
(Iñigo de)’, DSpir X, 1012–1013.
403
Libro Áureo de Marco Aurelio (Sevilla, 1528).
404
Una Década de Césares/Vidas de los Diez Emperadores Romanos (Valladolid, 1539).
This biography of Roman emperors was also translated into French and English.
405
Reloj de Príncipes/Libro Llamado Relox de Príncipes & Libro Áureo de Marco Aurelio
(Valladolid, 1529). Combined, this work was very well received and translated into
German, Hungarian, English, Dutch, Armenian, Italian, Latin, Polish, and French.
406
Aviso de Privados y Doctrina de Cortesanos (Valladolid, 1539). See also: Le Réveille-
matin des courtisans ou moyens légitimes pour pervenir à la faveur et pour s’y maintenir. Édition
bilingue espagnol-français, introd., ed. & trans. Nathalie Peyrebonne, Textes de la
Renaissance, Sources espagnoles (Paris, 1999).
407
Menosprecio de Corte y Alabanza de Aldea (Valladolid, 1539 etc.). An interesting
polyglot translation by Louis Turquet (presenting a Spanish, French, Italian, and
German text) appeared in 1591 in Lyon.
408
Antonio de Guevara’s Obras completas (Valladolid, 1539/Madrid, 1782–1783)
538 chapter seven
Outside the Spanish peninsula, the Franciscan contribution to this

kind of politico-moral instruction literature was frequently submerged
in those works of moral edification (whether sermon cycles or inde-
pendent treatises) that dealt with the various strata (status) of society,
as we have seen in some of the Observant edificatory treatises men-
tioned before. Yet I would like to mention an interesting Italian
example of ‘political’ edification dating from the early fourteenth
century, namely the Trattato de Regimine Rectoris by the encyclopaedist
historiographer Paolino da Venezia (Paolino Minorita), bishop of
Pozzuoli and a close acquaintance of Pope John XXII and the
Neapolitan court of Robert d’Anjou.
It may be argued that all major historiographical projects of Paolino
aimed at providing prospective religious and lay authority figures
with adequate historical, geographical, moral and religious knowl-
edge.409 Yet his Trattato de Regimine Rectoris, produced in the Venetian
vernacular at the request of Marino Badoer (Duke of Crete), and
inspired by Egidio da Roma’s De Regimine Principum, is more specifically
focused on the tasks and responsibilities of the various communities
that together shape human society: the family, collegial organisations,
cities, larger realms and kingdoms.410 The Trattato starts off with the
contain Una Década de Césares, Aviso de Privados y Doctrina de Cortesanos, Menosprecio de

Corte, De los Inventores del Arte de Marear, and the first part of the Cartas Familiares.
For more information on Antonio’s life and works, see L. Clément, ‘Antonio de
Guevara, ses lecteurs et ses imitateurs français au 16e siècle’, Revue d’histoire littéraire
de la France 7 (1900), 590–602 & 8 (1901), 214–233; R. Coste, Antonio de Guevara,
sa vie et son oeuvre, Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études Hispaniques 10, 2
Vols. (Bordeaux-Paris, 1925–1926); Atanasio López, ‘El “Monte Calvario”, meditado
por Fr. Antonio de Guevara’, EsFrns 50 (1933), 159–166, 234–239; Fidel de Ros,
‘Antonio de Guevara auteur ascétique’, EF 50 (1938), 306–332, 609–636 & AIA 6
(1946), 339–404; Lino Gómez Canedo, ‘La obras de Fr. Antonio de Guevara.
Ensayo de un catálogo completo de sus ediciones’, AIA 6 (1946), 339–404; J. Gibbs,
Vida de Fr. Antonio de Guevara (Valladolid, 1960); Manuel de Castro, ‘Guevara (Antoine
de)’, DSpir VI, 1122–1127; Agustín Redondo, Antonio de Guevara (1480 –1545), et
l’Espagne de son temps. De la carrière officielle aux oeuvres politico-morales (Genève, 1976);
Manuel Peña García, ‘Fray Antonio de Guevara guardián del convento de San
Francisco de Soria’, AIA 56 (1996), 447–450; Emilio Blanco, ‘Bibliografia de Fray
Antonio de Guevara, OFM (1480?–1545)’, El Basilisco 26 (Oviedo, 1999), 81–86.
409
See on this in particular I. Heullant-Donat, ‘Entrer dans l’histoire. Paolino da
Venezia et les prologues de ses chroniques universelles’, Mélanges de l’École Française
de Rome, Moyen Âge 105 (1993), 381–442 (gives all the manuscripts); Idem, Ab Origine
Mundi. Fra Elemosina e Paolino da Venezia. Deux Franciscains Italiens et l’Histoire Universelle
au XIV e Siècle, Thèse pour le doctorat ès-lettres, 3 Vols. (Paris, 1994), passim; Roest,
Reading the Book of History, Chapter VII; Idem, ‘A Meditative Spectacle’, 31–54.
410
Trattato de Regimine Rectoris di Fra Paolino Minorita, ed. A. Mussafia (Vienna-
necessary qualities of rectors or governors in general, and singles out

the virtues of prudence, impartiality, magnanimity, moral integrity
etc. that should guide their personal behaviour as well as underscore
their professional duties. The second part of the Trattato moves down
to the family level, defining the obligations of the (male) head of the
household with regard to spouse, children, and domestic servants.
These tasks include setting a proper example in matters of religion
as well as the obligation to instruct dependants in matters of morals
and religious virtue. The third book of the Trattato dwells on the art
of government, discussing the nature of proper counsel, the just appli-
cation of law, the importance of justice and the primordial maxim
to keep the interests of the people at heart.411
Florence, 1868). Partial editions of the second book on family life have appeared
as Del governo della famiglia, ed. C. Foucard (Venice, 1856) & Del reggimento della casa,
ed. A. Rossi (Perugia, 1860).
411
For more information see especially: A. Sorbelli, ‘I teoretici del reggimento
comunale, ch. 8: Fra Paolino Minorita e il trattato “De regimine rectoris”,’ Bullettino
dell’Istituto Italiano per il Medio Evi 59 (1944), 123–133.
CHAPTER EIGHT
PRAYER GUIDES
In their sermons1 and their works of theology (notably in the third

and fourth book of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio’s Sentences Com-
mentary, and in De Sex Alis Seraphim by the same author),2 Franciscan
authors habitually presented prayer as a fundamental building block
of the truly religious life, and therefore as essential for each and
every Christian.
This conviction in itself was not specifically Franciscan. Bonaventura
and many of his well-educated Franciscan colleagues shared this view
with a host of patristic and monastic authors. For their own Franciscan
theologies of prayer and for their Franciscan commentaries and prayer
manuals written for religious and lay people, the theoretical reflections
on and practical guidelines for prayer developed by patristic and
monastic authors were a natural point of departure.
Within this patristic and monastic legacy, the major source and
inspiration for public and private prayer had been the biblical text.
Many passages from the Old and New Testament found their way
in the proscribed forms of liturgical prayer and other kinds of pub-
lic prayer for purposes of praise, ablution, calls for divine assistance,
and collective repentance. Privileged passages from early on were
the Psalms from the Old Testament and the Pater Noster prayer from
1
As we have seen in an earlier chapter, prayer was dealt with in many Franciscan
sermons, either in the context of a catechistic instruction (explanation of the Pater
Noster), or in more elaborate fashion. Interesting definitions of prayer can for
instance be found in the sermons of Antonio di Padova and in the Sermones Dominicales
of Bonaventura.
2
Bonaventura, In Sent. III, in: Idem, Opera Omnia III, 201, 372b; In Sent. IV, in
Idem, Opera Omnia IV, 368b, 948; Bonaventura, De Sex Alis Seraphim, in: Idem, Opera
Omnia VIII, 148. For Bonaventura’s treatment of prayer in his learned scholastic
works, See especially Thomas Villanova a Zeil, Das Gebet nach der Lehre des hl.
Bonaventura (Bolzano, 1931); É. Longpré, ‘Bonaventure (saint): la voie purgative’,
DSpir I, 1794f, which give a host of further references to other locations in
Bonaventura’s scholastic and spiritual works. For Bonaventura, prayer was first and
foremost a ‘pius affectus mentis in Deum.’ For some of the spiritual works of
Bonaventura that also dealt with prayer as an exercise and as a spiritual phenomenon,
see below.
prayer guides 541
the Gospel, which, after all, was taught by Christ himself. These
same textual passages formed the well-spring from which developed
the manifold forms of individual prayer that developed in the early
and high monastic tradition, which spoke of prayer as one of the
four pillars of monasticism (alongside of lectio, meditatio and contemplatio).3
The innovative prayer guides and spiritual treatises of the major
authors of the twelfth-century reform, such as Guillaume de Saint-
Thierry, Bernard de Clairvaux, Hugues de Saint-Victor and Aelred
de Rielvaux, did not leave this tradition behind, but took much effort
to point out the correct human disposition or inner attitude with
which to engage in prayer, interpreted more and more as a con-
versation of the humble and devout human spirit with its maker and
the source of its redemption.4 As soon as the friars engaged in the
appropriation of religious learning, they quickly embraced this rela-
tively new development, as it squared with their own religious expe-
rience and with their aims of spiritual perfection.
On top of these informative traditions, which in the course of the
thirteenth century were amplified by the ongoing reception of the
pseudo-Dionysian corpus and the slow influx of Greek patristic classics,
nearly all Franciscan authors writing commentaries and prayer manuals
for religious and lay people were heavily inspired by the examples
of Francesco d’Assisi and his early followers. Francesco and his fellow
friars and sisters in the early movement embraced prayer in their
quest for leading an evangelical life in Christ’s footsteps. To this pur-
pose they not only exploited many Gospel passages to the full, but
also came up with new forms of evocative prayer, both in their
encounter of Christ’ incarnation and suffering, and in their spiritual
celebration of God’s creation.
3
The best general introduction to biblical, patristic and medieval prayer still is
found in the lemmata on prayer (prière) in DSpir XII (Paris, 1986), 2196–2288. See
also La prière au moyen âge. Littérature et signification, Senéfiance, 10 (Aix-en-Provence
& Paris, 1981). The Franciscan contribution to Pater Noster prayers and commen-
taries found its most recent synthesis in Comentarios Franciscanos al Padrenuestro, ed.
Carlos Mateo Martínez Ruiz (Salamanco, 2002).
4
Jean Châtillon, ‘Prière au Moyen Age’, DSpir XII (Paris, 1986), 2279–2282
mentions for instance Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, Meditativae Orationes, ed. M.-M.
Davy (Paris, 1934); Idem, Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei, ed. J.-M. Déchanet, Sources
Chrétiennes, 223 (Paris, 1975); Bernard de Clairvaux, Sermones, ed. J. Leclercq &
V. Rochais (Rome, 1966) IV, 370–376 & VI, 379–381; Hugues de Saint-Victor,
De Modo Orandi seu De Virtute Orationis, in: Patrologia Latina 176, 977–988; Aelred de
Rielvaux, De Vita Reclusarum, ed. C. Dumont, Sources Chrétiennes, 76 (Paris, 1961).
542 chapter eight
A. Franciscan prayer guides in the thirteenth century
Many prayers of Francesco and his early companions were never

written down. They are hinted at in the official hagiographical tra-
dition and in the cloud of writings associated with the ‘three com-
panions.’ As a matter of fact, the hagiographical accounts of Tommaso
da Celano and Bonaventura, as well as the Fioretti abound in refer-
ences to Francesco’s life of prayer. This probably took of in all seri-
ousness in 1203/4, after Francesco, inspired by a voice urging him
to go back to Assisi, abandoned his plans to join the papal troops
at Puglia in their fight against the emperor and returned home to
follow the commands of God.5
Elements of Francesco’s life of prayer can be found in his bene-
dictions, his songs, his letters, his para-liturgical texts, and in his rules
for the order. It is these latter normative texts that situate the impor-
tance of prayer within the regulated existence of the fraternity, insist-
ing that, whatever the friars do, they should take care that their
activities should not extinguish the ‘spirit of holy prayer and devo-
tion.’ In the end, all ‘worldly’ activities (be they begging, handicrafts,
teaching and probably even preaching) had to be subservient to this.6
Some of Francesco’s writings are the direct outflow of his own
ongoing engagement in prayer, namely the Oratio Ante Crucifixum Dicta,
the Exhortatio ad Laudem Dei, the Salutatio Virtutum, the Expositio in Pater
Noster and the Salutatio Beatae Mariae Virginis (the latter two of which
I have mentioned before in a different context). Francesco’ Oratio
Ante Crucifixum Dicta might be the oldest of these texts. Its surviving
Latin form probably is a copy from an Umbrian vernacular original,
which supposedly goes back to Francesco’s early meditations in front
5
A first introduction to Francesco’s (and Chiara’s) life of prayer is given in
E. Leclerc, Un maître à prier: François d’Assise (Paris, 1993); Leonhard Lehmann,
Francesco, maestro di preghiera, Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini (Rome, 1993); F. Marchesi,
Marta e Maria. La Preghiera e il lavoro nell’esperienza di Francesco e Chiara d’Assisi (Verucchio,
1994); F. Accrocca, ‘Francesco e Chiara: la preghiera come meditazione del mis-
tero dell’incarnazione’, Forma Sororum 34 (1997), 254–270.
6
All this is contained in a concise statement present in chapter five of the Regula
Bullata: ‘Fratres illi, quibus gratiam dedit laborandi, laborent fideliter et devote, ita
quod, excluso otio animae inimico, sanctae orationis et devotionis spiritum non
exstinguant, cui debent cetera temporalia deservire.’ François d’Assise, Écrits. Texte
Latin de l’édition de K. Esser, trans. & introd. Théophile Desbonnets, Jean-François
Godet, Thaddée Matura & Damien Vorreux, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981),
188.
prayer guides 543
of the crucifix found in the San Damiano chapel. With all its emo-
tional freshness and particular susceptibility towards the crucified
Christ, it has much in common with older medieval crucifix prayers,
and can be seen as a culmination point in this meditative legacy.7
Among these texts, the Expositio in Pater Noster, which I touched
upon before in my chapter on Franciscan catechetical literature, is
both a prayer in itself and a contemplation on the prayer of prayers
in the Christian tradition.8 The Exhortatio ad Laudem Dei,9 the Salutatio
Beatae Mariae Virginis,10 and the Salutatio Virtutum11 in their turn all have
very much a laudatory character, not unlike the poetic invocations
and celebrations that we find in thirteenth-century Franciscan reli-
gious lyrics (starting with Francesco’s own Cantico delle Creature). The
Salutatio Beatae Mariae Virginis in particular has been studied at length,
both as an early example of Franciscan Marian piety, and as an
indication of Francesco’s assimilation and mental processing of older
mariological currents.12
It has been argued that designated Franciscan prayer guides are
hard to find.13 Yet Francesco’s own spiritual writings, as well as the
7
Cf. Esser, ‘Das Gebet des hl. Franziskus vor dem Kreuzbild in San Damiano’,
1–11; T. Desbonnets, ‘Un témoin de la liturgie franciscaine primitive, Meaux B.M.
3’, AFH 63 (1970), 456.
8
Expositio in Pater Noster, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (1978), 157–161; François d’Assise,
Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 276–281. As said before, the ascrip-
tion to Francesco is not fully secured. See on the authenticity and characteristics
of the text especially, Kajetan Esser, ‘Die dem hl. Franziskus von Assisi zugeschriebene
Expositio in Pater noster’, CF 40 (1970), 241–271 (reprinted in Idem, Studien zu den
Opuscula des hl. Franziskus von Assisi (Rome, 1973), 225–257); J. Cambell, ‘Saint
François a-t-il composé une paraphrase du Pater?’, FrSt 45 (1963), 338–342. Giuseppe
Scarpat, Il Padrenostro di San Francesco, Antichità classica e cristiana, 33 (Brescia,
2000). For more information, see also my chapter on catechisms.
9
Exhortatio ad Laudem Dei, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (1978), 154–156; François d’Assise,
Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 332–333. Cf. Kajetan Esser, ‘Exhortatio
ad laudem Dei, ein wenig beachtetes Loblied des hl. Franziskus’, AFH 67 (1974),
3–17.
10
Salutatio Beatae Mariae Virginis, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (1978), 299–301; François
d’Assise, Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 274–275.
11
Salutatio Virtutum, Opuscula, ed. K. Esser (1978), 301–305; François d’Assise,
Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, 285 (Paris, 1981), 270–273.
12
For a first introduction into these issues, see F. di Ciacca, ‘Il “Saluto alla
vergine” e la pietà mariana di Francesco d’Assisi’, SF, 79 (1982), 55–64; Lorenzo
Ago, ‘La questione critica intorno alla “Salutatio Beatae Mariae Virginis” di San
Francesco di Assisi’, Antonianum 73 (1998), 255–303.
13
This is for instance the ‘informed’ view of Franz Xaver Haimerl, Mittelalterliche
Frömmigkeit im Spiegel der Gebetbuchliteratur Süddeutschlands, Münchener Theologische
Studien, Historische Abteilung, Band 4 (München, 1952), 35–36.
544 chapter eight
Franciscan rule and the subsequent Franciscan rule commentaries

and constitutions all testify to the importance of prayer within the
Franciscan edifice of spiritual reflection. This is also born out by the
elaborate reflections on prayer found in more wide-ranging Franciscan
works of spiritual edification, and in Franciscan spiritual letters and
novice training treatises.
Within the Dicta by Egidio d’Assisi, for instance, the life of prayer
is thematised more than once, especially in Dicta twelve and twenty-
four. Dictum twelve (De oratione et eius effectu), one of the longer Dicta
in the collection, describes prayer as the beginning and the end of
everything that is worth pursuing. Prayer shows the soul what is
worth yearning after and what not. Hence it is the road towards
the knowledge of God. It should be undertaken with patience and
endurance, and not in the expectance of immediate spiritual reward.
It is described as the crown of the Christian life, even more important
than the works of charity.14 Dictum twenty-four (De gratiis et virtutibus,
quae acquiruntur in oratione) elaborates on this picture by listing no less
than fourteen graces and virtues resulting from prayer.15 Together,
these virtues and graces bring true love, happiness, peace of mind,
and eventually the state of glory that will empower the soul to feed
itself properly with the words of God.16
Prayer is no less central in he influential affective spiritual teach-
ings of prayer by Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio, notably in his De
14
Dicta Beati Aegidii Assisiensis, Bibliotheca Franciscana Ascetica Medii Aevi (Ad
Claras Aquas: Quaracchi, 1905 & 1939), 41–47. Dictum twenty-three (De perseveran-
tia in oratione), Ibidem, 70–71 adds to dictum twelve by emphasising that ‘Religiosi
vocati sunt a Deo maxime ad vacandum orationi, humilitati et fraternae caritati . . .’
15
Ibidem, 72–74.
16
‘Multae sunt, quae merentur et inveniuntur gratiae et virtutes in oratione.
Prima est, quia illuminatur homo in mente; secunda, quia roboratur in fide; tertia,
quia suas cognoscit miserias; quarta, quia pervenit in sanctum timorem et humil-
iatur et vilescit sibi ipsi; quinta, quia pervenit in cordis contritionem; sexta, quia
purificatur conscientia; septima, quia stabilitur in patientia; octava, quia supponit
se obedientiae; nona, qui pervenit in veram discretionem; decima, quia pervenit in
scientiam; undecima, quia pervenit in intellectum; duodecima, quia pervenit in for-
titudinem; tertiadecima, quia pervenit in sapientiam; quartadecima, quia pervenit
in notitiam Dei, qui manifestat se his, qui adorant eum in spiritu et veritate. Postea accen-
ditur homo in amorem, currit in odorem, pervenit in dulcedinis suavitatem, duci-
tur in mentis quietem et tandem in gloriam perducitur. Postquam autem posuerit
os ad verba Altissimi, ubi anima satiatur, quis poterit eum separare ab oratione,
quae perduxit eum ad talem contemplationem?’ Ibidem, 72–73.
prayer guides 545
Triplici Via (Incendium Amoris), which treats prayer in its traditional

context of lectio/meditatio and contemplatio. These three activities together
are responsible for the purgation, illumination, and the perfection of
the soul via three complementary ways. After describing in the first
chapter how reading and meditation purges, illuminates and perfects
the soul, and before embarking in chapter three on the road of con-
templation, Bonaventura teaches in the second chapter of De Triplici
Via how the believer can use prayer to deplore human misery, ask
for mercy, and express joy, true reverence and love of the triune God.
In this composition, prayer literally is central to the religious approach
of the Divine.17
Another example of the place prayer could have in Franciscan
works of religious instruction is Adam Marsh’s lengthy epistle to
Sewald of York (ca. 1256), which I mentioned in my paragraph on
spiritual letters.18 While dealing with the good qualities and obligations
of the bishop, Adam elaborates in six short chapters on the various
forms of efficacious prayer and its beneficial effects.19
17
Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Ad claras Aquas: Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 3–27 &
esp. 8–11. Cf. Villanova a Zeil, Das Gebet nach der Lehre des hl. Bonaventura, pasim;
J.-F. Bonnefoy, Une somme bonaventurienne de théologie mystique: le ‘De triplici via’ (Paris,
1934); Cf.: Longpré, DSpir I, 1792–1842. Prayer does, of course, appear again in
Bonaventura’s other spiritual works included in volume VIII of the Quaracchi Opera
Omnia edition, such as the Soliloquium, the Lignum Vitae, De Quinque Festivitatibus Pueri
Iesu, De Praeparatione ad Missam, De Perfectione Vitae ad Sorores, the Officium de Passione
Domini, and in chapter ten of his Legenda Major (De studio et virtute orationis).
18
Epistola ad Sewallum: MS British Library, Cotton Vitellius C.VIII (second half
13th cent.); Oxford, Bodleian, Digby 104 ff. 90r–101v. For an edition, see Epistola
ad Sewallum, ed. J.S. Brewer, in: Monumenta Franciscana, Rolls Series, 4 (London,
1858), I, 438–489 (= epist. 247).
19
Namely chapters XI (De quatuor primariis conditionibus orationis exaudien-
dae cum Deus oratur ab homine, quae sunt mortificatio amara, tribulatio angusta,
mansuetudo suavissima, humilitas lucidissima), XII (Qualiter quatuor charismata,
scilicet castigatio, et compunctio, et mansuetudo et humilitas, ex quibus sacra
conficitur oratio, designantur per quatuor aromata, scilicet stacten, onicham, gal-
banum, et thus, ex quibus sacrum conficitur thymiama, sicut et in sacra oratione
signata in sancto thymiamate), XIII (Quae pura, quae purior, quae purissima est
oratio), XIV (Qualiter oratio fieri habet, in lingua et in spiritu et in mente; videlicet,
et in vita sensus, et in vita spiritus, et in vita intellectus, ut fructum salutis obtineat),
XV (De profectu orationis cum ipsi adsunt universa suprascripta, et de defectu
ipsius cum eidem abest aliquid de suprascriptis universis), XVI (Quod omnis pon-
tifex cum praefatis orationis divinae conditionibus orans Salvatorem ut mittat oper-
arios salutis in messem suam, sicut praedictum est, indubitanter exauditur). Ibidem,
449–458. Cf. Cantini, ‘Adam de Marisco, OFM, auctor spiritualis’, 467.
546 chapter eight
Within the context of novice training treatises, the works of David

von Augsburg, Bernard de Besse20 and Bonaventura21 come to mind.
David’s works in particular ask for our attention. First of all because
he was one of the earliest Franciscan authors systematically trying
to show incumbent friars and lay people the way towards efficacious
prayer, its phenomenology and its various functions. Second, because
David dealt with prayer both in the context of adjacent elements of
religious instruction and separately, in independent treatises.
At several occasions, he included concise instructions on the per-
formance of prayer exercises in his Formula de Compositione Hominis
Exterioris ad Novitios (the first part of his De Exterioris et Interioris Com-
positione Hominis).22 Far more extensive, however, is David’s treatment
of prayer in chapters 53 to 63 of his De Septem Processibus Religiosorum
(the third part of his De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione Hominis).23
In tune with David’s remarks on prayer in another work, namely
the Sieben Vorregeln der Tugend, these chapters of De Septem Processibus
Religiosorum discern mainly between three kinds of prayer. First of all
there is vocal prayer (oratio vocalis). This is based on ready-found
words taken from the Gospel, the Psalms, liturgical hymns, existing
prayer collections and laudatory poems.24 David envisaged that vocal
20
A good example is the twelfth chapter of Bernard de Besse’s Speculum Disciplinae,
edited in Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Ad Claras Aquas: Quaracchi, 1898) VIII,
583–622 (593–594). This chapter on the ‘discipline of the heart’ is foremost con-
cerned with prayer, described as the ‘. . . hostis flagellum, peccatoris subsidium, prox-
imi solatium, Dei sacrificium . . .’
21
Bonaventura’s Regula Novitiorum, edited in Bonaventura, Opera Omnia (Ad Claras
Aquas: Quaracchi, 1898) VIII, 475–490 deals in the first two of its sixteen chap-
ters with prayer in the context of the divine office (Chapter I: de divino officio,
pp. 475–476) and as a separate activity (Chapter II: De oratione, 476–479), explain-
ing in simple terms its importance and its proper approach.
22
See for instance chapter four (De disciplina in dormiendo servanda), chapter five (De
sollicitudine in divino Officio habenda) and chapter 23 (De oratione et meditatione in via
facienda, which touches on the adherence to the breviary prayers for the canonical
hours when the friars are on the road). David von Augsburg, De Exterioris et Interioris
Hominis Compositione secundum Triplicem Statum Incipientium, Proficientium et Perfectorum Libri
Tres (Ad Claras Aquas: Quaracchi, 1899), 7–8, 31.
23
LIII. De tribus modis orandi, et primo de vocali oratione, LIV. De secundo
modo orandi, LV. De gratiarum actione, LVI. De laudatione Dei, LVII. De tertio
modo orandi et orationis utilitate, LVIII. De multiplici praesentatione Dei in affectu
orantis, LIX. Hortatio ad orationem frequentandam, LX. Tria maxime a profectu
perfectionis retrahunt, LXI. De causis, quare non exaudiuntur orantes, LXII. De
specialibus orationibus, LXIII. Gradibus quibusdam inferioribus proficit anima ad
praedictum finem. Ibidem, 296–347.
24
‘Orandi tres sunt modi: unus vocalis et per verba composita et usitata, sicut
cum psalmos, hymnos, collectas vel alias orationes et laudes compositas ad exci-
tandam devotionem vel solvendum debitum recitamus . . .’ Ibidem, 296.
prayer guides 547
prayer had its natural place during the collective celebration of the
divine office, but he insisted that it could and should also be per-
formed solitarily, as part of the religious transformation of the self.
The second mode of prayer is more spontaneous vocal prayer, shaped
not by given formula but by words chosen by individual inclination
(oratio per verba ex proprio affectu formata). This kind of prayer is, as it
were, an intimate conversation of the self with God, and needs
moments of solitude and silence for its proper development.25 The
third mode of prayer is mental prayer (oratio mentalis), in which the
mind and the heart converse with (and in the end might loose them-
selves in) God through the working of selfless love and reverent ado-
ration. This prayer is the most proper kind to communicate with
God, but also the most difficult to attain and to sustain over longer
periods of time.26
Both in the De Septem Processibus Religiosorum and in the Sieben Vorregeln
der Tugend, the treatment of prayer is embedded in a wider context,
as is so often the case with Franciscan prayer doctrines. However,
the three types of prayer expounded upon in the afore-mentioned
works also form the central subject matter of David’s Latin treatise
De Oratione,27and they are integrated in the first three steps of David’s
German work Die sieben Staffeln des Gebets,28 of which we also have a
Latin version, entitled De Septem Gradibus Orationis.29 Both De Oratione
25
‘Secundus modus orandi est per verba ex proprio affectu formata, ut cum
homo Deo familiariter confabulatur verbis suis, vel etiam utitur verbis alterius affectui
suo tunc consonantibus, quasi coram Deo praesente cor suum effundens et vel neces-
sitas suas ei conquerens, vel peccata confitens, et misericordiam postulans et gra-
tiam petens et auxilium implorans contra tentationum pericula et tribulationum
gravamina vel quascumque suas vel suorum necessitates. Hic modus orandi magis
requirit opportunitatem solitudinis vel silentii circa se et otii et quietis, quo plenius
et securius se in Deum effundat affectus.’ Ibidem, 300–301.
26
‘Tertius orandi modus est mentalis, cum tacito ore sola mens sua desideria
Deo pandit et affectum cordis Deo effundit et eum intus per amorem amplectitur
vel cum reverentia adorat et veneratur, tanto latius se in Deum diffundens, quanto
plura valet affectus comprehendere quam lingua exprimere . . .’ Ibidem, 319–320.
27
Tractatus de Oratione, ed. Lempp, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 19 (1899), 343–345.
28
Die Sieben Staffeln des Gebets: MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek cgm 176
ff. 206r–228r; Zürich Zentralbibliothek C 76 ff. 149va–158rb; Karlsruhe, Landes-
bibliothek St. Peter 85 ff. 42vb–44rb; St. Florian, Stiftsbibliothek XI 123 ff. 44v–54r;
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. 1033 ff. 57r–65r; St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek Cod.
1066 ff. 226b–231vb; Berlin (Marburg a./L.) Staatsbiblithek germ. 4° 1596 ff.. 20v–
36r; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek cgm 7264 ff. 79rb–82ra. For an edition
of this so-called ‘B’ version, which apparently is the original German version com-
posed by David himself, see Kleine deutsche Prosadenkmäler des Mittelalters, Heft 1
(München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1965) & Franziskanisches Schrifttum I, 221–247.
29
De Septem Gradibus Orationis: MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 9667
548 chapter eight
and Die Sieben Staffeln des Gebets/De Septem Gradibus Orationis are excep-
tional in the way in which they concentrate on prayer itself. This
being said, it could be argued that, notwithstanding its German and
Latin title, the Die Sieben Staffeln des Gebets/De Septem Gradibus Orationis
is more than just a prayer guide. In its later chapters, it evolves into
a handbook of mystical ascent, guiding its readers via ever more
penetrating forms of prayer to contemplation and, finally, to the visio
beatifica in the afterlife.30
These examples may suffice to show that the relative lack of inde-
pendent Franciscan prayer guides in the thirteenth century and
beyond—aside from the works of David von Augsburg and the as-
ff. 185ra–189b; Zisterzienserabtei Heiligenkreuz Cod. 2.1.C.e. (olim 222) ff. 83r–87v.

It was edited as De Septem Gradibus Orationis: ed. J. Heerinckx, Revue d’ascétique et de
mystique, 14 (1933), 146–170. A modern Italian translation of this text was made by
Taddeo Bargiel and can be found in I Mistici. Scritti dei Mistici Francescani Secolo XIII,
I (Assisi-Bologna, 1995), 261–280. This Latin version, which was based on a German
original (cf. the 1965 edition of that text by Kurt Ruh), itself became the basis for
another German version (known among German scholars as version ‘A’, edited in
Deutsche Mystiker des 14. Jahrhunderts, ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1845), I, 309–397)
that is not the product of David’s own hands.
30
Steer, ‘David von Augsburg und Berthold von Regensburg. Schöpfer der
volkssprachigen franziskanischen Traktat- und Predigtliteratur’, 101ff. has given an
analysis of Die Sieben Staffeln des Gebets, basing himself on Ruh’s 1965 edition. Steer
suggests that for David man is created in God’s image. Yet this similitude can not
be reached with fasts and charitable works alone. Prayer eventually is the only
proper road (ein inganc ze gottis biwonunge). David’s depiction of the gates and
roads of prayer leading to spiriual perfection is connected with the description of
the entry in the tempel in Ezechiel 40, 22. The seven steps described by David
are not just seven steps in prayer, but stand for mystical stages in the ‘einunge’ of
man with God. The first grade is the ‘genote gebet mit dem munde’, that is intense
prayer with attention for the words themselves. The heart has to be with the words,
and should not be disturbed by ‘unstetekeit’ (the lack of constancy that David else-
where in his works calls the evagatio mentis). The second grade focuses on seeking
God in His word, by chewing and re-chewing God’s word in prayer (‘gotti wort
kuwen und trueken mit deme gebette’), and so derive from it its sweet savour. In
the third grade, the words of prayer are bypassed. And the heart now fills with the
‘begirde ze gotte.’ Even higher is the fourth grade, in which our mind is illumi-
nated (‘Da wirt du verstantnisse erluhtet ze erkennende unsihtige und himelsche
tougeni’) with many invisible and heavenly things, and in which we beget a deeper
insight in the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. In the fifth grade, our heart gets
intoxicated in the contemplation of God, and all the powers of the soul become
‘ein geist mit gotte.’ This leads to the sixth grade of prayer, the highest grade in
this life, which truly is called contemplatio, and in which man is taken out of him-
self into heavenly silence and divine rest (‘ueber sich selben gezueket in eine himelsche
stille und in eine gotliche ruowe’), at which point man is united with God in love.
Due to his weakness, man can only maintain this stage for moments at a time.
The final stage of prayer is equated with the visio beatifica in the afterlife, where the
angels and the saints see God ‘von antlutze zu antluze.’
prayer guides 549
yet not very well studied prayer guides of Pietro di Giovanni Olivi
(Pierre Jean Olieu), namely the Exercens Se Sacris Orationibus et Meditatio-
nibus sive Sacris Affectionibus, the Modus quomodo quilibet potest referre gra-
tias Deo de beneficiis ab Eo receptis and the De Oratione Vocali 31—should
not entice us to think that prayer was not given due recognition.
B. Late medieval Franciscan prayer guides
From the later fourteenth century onwards it became slightly more

common for Franciscan friars to write spiritual works exclusively
devoted to prayer and its techniques. The first prominent exponent
of this might be the Psalterium Laudatorium/Saltiri by Francesc Eiximenis.32
Reaching back to the Psalms, since centuries a privileged archive
from which to draw elements for both liturgical and mental prayer,
Eiximenis presented in this work three cycles of very affective prayers
for use in private moments of contemplative devotion. The first of
these cycles praises God the Creator and laments the miserable state
of man since the fall. The prayers in the second cycle consider the
work of redemption and the role of Mary, evoking a strong piety
and love towards the suffering Christ, and including prayers on the
name of Jesus, whereas the third cycle builds a progressive prayer
31
See Manselli, Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza, which on pp. 274–278 contains an
edition of the Modus Quomodo Quilibet Potest Referre Gratias Deo de Beneficiis ab Eo Receptis;
Idem, ‘Les opuscules spirituels de Pierre Jean-Olivi et la piété des béguins de langue
d’oc’, 187–201; Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, Scritti Scelti, ed. & trans. Jacques-Guy
Bougerol, Caspare Mura & Paolo Siniscalco, Fonti Cristiane per il Terzo Millennio
(Rome, 1989), 145ff. Olivi dealt at length with the Pater Noster and with the sub-
ject of prayer in his various Bible commentaries. Several of such expositions quickly
started to lead a life of their own. Olivi’s Pater Noster explanation in his commen-
tary on Matthew is edited by Ferdinand Delorme, Archivio Italiano per la Storia della
Pietà 1 (1951), 179–218. An English translation of Olivi’s remarks on prayer in his
commentary on the Acts of the Apostles can be found in David Flood, ‘Peter Olivi
on Prayer’, The Cord 48,1 (1998), 3–6.
32
Psalterium Laudatorium/Saltiri (Gerona, 1495). This Gerona edition gives the 1416
Catelan translation by G. Fontana of the text found in MS Barcelona, Biblioteca
de Catalunya [= Bib. Central] 464 and elsewhere (see above). In their Latin man-
uscript versions, these treatises are called: De Laude Creatoris (Tractatus de Essentialibus
in Divinis) & Psalmi Poenitentiales; Sequitur Secundus Tractatus qui est de Vita et Excellentia
Redemptoris; ubi fit Memoria de Ejus Matre Sanctissima et de Angelis et de Quibusdam Ei
Quoquomodo Annexis; Incipit Tertius Tractatus: de Vita Hominis Viatoris. These texts were
again edited as: Psalterium alias Laudatorium Papae Benedicto XIII Dedicatum. Three Cycles
of Contemplative Prayers by a Valencian Franciscan (. . .), ed. Curt Wittlin, PIMS Studies
and Texts, 87 (Toronto, 1988).
550 chapter eight
book to accompany man on his way to his true destination. Half a

century later we come across one of the first Observant specimen
of this genre: the Livre de dévotions by the French friar Bonaventure
(fl. ca. 1440), which still stands in the Pseudo-Bonaventurian Meditationes
Vitae Christi tradition, and devotes its 38 ‘dévotes oroisons’ to the
passion of Christ, the Virgin, and the sacrament of the Eucharist.33
From Bernardino da Siena onwards, the preachers of the Italian
Observance had much to say about prayer in their sermons of reli-
gious instruction. For internal purposes they also touched upon the
importance of mental prayer in their religious teachings for novices
and in their general and provincial constitutions.34 Yet some of the
first designated prayer guides within Observant circles might have
been written in female Observant communities. These Observant
nuns took their inspiration not solely from the teachings of their
male Observant contemporaries, but could reach back to the spiri-
tual legacy of Chiara d’Assisi, notably her Forma Vitae and her spir-
itual letters to Agnes of Prague.35 This legacy made a deep impact
33
Livre de dévotions: MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Français 190 ff. 103–180
(xve s.). Several of these prayer exercises, such as the Bon et salutaire advertissement
pour à toute heure dire à Nostre Seigneur (f. 139) and the La manière de vivre dévotement chas-
cun jour de la septmaine (f. 176) also contain some references to the devotional letters
and the Opera Tripartita by Jean Gerson. MS Chantilly, Musée Condé 1474 (xve s.)
contains one of the 38 sermon exercises of the Livre de dévotions, namely the Heures
de la passion de Jhesu Christ Nostre Seigneur par vers et bons mètres de six. This Heures de
la passion can also be found on f. 129 of MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Français
190. See: Paulin Paris, Les manuscrits français de la Bibliothèque du Roi (Paris, 1838) II,
115–121; H. d’Orléans Chantilly, Le cabinet des livres. Manuscrits (Paris, 1900) I,
131–132 (no. 141); E. Vansteenberghe, Revue des sciences religieuses 15 (1935), 548–549;
DSpir I, 1856–1857.
34
For a more or less complete inventory of these constitutions, see Chapter II.
There I also mention some of the Observant provincial constitutions that have spe-
cial information on mental prayer exercises at certain moments of the day. See on
this also Alosto, ‘De oratione mentale in ordine Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum’,
42ff. where the author mentions the specific mental prayer regulations in the 1452
novice training letter of Giovanni da Capistrano, the guidelines of the ultramontan
vicar for the Bavarian province (1465), the 1480 provincial statutes of the Alsatian
province, etc.
35
The importance of the life of prayer for the community is expressed in chap-
ter seven of Chiara’s rule. The prayers found in Chiara’s letters and spiritual remarks
exhibit a strong devotion to Jesus as the ultimate lover and beloved one. This is
particularly the case in Chiara’s fourth letter to Agnes, which develops a strong
prayer of desire, replete with nuptial imagery taken from the Song of Songs. On
the similarities and differences between the approach towards prayer by Francesco
and Chiara d’Assisi, see Margaret Slowick, ‘A Comparison of Francis and Clare’s
Approaches to Prayer’, The Cord 49,4 (1999), 166–170.
prayer guides 551
on the Christocentric mental and liturgical prayer promoted within

the early Colettine movement,36 and among the Observant commu-
nities of Poor Clares in Italy and Southern Germany, such as the
Santa Maria di Montevergine convent at Messina under the abba-
tiate of Eustochia Calafato (d. 1486).37 A proper inventarisation of
the prayer programmes in these productive Observant communities
of Poor Clares still has to be made.
The three most successful late fifteenth-century prayer guides asso-
ciated with the Italian Franciscan Observant movement, namely the
Giardino de oratione, the Trattato della perseveranza and the Monte de la
oratione, have come down to us anonymously. Although the Observant
Franciscan provenance of these texts is not fully secured, it is in any
case beyond doubt that they circulated widely in Franciscan com-
munities of nuns and female tertiaries, and quickly gained a wider
lay audience.38
Comparable prayer guides circulated within the German lands and
the Low Countries. There too, we frequently are dealing with anony-
mous compilations of prayers and devout exercises. The compilers
of these German and Dutch prayer guides more often than not col-
lected their prayers from many different corners, privileging frag-
ments from the spiritual works of Bernard de Clairvaux, Bonaventura,
Ubertino da Casale, Ludolf von Sachsen, and Jean Gerson. Such
36
There is not much good scholarship available on the life of liturgical and men-
tal prayer within the early Colettine communities. For a first introduction, see
Christopher Bisett, ‘St. Colette of Corbie: Mysticism as a Life of Prayerful Discernment’,
The Cord, 49,4 (1999), 196–203.
37
Her long prayer Dulcissimo amore mio Iesu Cristo is for instance included in chap-
ter ten of her Vita, edited by P. Augostino Amore, in: Sacra Congregatio Pro Causis
Sanctorum. Officium Historicum, B. Eustochiae Calafato, Virginis Clarissae. Positio Super Virtutibus
ex Officio Concinnata (Rome, 1976). Eustochia might have written a full-blown Monte
de la Orazione, which is akin to her work on the passion of Christ. In this context
is mentioned MS Palermo, Biblioteca Comunale cod. 2 Qq. E. 19, which appar-
ently contains a selection of prayers entitled Lu libru di lu Munti di la sanctissima ora-
cioni. For more information on Eustochia, see G. Intersimone, La beata Eustochia
Calafato, clarissa messinese (Rome, 1956); Clément Schmitt, ‘Eustochie Calafato (bien-
heureuse)’, DSpir IV, 1714–1715; F. Terrizzi, La beata Eustochia (1434–1485) (Messina,
1982); P. Rinelli, Vivo io non più io. La spiritualità della beata Eustochia da Messina
(Messina, 1982); Gerardo Cardaropoli, ‘Eustochia Calafato da Messina (1434–1485)’,
in: Mistici francescani, III: Secolo XV (Milan, 1999), 819–836.
38
See on these works the work of Zarri, ‘La vita religiosa femminile tra devozione
e chiostro’, esp. 142–143 & notes 45 to 47, as well as Stanislao da Campagnola,
‘Il “Giardino di orazione” e altri scritti di un anonimo del Quattrocento. Un’errata
attribuzione a Niccolò da Osimo’, CF 41 (1971), 5–59.
552 chapter eight
prayer guides recycled devout materials over and over again, and
normally were very eclectic. Franciscan nuns and tertiaries did play
a role in the production and recycling of such materials, as they did
in the ongoing reproduction of booklets connected with the pseudo-
Bonaventurian tradition.
In the Dutch and German provinces, new Franciscan configurations
that dealt with prayer in a more systematic manner were predomi-
nantly to be found in the many catechistic manuals and edificatory
treatises that made their appearance from the later fifteenth century
onwards, and that have been discussed before. In these works, voice-
less mental prayer was nearly always embedded in the context of
daily and weekly cycles of devout reading, verbal prayer (such as
repetitive cycles of Pater Noster and Ave Maria prayers) and bodily
exercises. More confined independent prayer books for private devo-
tion do not stand out. Notable exceptions to this rule known to me
are an anonymous Franciscan prayer guide from ca. 1500 now kept
in the Bavarian State Library in Munich,39 and the ‘Golden’ prayer
book (T’Gulde Gebedeboeck) issued by the productive Observant friar
Franciscus Vervoort (ca. 1495–1555).40
The largest Observant Franciscan corpus of more or less inde-
pendent prayer guides seems to stem from the early sixteenth-cen-
tury Spanish Peninsula, partly following the legacy provided by
Eiximenis and partly profiting from the strong meditative bent of
the various Iberian Observant initiatives that had sprouted up in the
course of the fifteenth century.41 A definite hallmark in this Spanish
Franciscan tradition was the Tercer Abecedario (1527) by Francisco de
Osuna (ca. 1492–1541) which, as we have seen, formed part of the
latter’s multi-volume Abecedario Espiritual, and undoubtedly was the
39
See MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 9087.
40
T’Gulde Gebedeboeck (Antwerp, 1594/Antwerp, 1597/Antwerp, 1602/Antwerp,
1604/Brussels, 1604/Antwerp, 1615/Antwerp, 16116/Antwerp, 1623/Antwerp,
1638/Antwerp, 1672/Antwerp, 1679/Utrecht, 1680). See OGE 2 (1928), 361–392;
OGE 35 (1961), 182–214; OGE 36 (1962), 129–164, 353–371; De Troeyer, Bio-
Bibliographia Neerlandica Saec. XVI, I, 238–30 & II, 371–396; Idem, ‘Vervoort (François)’,
DSpir XVI, 506–509.
41
Another treatise that should be mentioned in this context is the Libro de la con-
templación by Ramón Llull (d. 1315). Originally written in Arabic in 1273 (which
suggests missionary objectives as much as anything else), it appeared in a Latin edi-
tion in 1505. Particularly in the last of its five parts it concentrates on the various
forms of prayer supported by man’s mental faculties of understanding, memory and
wil, and on the role of prayer as a privileged means to intensify the love for God.
prayer guides 553
most successful volume in the series. The prayer techniques unfolded

in the Tercer Abecedario go back to Francisco de Osuna’s training in
the Recollect Nuestra Señora de la Salceda convent and comparable
meditation-oriented Franciscan centres within the Spanish Guadalajara
region. Inspired by his meditative experiences in these communities,
Francisco developed a so-called recogimiento style of mental prayer and
meditation, which started with the nada penser: a technique that emp-
ties the heart, purges the higher faculties of the soul, as well as one’s
external actions and modes of speech, so that it becomes possible to
evolve into an unencumbered receptacle of divine light.42
Francisco de Osuna’s doctrine of prayer as developed in the Tercer
Abecedario, which is not fundamentally different from the prayer tech-
niques described in the Via Spiritual by Bernabé de Palma (1469–1532)
and the Subida del Monte Sión by Bernardino de Laredo (1482–1540),
both of which I have mentioned elsewhere, had a large impact on
the Spanish spiritual landscape, both within and beyond the Franciscan
order. It would seem that Osuna’s influence was definitely present in
the Tratado de Oración (1540),43 written by the Observant friar Christoforo
Ruiz (ca. 1490–1550), and in the works of Francisco Ortiz, (1497–1547),
with whom Osuna cultivated close ties of friendship.44
42
Tercer Abecedario (Toledo: Ramón de Petras, 1527/Valladolid, 1537/Burgos,
1544/Sevilla, 1554/Burgos, 1555/Madrid, 1638/Madrid, 1911/London, 1931 &
1948 (English translation)); Tercer Abecedario, ed. Miguel Mir, Nueva Biblioteca de
Autores Españoles, XVI (Madrid, 1911); Tercer Abecedario Espiritual, ed. Melquíades
Andrés, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (Madrid, 1972); Místicos franciscanos españoles
II. Tercer abecedario espiritual de Francisco de Osuna, ed. S. López Santidrián, Biblioteca
de Autores Cristianos, 592 (Madrid, 1998). See Julio Aramendia, ‘Las oraciones
39 (1935), 245–253, 291–292, 345–352; P. Benito, ‘Sur une traduction anglaise du
troisième Abécédaire’, Bulletin hispanique 45 (1943), 62–68; M. Andrés, Francesco de
Osuna. Tercer Abecedario Espiritual (Madrid, 1972). An English translation appeared as
Francisco de Osuna, The Third Spiritual Alphabet, trans. & introd. Mary E. Giles, The
Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 1981).
43
Tratado de Oración (Mexico, 1540). See Wadding, Annales Minorum XIX (Quaracchi,
1933), 77; Francesco Gonzaga, De Origine Seraphicae Religionis (Venice, 1603), 1453;
Marcellino da Civezza, Storia delle Missione Francescane (Prato, 1881) VI, 555 & VII/2,
594, 605; DSpir XIII, 1122. Ruiz’ Tratado was one of the first prayer guides pub-
lished in Mexico (where Christoforo had been active as the guardian of the
Tlalmanalco convent since 1538), and might have been one of the foundational
texts for the development of Franciscan spirituality in the New World.
44
Other Franciscan authors of prayer guides on whom Osuna’s work had a for-
mative impact were Pedro de Alcántara (1499–1562) and Martin de Lilio, whose
literary careers move beyond the chronological boundaries of this book. Pedro de
Alcántara’s Tratado de la Oración very successfully served as a guide of meditative
554 chapter eight
Francisco’s Epístolas Familiares repeatedly take up the theme of

prayer in the context of humility and the necessary preconditions
for spiritual growth.45 Meditative prayer also comes to the fore in
the spiritual teachings of his De Ornatu Animae (Tratado del Adorno del
Alma).46 This probably is Francisco’s most famous work, and discusses
at length in which ways Christ is the model for our soul. Meditative
prayer is even more central to Ortiz’ devout exposition on Francesco
d’Assisi’s commentary on the Pater Noster,47 to his Oratio Latina pro
Congregatione Capitulari (which goes back to a public meditation held
prayer for lay people and has survived in more than 200 editions, the first of which
go back to the mid-sixteenth century. Four modern editions appeared in the course
of the twentieth century: Tratado de la oración y meditación (Madrid, 1916/1933/1956/
1977). Pedro’s Tratado shows many resemblances with a contemporary treatise on
meditation and prayer written by the Dominican friar Luis de Granada, but uses
a wide range of other Patristic and medieval sources, and especially Giovanni Cauli,
Pseudo-Tauler, Alonso de Madrid, Francisco de Osuna, Antonio de Guevara, and
the Instrucción para novicios by Martin de Santa María Benavides. For additional
details, See M. Ledrus, ‘Grenade et Alcantara. Deux manuels d’oraison mentale’,
Revue d’Ascetique et de Mystique 38 (1962), 447–460 & 39 (1963), 32–41; Luis Villasante,
‘Doctrina de S. Pedro de Alcantara sobre la oración mental’, Verdad y Vida 21
(1963), 207–255; Manuel de Castro, ‘Algunas ediciones del “Tratado de oración y
meditación” de san Pedro de Alcántara, OFM’, Revista de literatura 31 (1967), 105–117;
Mariano Acebal Luján, ‘Pierre d’Alcántara’, DSpir XII, 1491–1493; Místicos francis-
canos españoles, I: Vida y escritos de San Pedro de Alcántara, ed. R. Sanz Valdivieso,
Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 570 (Madrid, 1996); Marcos Rincón Cruz, ‘Los
escritos de San Pedro de Alcántara. Edición completa’, Verdad y Vida 57 (1999),
537–548; Julio Herranz Migueláñez, ‘San Pedro de Alcántara y la espiritualidad
alcantarina’, Verdad y Vida 57 (1999), 411–449; Peter Dyckhoff, Über die Brücke geben.
Exerzitien im Alltag nach Petrus von Alcántara (Munich, 2001). Léon Amorós, ‘San Pedro
de Alcántara y su “Tratado de la oración y meditación”. Nueva revisión del prob-
lema’, AIA 22 (1962), 163–221 (194–201) shows that Martin’s Tratado is not much
more than an abbreviation and simplification of that of Pedro de Alcántara. Lilio’s
text first was published as the Suma de fray Luis de Granada: Tratado de oración mental
y exercicios espirituales ahora nuevamente corregido y añadido (Alcalá de Henares, 1558).
45
Epístolas Familiares (Alcalá, 1551/Alcalá: J. Brocar, 1552/Alcalá, 1555/Saragossa,
1552/Saragossa, 1592). Francisco Ortiz, (1497–1547) was an Observant Spanish
friar of Jewish descent. After 1532, due to his active stance against inquisitorial
practices, he was more or less forced to give up his preaching career and to retreat
in the convent of Torrelaguna. Notwithstanding his conflicts with the inquisition,
and despite the fact that he harboured some concepts akin to those embraced by
the by then rather suspect Alumbrados and Recogidos movements, his writings
escaped massive condemnation and could be published throughout the sixteenth
century.
46
De Ornatu Animae/Tratado del Adorno del Alma (Alcalá, 1548/Alcalá, 1549/Madrid,
1547/Saragossa, 1552).
47
Expositio in Orationem Dominicam a Sancto Francisco Notis Illustratam/Paternoster Decorado
(Alcalá, 1551/Saragossa, 1552). It might be interesting to compare this work with
Francisco de Hevia’s Itinerario.
prayer guides 555
in front of the provincial chapter at Toledo, 1524),48 and to his

Opuscula Varia Spiritualia, a composite work, containing among other
things a Soliloquium inter Animam et Deum: a work of meditative prayer
that was also published separately (sometimes together with the Via
Spiritus Abreviada by Andrés Ortega & Juan de Borja).49
Possibly slightly more independent was the prayer guide of Francisco
de Hevia (fl. ca. 1550), which for a long time was virtually lost among
Franciscan bibliographers. Contrary to the meditative traditions dom-
inant among the Franciscans in the Iberian peninsula at the time,
the Itinerario de la oración by Francisco de Hevia is first and foremost
a straightforward explanation of vocal prayer. As the second part of
the work is completely devoted to an exposition of the Pater Noster,
it could well be that this work was meant to function as a text of
complementary catechistic instruction. This would be in line with
the perspectives developed in some of Francisco de Hevia’s other
works (such as the Confessionario, the Praeparatio Mortis and the Espejo
del Alma, all of which are mentioned in another chapter).50
48
Oratio Latina pro Congregatione Capitulari (Saragossa, 1552).
49
Opuscula Varia Spiritualia (Saragossa, 1552); Soliloquium inter Animam et Deum (Alcalá,
1548 & 1551/Toledo, 1550 & 1553/Saragossa, 1552). Together with his brother
Pedro, Francisco Ortiz wrote the Avisos/Anotaciones sobre los Ejercicios espirituales de San
Ignacio, ed. C.M. Abad, Miscelánea Comillas, 25 (1956), 25–114. Cf. H Camilo Abad,
‘Unas “Anotaciones” del Dr. Pedro Ortiz y su hermano Fr. Francisco, OFM, sobre
los “Ejercicios espirituales” de san Ignacio’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesus 25 (1956),
437–454; H. Bernard-Maitre, ‘Les “anotations” des deux frères Ortiz sur le traité
de l’election des Exercices spirituels (vers 1541–1546)’, Revue d’Ascetique et de Mystique
34 (1958), 393–434. For more information on Francesco Ortiz’s life and works, see
Sbaralea, Supplementum I, 490; Juan de San Antonio, BUF I, 414–415; B. Llorca,
‘Sobre el espíritu de los alumbrados. Fr. Hernández y Fr. Ortiz’, Estudios Eclesiásticos
12 (1933), 383–404; Juan Meseguer Fernández, ‘Fr. Francisco de Ortiz en Torrelaguna.
Notas para su biografía’, AIA 8 (1948), 479–529; Angela Selke, El Santo Oficio de la
Inquisicíon. El Proceso de Fr. Francisco Ortiz (1529 –1532) (Madrid, 1968); Antonio
Márquez, ‘Consciencia personal o consciencia social? Un franciscano frente al Santo
Oficio’, Hispania Sacra 22 (1969), 447–458; Mariano Acebal Luján, ‘Ortiz Yánez’,
DSpir XI, 1004–1008; Rodríguez, ‘Autores espirituales’, 547–548.
50
Libro llamado Itinerario de la oración donde se declara muy copiosa y provechosamente la
santísima oración del Pater Noster, hecho y copilado por el padre fray Francisco de Evia, predi-
cador de la orden de los menores de la provincia de Sanctiago de Obsercancia (Medina del
Campo: Guillermo Millis, 1553). An Italian version was prepared by Julio Constantino
Recanatensi (Venice, 1581). For a modern edition, see: Francisco de Hevia, Itinerario
de la oración, ed. Manual de Castro (Madrid, 1981). A short review by F. Uribe can
be found in AIA 44 (1984), 249–250.
556 chapter eight
C. Early Capuchin prayer guides
Maybe inspired by some of the more accessible Spanish examples

of the Alcantarine reform, and certainly by their own redefinition of
the Franciscan life, the early Italian Capuchins anchored the life of
prayer more securely in their early constitutions.51 On top of that,
they became rather quickly involved in the development of prayer
exercises for their own communities and for the catechistic instruc-
tion of the laity. With regard to the former two early Capuchin
authors stand out, namely Giovanni di Fano (d. 1535) and Bernardino
Palli d’Asti (1483–1557).
Giovanni Pili da Fano was one of the most important Capuchin
authors during the formative years of this new branch within the
Franciscan family. He was instrumental in the transformation of the
Capuchins into a pastoral taskforce and provided the early Capuchins
with materials for novice training and catechistic teaching. Giovanni’s
most important contribution to the Capuchin culture of prayer (on
top of his role in designing the prayer prescriptions in the early
Capuchin constitutions) is the popular Arte de la Unione, written shortly
after 1534 during a meditative retreat after his rather abrupt trans-
fer to the Capuchins.52
The Arte de la Unione might well be the oldest printed Capuchin
book. It offers lay and religious people alike with a method of prayer
to arrive at a life of perfect love of and in God. Following the Bona-
venturian triad of the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways of
spiritual ascent, as well as elements from Garcia de Cisneros OSB’s
51
The best introduction to that is given in Alosto, ‘De oratione mentale in ordine
Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum’, esp. 40–41 and 46–49 (prayer in the Capuchin
constitutions of 1529), 49–58 (the important utterances of prayer in the Capuchin
constitutions of 1536), and 58ff. (prayer in the Capuchin constitutions of 1552, 1575,
1608 and 1643).
52
Operetta devotissima chiamata Arte de la Unione, la quale insegna unire lanima con Dio,
utilissima non solo a li regulari, ma ancora a li seculari spirituali et devoti (Brescia: Damiano
& Jacomo Philippo fratelli, 1536/Brescia, 1548/Rome, revised edition by Dionisio
da Montefalco, 1622). A French version appeared as: L’Art de s’unir à Dieu (Lyon:
J. Roussin, 1624). A modern edition can be found in I fratri cappuccini III, 297–429.
For a first introduction, see F. Callaey, ‘De arte unionem cum Deo consequendi
iuxta P. Ioannem a Fano addita appendice de septem doloribus S. Joseph (1536)’,
Analecta Ordinis Fr. Min. Cap. 39 (1923), 259–264, 279–283; Optatus van Veghel,
‘Scriptores Ascetici et Mystici Ordinis Capuccinorum’, Laurentianum 1 (1960), 100–115;
L. Lehmann, ‘Johannes v. Fano’, LThK, 5 (1996), 905; DHGE XXVII, 448–450.
prayer guides 557
Exercitatorio de vida espiritual, Henry of Herp’s Speculum Perfectionis, and

the works of Bartolomeo Cordoni and Pietro da Lucca (his more
immediate authorities), Giovanni enlists daily prayer as the privileged
means to aspire via this threefold road to a level of spiritual growth
at which the soul can hope to obtain an affective union (a spiritual
marriage) with God in contemplation.53 Yet Giovanni goes beyond
providing a mere theory of prayer in this itinerary of the soul’s ascent
through the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways. To facilitate
neophytes in and outside the order, Giovanni gives detailed advice
on prayer techniques, the times and subjects suitable for the different
prayer exercises for the various days of the week, and the proper
bodily posture and bodily movements during prayer.54 In many of
his prayer exercises, the central focus is Christ. Yet in the midst of
the Arte de la Unione is found a short treatise on the seven sorrows and
seven joys of St. Joseph: a sign of the growing importance attached
to the Holy Family as a whole.55
Bernardino Palli d’Asti’s Orazione devote, another early Capuchin
classic, is closely bound up with the author’s engagement in the draft-
ing of the 1536 Capuchin constitutions, in which both liturgical and
mental prayer received much emphasis. To help young friars finding
the right mixture of interior peace and apostolic ‘elan’ in their per-
sonal life of prayer, Bernardino developed in his Orazione devote a
basic doctrine of mental prayer exercises. Contrary to the work of
Giovanni da Fano, Bernardino’s aim was not to prepare the friars
for mystical union, which after all was a road only open to the elect.
Instead, he devised a programme of affective mental prayer that
53
In the Prologo, ed. Cargnoni, 300, Giovanni announces: ‘. . . acioché li devoti
e amorosi desideri de pervenire a questa impreciabile unione possino el suo intencto
piú facilmente consequire, ho pensato in stilo basso, in lingua materna e vulgare e
con iusta brevità, recoglier quello che molti, da Dio illuminati e in questo dignis-
simo exercizio experti, hanno scripto. E perché bisogna che l’anima sia ben pur-
gata per essere apta a li divini lumi e splendori per posser pervenire a la desideria
unione, però pongono tre vie, cioè purgativa, illuminativa e unitiva.’ Giovanni is
convinced that the highest level of unifying contemplation is not a human activity
but a divine gift. In that stage, it is the Holy Spirit who fulfills the mystical, lov-
ing union with the Divine. Comparable ideas can already be found in the spiritual
works of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio and Guibert de Tournai.
54
The best introduction to the work as a whole still is Alonso, ‘De Oratione
Mentali in Ordine Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum: Joannes a Fano’, 164–192.
55
See the work of Callaey mentioned in one of the previous notes, as well as
Jean-Joseph Lemire, ‘Jean de Fano et la dévotion aux sept douleurs et sept allé-
gresses de saint Joseph’, Cahiers de Joséphologie 11 (1963), 65–80.
558 chapter eight
would be able to kindle the love of God in all Capuchin friars, build-
ing on elements central to their religious formation, namely humility
and compunction, devotion to the mysteries of Christ’s life and death
and to the joys and sorrows of the Virgin, the emulation of the
saints, and the systematic fight with the love of the self, the world,
the flesh and all carnal pleasure.56
The early Capuchin contribution to the life of prayer of the laity
was manifold. Capuchin preachers quickly became involved in the
popularisation, among Italian confraternities, of so-called Quarantore
prayer exercises. These exercises had their origin in the Milan area.
There, in the early 1530s, local Barnabite monks, secular priests, as
well as Capuchin preachers (such as Giuseppe Piantanida da Ferna,
one of the driving forces behind North-Italian ‘scuole di dottrina
cristiana per i fanciulli’, that is catechistic schools for the urban
youth), organised lengthy prayer marathons, in which the various
confraternities in town were assigned set periods of silent mental
prayer in front of a crucifix. Selected members from a confraternity
were supposed to perform in their turn a prayer tour of forty hours
each, after which members of another confraternity would continue.
This created an unbroken marathon sequence of mental prayer for
a number of weeks (for instance the forty days leading up to Easter
Sunday). Throughout these prolonged prayer sessions, which could
be initiated and concluded with solemn processions and religious ser-
vices, the participants had to imprint the image of the crucifix upon
their heart. Parallel to these prayer sessions, each confraternity habit-
ually also assigned some of its members to special community ser-
vices among the ill in the urban hospitals. In this way, the devout
approach of the suffering Christ through prayer in front of a crucifix
corresponded with an imitation of Christ’s service among the sick
and the poor.
From the Milan region, the Quarantore spread first through the
Italian peninsula (in the 1540s and the 1550s), and thereafter to
other Catholic countries in Europe and the New World. Although
this devotional practice was not immediately of Capuchin or wider
Franciscan origin, it is not to be wondered at that the Capuchins
were quick to stimulate its proliferation and wrote specific guidelines
56
Orazione devote (Milan, 1535). Aside from other old editions, they were also
edited in I frati cappuccini III, 40–43.
prayer guides 559
and sermons for their proper performance. Some of these are anony-
mous.57 Others were the product of renowned Capuchin preachers,
such as Giuseppe da Ferno and Bernardino Ochino.58 These efforts
tie in with Capuchin Christocentric spirituality, which fed on late
medieval devotions to the Passion, the Eucharist, and the Holy Name
of Jesus (a devotion stimulated by Bernardino da Siena and his
Observant colleagues), and cohered with the early Capuchin ambi-
tion to follow Francesco d’Assisi in his relentless imitatio Christi.59
To promote the practice of Christocentric mental prayer among
the laity, the early Capuchins also engaged in the production of des-
ignated prayer books. Maybe the first of its kind is the 1539 prayer
guide of Girolamo da Molfetta, the Alcune regule de la oratione, which
was based on a series of priorly held sermons on the Holy Name
of Jesus. The overall aim of this ‘rule book’ is to enable lay people
to regain the Divine spouse (Christ, that is), through a process of
mental prayer. The prayer exercises in this work are followed by a
series of meditative exercises on the Holy Name, which in actual
fact amounts to a guided tour through the 33 mysteries of Christ’s
life on earth from the incarnation to the Pentecost experience.60
57
See I frati cappuccini III/2, 2959–2962.
58
Giuseppe da Ferno wrote in 1538 a Metodo per le quaranture a San Sepolcro. In
1540, Bernardino Ochino developed a programme of Quarantore prayers for the
Milan confraternities. From his programme it becomes very clear that he wanted
to bolster the lay spirit of penitence and aimed at guiding it towards proper rec-
onciliation with God via mental prayer routines and complementary charitable
actions. Partial editions of Bernardino’s rather ambitious prayer programmes can
be found in C. Cantú, Eretici d’Italia. Discorsi storici (Turin, 1866) II, 33–44; I frati
cappuccini III/2, 2963–2973. In the later sixteenth century, Mattia da Salò would
become a renowned propagator of the Quarantore. Cf. his Ordini nella orazione delle
quaranta ore and his later methodological reworking of these in his Trattato della santa
orazione delle quaranta ore (which eventually was printed at Brescia in 1588).
59
On the Capuchin contribution to the Quarantore in general, see Costanzo
Cargnoni, ‘Le quarantore ieri e oggi. Viaggio nella storia della predicazione cat-
tolica, della devozione populare e della spiritualità cappuccina’, IF 61 (1986), 329–460.
This article appeared separately in book format in the series Sussidi Formazione
permanente—Nuova serie, 10 (Rome, 1986). As the meaning of such prayer marathons
should be made clear to all, it became common practice to produce additional ser-
mons of instruction to accompany the guidelines. This initiated the output of a
number of Capuchin booklets of letteratura devozionale predicabile, directed at preachers
who were to instruct lay penitential groups engaged in these mental prayer exercises.
60
Alcune regule de la oratione mentale con la contemplatione de la Corona del nome di Iesu,
predicate da Fra Hieronymo da Melfetta (Milan: Francesco Cantalupo, 1539). For a partial
edition, see also I fratri cappuccini III, 429–445. The Regule are directly dependent
upon the spiritual works of Cordoni. At the end of the 1539 edition is found a
560 chapter eight
Another rather popular Capuchin prayer guide from this early

period is the Specchio d’Orazione by Bernardino da Balvano (d. ca. 1557).61
Like Girolamo da Molfetta’s Alcune regule de la oratione, Bernardino’s
prayer ‘mirror’ started its life as a series of quaresimal sermons (held
at Messina in 1553). Allegedly following requests of his lay audience,
Bernardino reworked these into an independent treatise that would
in mirror-like fashion reflect the light of prayer as it shines through
the Word of God. In its 33 short chapters the work unites and elu-
cidates in an accessible fashion the biblical materials of interest for
all those (lay and clerics alike) who, moved by their devout reading
or hearing of the biblical text, want to engage in serious mental
prayer, so that their mind may be opened towards a true contem-
plative understanding of the biblical truths and the mysteries of
Christ.62 It shows that, for Bernardino, the Bible is the ultimate
prayer book, and that for him the fundamental objects of prayer are
the mysteries of Christ Suffering, Christ Victorious and Christ Divine.63
Tavola Cristiana/Tabula per la religione cristiana, di tutte quelle cose che ciascuno è tenuto di
apere, which is a small catechism.
61
Specchio d’Orazione, nel quale con brevità si contengono la necessità, e i frutti di quella/Specchio
di oratione nel quale con brevità si contiene d’essa sacrosanta oratione la necessità e utilità con
l’ordine e regole si ha d’essercitare e gli suoi frutti, utile e necessario a tutti i fideli cristiani
(Messina: per Pietro Spira, 1553 & 1573/Rome, 1556 & 1566/Parma, 1556 & 1566/
Venice, 1564, 1566 & 1593/Carmagnola, 1581/Bologna, 1605). A corrected partial
reprint of the 1553 Medina edition can be found in: I Frati Cappuccini III/1, 555–636.
A Spanish translation of the Specchio came out in Zaragosa (1604), whereas a Latin
version appeared in Munich (1627).
62
Hence, the introductory letter of Bernardino addressed at Vincenzo Gaza,
inserted in I Frati Cappuccini III/1, 103–104 states: ‘Sancta ex pagina quidquid fere
quod orantis est sparsim insertum in unum redegi, veluti in speculum, in quo qui-
dem qui prius tenebrarum caligine abtecti fuerunt, luce clarius speculari possint,
quid sit oratio ipsa, quot eius species preparationesque ipsius et conditiones, quamve
necessaria et utilis. Orandi etiam videtur et modus. Eodem insuper et ad Deum et
ad sanctos qualiter orationes offerant, lucidissime cernitur. Unde et poterint oratores
et imitari quod cupiant et fugere quod oportet.’
63
Bernardo da Bologna, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Ordinis Minorum S. Francisci Capuccinorum
(Venice, 1747), 43ff., 185; Lexicon Capuccinum (Rome, 1951), col. 201; DBI XV, 198–
200; DSpir I, 1515; Ottaviano Schmucki, ‘Lo “Specchio di oratione” del P. Bernardino
da Balvano, OFMCap.’, IF 65 (1990), 5–32.
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INDEX OF AUTHORS
Adam Marsh Itinerarium sive de Sacra Peregrinatione

Epistola ad Sewallum 448–449, 545 463
Epistolae 448 Libellum de Usuris 354
Summa de Poenitentia (lost) 316 Topografia Terrae Promissionis 463
Adriaan van Mechelen 260, 371–372 Tractatus in Regulam Fratrum Minorum
Een salich ende profitelijck onderwijs seu Serena Conscientia 135–136
vander Biechten 344–345 Alessandro Vincioli
Onderwijsinghe ende instructie hoe hem een Statutae 202
yeghelijck sal bereyden ter taferelen Gods Alexander Minorita 315
te gane ende te ontfanghen dat weerde Alexander of Hales 89
heylighe Sacrament 344–345, 372 Expositio Quatuor Magistrorum 129
Aelred de Rievaulx OCist. 475, 541 Summa Halensis 236, 362
Agnes de Vaux Alfonso da Ilha
Lettres 458 Libro llamado Thesoro de virtudes 434
Agnes Sachs 107 Alonso de Madrid
Albertino da Verona 27, 33–35 Arte para servir a Dios 518–521
Sermones de Beata Virgine 34 Espejo de Illustres Personas 518, 520
Sermones de Festivitatibus Sanctorum Memorial de la Vida de Jesucristo (?)
34–35 510, 512, 520–521
Sermones de Mortuis 34 Tratado de la Doctrina Christiana (?)
Sermones Dominicales 34 520–521
Sermones Quadragesimales 34 Alonso de Molina 265–269
Alberto da Perugia Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y
Quaestio utrum videlicet Confessor habeat castellana 269, 347
Auctoritatem Absolvendi 337 Confesionario mayor, en lengua mexicana y
Alberto da Pisa castellana 269, 347
Sermo de Caritate Salvatoris 476 Doctrina cristiana breve traducida en
Alberto da Sarteano lengua mexicana 269
Epistolae 462–463 Doctrina cristiana en lengua mejicana muy
Orationes de Corpore Christi 495 necesaria 269
Alberto da Verona 20 Alvaro Pais (Alvaro Pelagio/Alvaro
Albert Puchelbach 222 Pelayo) 193
Albert von Stade Epistolae Variae 455–456
Annales Stadensis 315 Littera ad Fratrem Juvenalem 456
Raimundus 315 Quinquagesilogium/Sermones 39
Troilus 315 Speculum Regum 535–536
Aldonça de Montsoriu 492 Summa de Statu et Planctu Ecclesiae
Aldovrando da Fiagnano 33 455
Alessandro Ariostio di Bologna Amadeo Menez de Silva 152
Abbreviatio Tractatus Restitutionum S. Andalo da Imola
Bernardini 354 Verba Salvatoris Nostri Domini Iesu
Enchiridion sive Interrogatorium pro Christi in Missali Posita 368, 488
Animabus Regendis sive Interrogatorium Andreas Alvares
Confessorum 354 Regula Tertii Ordinis 204–205
Epistola ad Fr. Simonem de Rhegio OFM André de Prado
462–463 Horologium Fidei 262
624 index of authors
Spiraculum Francisci Mayronis seu Liber Epistolae 462

Distinctionum 262 Quadragesimale de Aeternis Fructibus
Andrés de Ortega Spiritus Sancti 68–70
Libro del Via Spiritus abreviado de nuevo Quadragesimale de XII Mirabilibus
434, 555 Christianae Fidei Excellentiis 67–68
Angelica, see: Paula Antoinette de Sermone de’ dodici frutti della confessione
Nigris 68
Angelo Carletti da Chivasso (de Tractatus de Virtutibus 341
Clavasio/de Chivasso] 348, 351f Tractato utile e salutifero degli consigli de
Manuscriptum (. . .) in Quo Agit de la salute dello peccatore 341, 416
Decem Praeceptis Decalogi et de Septem Antonio de Córdoba
Vitiis Capitalibus 351 Expositio Regulae 137
Statuta pro Clarissis 189 Summa Casuum Conscientiae 349–350
Summa de Casibus Conscientia (Summa Antonio de Guevara 535ff
Angelica) 253, 351–352 Aviso de Privados y Doctrina de
Tractatus de Restitutionibus 351 Cortesanos 537
Angelo Clareno 72, 147, 379, 446 Cartas familiares 471
Epistolae 453 El Monte Calvario 510, 514
Expositio Regulae Fratrum Minorum Las Siete Palabras 514
128–129 Libro Áureo de Marco Aurelio 537
Historia Septem Tribulationum 473 Libro Llamado Relox de Príncipes 537
Praeparantia Christi Iesu Habitationem Menosprecio de Corte y Alabanza de Aldea
453–454 537
Angelo da Venezia Oratorio de religiosos y ejercicio de
Confessione generale 343 virtuosos 225–226
Angelo Tancredi Vidas de los Diez Emperadores Romanos
Expositio Regulae Fratrum Minorum 140 537
Anselm of Canterbury OSB Antonio de Moneglia
Meditationes 475 In Divini Dyonisii Misticam Theologiam
Monologion 388 Clarissima Commentaria 415
Antonio Balocco, see Antonio da Sursum Corda 415
Vercelli António de Portalegre
Antonio da Atri Meditaçõ da inoctissima morte e payxã de
Exercitio spirituale 490 nosso señor em estile metrificado 514
Antonio da Bitonto 66, 72, 463–464 Antonio de Valenzuela
(commemoration of ) Doctrina Christiana 264–265
Sermones de B. Mariae Virginis Antonio di Padova (Antonio de
Festivitatibus 67 Coimbra) xx, 21–25, 26, 28
Sermones de Doctrina Ecclesiastica 66 (in sermons), 34 (in sermons), 53,
Sermones de Privilegiis sanctorum 66 359 (liturgical commemoration)
Sermones Quadragesimales de Vitiis 66 Miscellanea 23
Sermones super Epistolas Domenicales per Sermones Dominicales et Festivi 22–24,
Totum Annum 66 476, 540
Sermo seu Regula de Cognitione Peccati Antonio Sassolini
Mortalis 67 Illuminata Conscientia 341–342
Speculum Animae 339 Ascencio di S. Colomba
Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Jesu Principia in Theologia 47–48
Christi 495 Distinctiones 47–48
Antonio da Matelica della Marca 66 Sermones 47–48
Expositio Orationis Dominicae 238 Astesano d’Asti
Antonio da Pinerolo 271–273 Summa de Casibus Conscientiae (Summa
Dialogo del maestro e del discepolo Astesani ) 332–333, 334
272–273 Summa Quaestionum Sacrae Scripturae de
Antonio da Vercelli (Antonio Balocco) Omni Materia (lost?) 332
66–70 Augustinus von Alveldt 345
index of authors 625
Commentarius super Regulam Sancti De Conformitate Vitae Beati Francisci ad

Francisci 136–137 Vitam Domini Iesu 35, 48, 134,
Commentarius super Regulam Sanctae 201, 473–474
Clarae 136–137, 187–188 Quadragesimale de Casibus Conscientiae 48
Sermo de Confessione Sacramentali/Ein Quadragesimale de Contemptu Mundi 48
Sermon von der sacramentalichen beycht Bartolomeo Vecchi da Bologna
345 Modo d’incaminare i novizi con santa
Tractatus de Communione sub Utraque uniformità di cerimonie e riti 228
Specie 345 Bartolomeu Catany
Wider Luthers Trostunng an die Christen Sermones 20
zu Hall 345 Battista Alfani 413
Leggenda della Serafica Vergine Santa
Baldasare Olimpo da Sassoferrato Chiara 188, 413
101, 103 Battista da Varano (Camilla Battista da
Problemi 103 Varano)
Sermoni 103 I dolori mentali di Gesù 224, 493
Balduinus von Brandenburg Vita Spiritualis 381–382
Summa Titulorum super Decretalibus Battista Girolama di Montefeltro
Gregorii IX 318 Testamento 185
Barbara Freydung 187–188 Battista Trovamala de Salis 348,
Barbara Stromer 85 350–351
Barbel Welden 86 Rosella Casuum Conscientiae (Summa
Barnabas (13th century preacher) 21 Rosella) 350–351
Barnabas (Bernabé) de Palma 436 Summa Casuum Conscientiae (Summa
Via Spiritus/Via spiritual/Libro llamado Baptistiana) 350–351
Via de la Perfección Espiritual del Benedetto Bartolomei 55
Anima 436–437, 553 Benedict d’Alignan
Vida de Christo 436 De Summa Trinitate et Fide Catholica in
Centiloquio del Alma 436 Decretalibus 243
Declaración de los misterios de la Misa Benvenuta da Gubbio 20
436 Benvenuto da Orvieto
De los cuatro Novissimos y Postrimerias Statutae 195–196
del Hombre 436 Berengarius Frédol 329
Doctrina Christiana 436 Bernard de Besse 214–217, 222, 228
Grados de la Oración y contemplación Epistola ad Quendam Novitium Insolentem
436 et Instabilem 214
Bartholomaeus Anglicus (Bartholomew Liber de Laudibus Beati Francisci 12,
Glanville) 27 192, 197
De Proprietatibus Rerum 49–50, 111, Speculum Disciplinae 214–216, 360,
533 546
Bartolomeo Caimi, see: Bartolomeo da Bernard de Clairvaux OCist. x, 79,
Milano 86, 89, 116, 217, 227, 405, 444,
Bartolomeo Cordoni 419, 557 475, 482, 541, 551
Dyalogo de la unione spirituale de Dio con Bernardino Bulgarino da Brescia 61
l’anima 419 Bernardino Caimi da Milano 66
Bartolomeo da Colle Quadragesimale de Articulis Fidei 76–77
Tractatus de Confessione 340 Bernardino da Balvano
Tractatus de Fide sive Explicatio Symboli De Novem Effusionibus Sanguinis
Niceni 250–251 D.N.J.C. 514
Bartolomeo da Milano Il mistero della flagellazione di N.S. Gesù
Interrogatorium seu Confessionale Cristo ridotto in forma di meditazione
336–337, 355 per tutti i giorni della settimana 514
Summula de Testamentis Faciendis 337 Meditationes de Vita Christi et Eius
Bartolomeo da Rinoncio (Bartolomeo Matris Virginis Mariae 514
da Pisa) Specchio d’Orazione 560
Bernardino da Busti 66, 77–78, 193 Quadragesimale de Evangelio Aeterno 54

Defensorium Montis Pietatis 78 Quadragesimale ‘Seraphim’ 54
Mariale de Singulis Festivitatibus Beatae Selecta ex Autographa Budapestinensi 54
Virginis Mariae 77, 472 Sermo de Scientiarum Studiis 500
Rosarium Sermonum Praedicabilium ad Sermo de Septem Amorosis et Ardentissimis
Faciliorem Predicantium 78, 202 Verbis quae Christus in Cruce Dixit
Thesauro Spirituale 77–78 480
Tractatus de Imitatione Christi 78 Sermones de Tempore 54
Bernardino da Feltre 56, 60–62 Sermones Imperfecti 54
Confessione generale 340 Specchio/Trattato della Confessione 338
Predica devotissima 61 Summa Confessionis 338
Quadragesimale 61–62 Tractatus de Octo Beatitudinibus
Sermones de Adventu 61–62 Evangelicis 54
Bernardino da Fossa 66, 72–74 Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Jesu
Admonitioni 250 Christi 495–500
Centurio 73 Tractatus de Preceptis Regulae 135
Chronica Fratrum Minorum Observantiae Tractatus de Spiritu Sancto et de
72 Inspirationibus 54
Peregrinus Sermonum 73 Tractatus de Vita Christiana 54
Sermones Diversi 73 Una doctrina di sancto Bernardino 338
Tractatus de Quolibet Statu Fidelium Bernardino d’Asti (Bernardino Palli
73–74 d’Asti) 163
Tractatus Praedicabilis Intitulatus de Declarazione circa il vestire 139
Floribus 73–74 Bernardino de Arévalo
Bernardino da Montolmo, see: Decisiones con sus probaciones acerca del
Bernardino Ducaina da Montolmo estado y manera de vivir de los frailes
Bernardino da Siena xx, 52–55, 64, Menores 137
72, 74, 76, 135, 147ff, 167 (liturgical Tratado muy provechoso de muchos avisos
commemoration), 187, 550 (prayer que tocan a nuestra Regla y estado
in sermons), 559 (Holy Name of 137
Jesus) Bernardino de Laredo
Declaratio S. Bernardini de Senis circa Josephina 437
aliqua dubia super Regulam Fratrum Subida del Monte Sion 437, 512–513,
Minorum Fratribus de Observantia 553
totius Italiae 135, 462 Bernardino Ducaina da Montolmo
De Veritate et Firmitate Christiane Fidei Meditazione della Passione 514–515
251 Bernardino Ochino 118, 163, 465
Il nome di Gesù. Predica volgare inedita Dialogi 418–419
54–55 Quarantore 559
La confessione di sancto Bernardino volgare Sermones Quadragesimales 118
utilissima e brieve 338 Bernardino Palli d’Asti
Le prediche volgari: Predicazione del 1425 Epistola de Peculiaribus Fratris Minoris
in Siena 54–55 Capuccini Virtutibus Caritate Scilicet et
Le prediche volgari: Quaresimale Fiorentino Paupertate 465
del 1424 54–55 Lettere de electione e de la reprensione
Le prediche volgari: Quaresimale Fiorentino 465
del 1425 54–55 Orazione devote 556–558
Littera Sorori Nicolinae Abbatissae 462 Bernardo da Colpetrazzo
Prediche della settimana santa, Firenze Historia Ordinis Fratrum Minorum
1425 54–55 Capuccinorum 161
Prediche Volgari sul Campo di Siena, Berthold Kule
1427 55 De Peccatorum Nocumentis 402
Quadragesimale de Christiana Religione De Tempore Mortis eiusque Incertitudine
54 402
Novem Gladii Dolorum B. Virginis seu 357–358, 386–389, 399, 404–406,

Tractatus de Compassione B.M.V 477ff (passion devotion), 540ff (and
402 prayer)
Tractatus de Pulchritudine Anime et eius Breviloquium 239, 318, 323, 388
Deformatione 402 Collationes de Decem Praeceptis seu
Berthold von Freiburg OP 327–328 Expositio Decalogi 7, 238–239
Berthold von Regensburg xx, 18, Collationes de Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti
27ff, 43, 303, 383 7
Deutsche Predigten 31–32 Collationes in Hexaëmeron 7
Die Zeichen (Bezeichenunge) der heiligen Comm. in III Libro Sententiarum 318,
Messe 31, 366 540
Prüder Davids Lehre von geistlichen leuten Cur Fratres Non Promoveant Ordinem
31, 212–213 Poenitentium 196
Rusticanus de Communi Sanctorum De Perfectione Vitae ad Sorores seu de
29–30 Forma Perfectionis Religiosorum
Rusticanus de Dominicis 29–30 217–218, 404, 477, 545
Rusticanus de Sanctis 29–30 De Quinque Festivitatibus Pueri Jesu
Sermones ad Religiosos 29–30 406, 477, 545
Sermones Speciales vel Extravagantes De Regimini Animae 386
29–30 De Sex Alis Seraphim 361, 477, 540
Tria Sunt Genera Religiosorum Dominus Determinationes Quaestionum circa Regulam
Resurrectus 212–213 Fratrum Minorum 4–5, 130
Berthold von Wiesbaden De Triplici Via (Incendium Amoris)
Paratus Continens Sermones de Tempore et 386–387, 396, 406, 544–545
de Sanctis 45 Epistola ad Abbatem Sanctae Mariae
Bertram von Ahlen Blesensis 449
De Investigatione Creatoris per Creaturas Epistola ad Abbatissam et Sorores Sanctae
402 Clarae Monasterii de Assisio
De Laude Domini Novi Saeculi 402 449–450
Excerpta Bertrami ex Operibus Henrice Epistola ad Fratrem Laurentium 450
Gandavensis, Godefride Fontibus et Epistola ad Fratres Custodem et
Iacobi de Viterbo 402 Guardianum Pisarum 450
Bertrand de la Tour 45–47 Epistola ad Fratres Universos 450
Collationes ad Status 47 Epistola ad Guidonem Comitem Flandrie et
Collationes de Sanctis 47 Matildem Uxorem Eius 450
Collationes Dominicales 46 Epistola ad Ministrum et Fratres
Postilla super Epistolas Dominicales et Congregationis Beatae Virginis in
Feriales 46 Civitate Brixiensi 450
Postilla super Epistolas Sanctorales 46 Epistola ad Omnes Ministros Provinciales
Postilla super Evangelia Dominicalia et et Custodes Ordinis Fratrum Minorum
Ferialia 46 450
Sermones de Evangeliis Dominicalibus 46 Epistola ad Recommendatos Beatae Virginis
Sermones de Evangeliis Sanctorum 46 in Urbe Roma 450
Sermones de Mortuis 46 Epistola ad Omnes Ordinis Ministros
Bianca Maria Scappi Provinciales 450
Viaggio spirituale per la meditazione Epistola Continens Viginti Quinque
412, 491–492 Memoralia 449–450, 509
Bindo da Siena Epistola de Concordia cum Capitulo
Sermones Dominicales 39 Sanctae Mariae Cameracensis
Bonaventura (‘fra’ Bonaventura) Stabilienda 450
Confessione generale breve e utile 340 Epistola de Imitatione Christi 449–451,
Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio xii, xx, 477
79, 89, 99, 111–112, 116, 130, 142, Epistola de Sandalis Apostolorum 449
216–217, 222, 227, 228, 258, 278, Epistola de Tribus Quaestionibus 130
Explanationes Constitutionum Generalium Bonvesin della Riva 246f, 309

Narbonensium 143 De Discipulorum Preceptorumque Moribus
Itinerarium Mentis in Deum 402 246–247
Laudismus de Sancta Cruce 278, 477 De Vita Scolastica 246–247
Legenda Major 48, 359, 545 Expositiones Catonis 246–247
Legenda Minor 359 Le cinquanta cortesie da tavola 247
Lignum Vitae 85, 217, 406, 477–479, Libro delle tre scritture 284
545 Scolastica Moralis 246–247
Officium de Passione Domini 360, 367,
475, 477, 545 Camilla Battista, see: Battista da
Quare Fratres Minores Praedicent et Varano
Confessiones Audiant 4–5, 318–319, Caritas Pirckheimer 85
335 Ansprachen 413–414
Regula Novitiorum 216, 360, 546 Denkwürdigkeiten 382, 413, 461
Sermo de Modo Vivendi 91 Epistolae 461
Sermo de Sanctissimo Corpore Christi Catarina Cybo (Duchess of Camerino)
477 418
Sermo in Die Veneris Sancta: passio Caterina Vigri da Bologna 223f, 404,
domini nostri Jhesu Christi secundum 411
quatuor evangelistas devote collecta Doctrina beatae Caterina 411
477 ‘Explicatio Formae Vitae’ 188–189
Sermones 11, 12 I Dodici Giardini 411
Sermones de Diversis 12 Le sette armi necessarie alla battaglia
Sermones de Tempore 12 spirituale 223–224
Sermones Dominicales 12 Lettere 460
Sermo super Regulam Fratrum Minorum Libro devoto 411
130 Rosarium Metricum 411, 491
Soliloquium de IV Mentalibus Exercitiis Sermoni 411
82, 386–388, 545 Trattati 411
Statutum pro Scribendis Libris Choralibus Catherine Rufiné
cum Notis Quadratis 358 Lettres 458–459
Tractatus de Praeparatione ad Missam Cecilia Coppoli 184, 413
360, 545 Testamento 185
Vitis Mystica seu Tractatus de Passione Cherubino da Spoleto 66, 72, 184,
Domini 217, 477–479 529ff
Pseudo-bonaventurian tradition xii, Conforto Spirituale de’Caminanti a Porto
xiii, 483ff, 550ff di Salute 529–530
Bonaventura da Vicenza Regola della Vita Matrimoniale
Statuta Generalia ac Decreta Fratrum 529–531
Tertii Ordinis Sancti Francisci de Regula della Vita Spirituale 72,
Poenitentia 205 529–530
Bonaventura Fabbri 184 Regola e Modo del Vivere nel Stato
Bonaventure (fifteenth-century friar) Viduale 529–530
Livre de dévotions 507, 550 Regole del Vivere nel Stato Virginale e
Bonaventure de Paris (Bonfortune) Contemplativo 529–530
Sermones de Tempore et Sermones Sermones ad Status 72
Festivales (= Collatio Fratrum Sermones Quadragesimales 72
Minorum/Summa Que Dicitur Legifer Tractatus de Cura Filiorum 72, 529
de Collationibus Per Annum) 14–16 Versi devotissimi de l’anima inamorata in
Bonaventure Nepveu 158 miser Jesu Christo 529
Bonifacio da Ceva 97, 136, 158 Chiara da Montefeltro 495
Defensorium Elucidativum Observantiae Chiara d’Assisi 20 (representation
Regularis Fratrum Minorum 158 in sermons), 84, 169ff, 170,
Bonincontrò di Brescia 195–196 174–178, 180ff, 359 (liturgical
commemoration), 411, 461, 475 Een schon suverlick ghebet 424

(passion devotion), 542 & 550–551 Exempel van een goede maghet Machtelt
(and prayer) hielt 424
Benedictio 447 Minnengaerd 424
Forma Vitae (Regula Prima) 156, Niemant en mach twee heeren dienen 424
174–178, 183–190, 207, 550–551 O Minnende ziel 424
Littera ad Ermentrudem 447 Cristoforo Picinelli da Varese
Litterae ad beatam Agnetem de Praga (Cristoforo da Varisio) 70
446–447, 550–551 Declaratio Regulae 136
Testamentum 177–178 Rosarium de Vita et Morte Christi 136,
Chiaro da Firenze 316 507
Christian von Hiddesdorf
Sermones 476 Daniel Agricola
Christian von Honneff Passio D.N.J.Chr. Secundum Quatuor
Eyn schone Christliche underrichtung 254 Evangelistas 496–497
Christoforo Ruiz Dante Alighieri 284–285
Tratado de Oración 553 David von Augsburg xii, xx, 27, 28,
Colette de Corbie 156, 182–184, 404, 79, 201, 209ff, 217, 222, 228, 456
411, 551 (and prayer) Betrachtungen und Gebete 383
Lettres 457–458 De Dominica Oratione/Erklärung des
Sentiments 183 Vaterunser 242
Statuts 156, 183–185 De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione
Testament 183 Hominis 209–214, 382, 546
Conrad, see also: Konrad De Officio Magistri Novitiorum & Qualiter
Conrad Clinge Novitius se Praeparat ad Horam 211
Catechismus Catholicus 261–262 De Oratione 547–548
Loci Communes Theologici pro Ecclesia Der geistliche Hand 421
Catholica 261 Der Spiegel der Tugend 383
Summa Doctrinae Christianae Catholicae De Septem Processibus Religiosorum
261–262 210–211, 382, 546–547
Tractatus de Securitate Conscientiae Die sieben Staffeln (Stapheln) des
261–262 Gebets/De Septem Gradus Orationis
Conrad da Offida 243, 383, 547–548
Dicta/Detti 379–380 Die sieben Vorregeln der Tugend 243,
Conrad Grütsch 109–110 382–383, 547
Quadragesimale & Opus Sermonum de Die vier Fittige geistlicher Betrachtung
Tempore & Alphabetum Sermonum 383
110 Erklärung des Ave Maria 242–243
Quadragesimale & Registrum de Formula de Compositione Hominis
Evangeliorum et Epistolarum Exterioris ad Novitios 210, 382, 546
Thematibus atque Introductionibus Formula de Interioris Hominis
110 Reformatione ad Proficientes 210, 382
Conrad Oesterreicher Glosa super Regulam Fratrum Minorum
Venustissima Materia Passionis Christi 130–131
Jesu 496 Kristi Leben unser Vorbild 383, 477
Conrad Ströber Tractatus de Oratione 211
Zwolf zeichen do by du maht mercken obe Tractatus de Praeparatione ad Missam
du die gobe und kraft und genode des 360
ewigen almehtigen gottes empfangen hast Von der Anschauung Gottes 383
404 Von der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit 383
Cornelio Musso 78, 103–104 Von der Offenbarung und Erlösung des
Cornelis Raven Menschengeschlechtes 383
Die den menschen leert sonder mont 424, Von der unergründlichen Fülle Gottes
470–471 383
‘Der Schölzerin’ Elisabeta da Mantua 185

Sermones 476 Élisabeth de Bavière
‘Der von Halle’ Lettres 458–459
Sermones 42 Enrico da Pisa 21
Diego de Estella Christe Deus Christe Meus, Christe Rex
Modus Concionandi 101 et Domine 279
Diego de Valencia (Diego Moxena) Erasmus (Desiderius Erasmus,
Cantilenae in Dei Servitium et Gloriosae humanist) ix, xii, 90, 96, 111, 352,
Virginis eius Matris et Aliorum 428, 441
Sanctorum Compositae 311 Enchiridion Militis Christiani ix, 438
Diego Valadez 270 Erasmus Schaltdorfer
Dietrich Colde (Dietrich Kolde) Sermones 87
90–91, 254f, 307–308 Eudes de Rosny
Boechelgen van ynwendiger oeffnungen Sermones 11
421–422 Eudes Rigaud 231
Christenspiegel/Der Kerstenen Spiegel 91, Expositio Quatuor Magistrorum 129
255–256, 421 Regestrum Visitationum 231
Collacie 91 Eustochia Calafato 184
Das Testament Eynes Waren Cristen Dulcissimo amore mio Iesu Cristo 551
Mynschen (Ars Moriendi) 255–256, Lettere 459
421–422 Libro de la Passione 413, 492
Die doernen Crone onses heren Ihesu Cristi Monte de la Orazione 551
421, 507–508 Evangelista da Perugia
Die seven getzide 91 Regula Beate Clare Vulgarizata 188
Een corte oefeninghe vander Passien ons
heeren Ihesu Cristi 421, 507–508 Felice da Cantalice
Een hant vol wysheyden 421 Canti 286
Een scoon spieghel der simpelre Felizitas Grundherrin
menschen/Manuale Simplicium 255 Epistolae 461
Liedeken van devocien: Och edel ziele Filippa Mareri 193
mercke 307–308 Filipppo di Moncalieri 45, 47
Sermoenen 91 Postilla super Evangelia Domenicalia 47
Dietrich Struve 401 Postilla super Evangelia que Leguntur in
De Discordia Inter Prelatos et Religiosos Quadrigesima 47
336 Fortunato da Coppulis 337–338
Dionysius the Carthusian 86 Francesc Eiximenis/Francisco Ximenes
Dorotéa Paleotti 515ff, 532
Viaggio spirituale per la meditazione Cercapou 249
412, 491–492 Dotzen libre de regiment dels princeps e de
Dreux de Provence comunitats 219
Sermones 11 El Crestiá 249, 515–518
Durand de Champagne Llibre del Angels 432–433, 442
Directorium/Summa Confessionum pro Llibre de les Dones 394–395
Confessionibus Audiendis 330–332 Pastorale 365
Speculum Dominarum 392–394 Psalterium Laudatorium/Saltiri
549–550
Edmund of Abington 475 Regiment de la cosa pública 219,
Egidio da Roma AugEr 515–516, 535
De Regimine Principum 533ff Regula Monasterii Complutensis 202
Egidio d’Assisi Scala Dei o Tractat de Contemplació
Dicta Aurea 6, 376, 544 395–396
Egidio Guilelmi Missali Vida de Jesucrist 487–488
Tractatus de Confessione 338 Francesco da Jesi 465
Ekbert von Schönau OSB 475 Francesco da Mozzanica
Brevissima introductione de done che se Regula non Bullata 2, 121ff, 141,

voleno ben Confessare 341 206–207, 356, 473
Francesco da Perugia Regula pro Eremitoriis Data 124–125,
Tractatus de Septem Vitiis Capitalibus et 151
Decem Preceptis 336 Salutatio Beatae Mariae Virginis 275,
Francesco d’Assisi 1, 14, 20 (in 542
sermons), 28 (in sermons), 120ff, Salutatio Virtutum 275, 542
167 (liturgical commemoration), Testamentum (Mandatum) 123,
173–177 (and Chiara), 191ff (and 125–128, 138, 141, 161f, 227, 473
the beginnings of the tertiary Testamentum Senis Factum 127
movement), 206, 275f, 286, 359 Ultima Voluntas Scripta S. Chiarae 127
(liturgical commemoration), 390 & Francesco della Rovere 168
472ff (conformity with Christ), 475f Francesco Licheto 151
(passion devotion), 541–544 (and Francesco Michele del Padovano
prayer) 101–102
Admonitiones 125–126, 375–376 Advisamenta pro Reformatione Facienda
Cantico delle creature/Cantico di frate Sole Ordinis 101–102, 158
275–276, 543 Christianorum Institutionum Liber 102,
Canto con la Filomena 275 524–525
Canto di esortazione (Udite, poverelle) De Brevitate Vitae Humanae 524, 526
275–276, 375–376 De Floccipendendo Vulgo et Contemnendis
De Vera et Perfecta Laetitia Eius Ineptiis et de Quidditate Fortunae
Epistola ad Clericos 445 524, 526
Epistolae ad Custodes 445 De Insensata Cura Mortalium 524–526
Epistolae ad Fideles 193–195, De Non Negligendo vel Etiam Abdicando
375–376, 444, 473 Litterarum Studio 101–102
Epistola ad Fratrem Leonem 445 Epistolae 462
Epistola ad Ministrum & Epistola ad Oratio per quamdam dedictam Christo
Quendam Ministrum 445 iuvenculam ad sanctimoniales recitata
Epistola ad Populorum Rectores 445 virginalis continentiae privilegia 102
Epistola Civibus Bononiensibus Scripta Quattordici Discorsi 102
445 Sermones de S. Francisco ad Plebem 102
Epistola Dominae Jacobae Scripta 445 Speculum Christianae Probitatis 102,
Epistola Fratribus Franciae Missae 445 524–525
Epistola S. Clarae de Ieiunio Scripta 445 Francesco Ripanti da Jesi 163
Epistola toti Ordini Missa una cum Circolo dell’Amore Divino 419
Oratione: Omnipotens, Aeterne 125, Francesco Vaccari
445–446 Sermones Quadragesimales 102–103
Exhortatio ad Laudem Dei 542 Francisco de Avila
Expositio in Pater Noster 242, 263, La vida y la muerte o Vergel de Religiosos
264, 542f en metro castellano 312
Forma Vivendi (ca. 1215) 120f, 170, Francisco de Borja 436
174–175 Francisco de Hevia (Evia)
Formula Vitae (1209) 120 Confessionario 347, 440
Laudes ad Omnes Horas Dicendae 275, Espejo del Alma 347, 440
367, 375–376 Itinerario de la oración 440, 554–555
Officium Passionis Domini (Psalmos quos Libro llamado tesoro de los ángeles 347
Ordinavit b. Franciscus) 367, 473, Praeparatio Mortis 347, 440
475 Francisco del Castillo
Oratio ante Crucifixum Dicta 473, 542 Proverbios de Salomón 312
Regula Bullata 3, 4, 52, 119, 120ff, Francisco de Osuna
138f, 140, 141ff, 151f, 161f, 174ff, Abecedario 263, 512–514, 521–523,
206–207, 216, 227, 356, 359, 473, 552–553
542 El Norte de los Estados 263–264, 521
Expositionis super Missus est alter liber Quaestio de Fide 237

263 Quaestio de Septem Peccatis Mortalis
Gracioso Convite de las gracias del santo 237
Sacramento del altar 263, 371, 521 Quaestiones de Celebratione Missarum
Ley de amor santo 263 363
Sanctuarium Biblicum 263 Quaestiones de Decem Preceptis 237
Sermonarium 263 Quaestiones Disputate de Fide et de
Trilogium Evangelicum 263 Cognitione 14
Francisco de Quiñones 97, 187 Quaestiones super Pater Noster 237
Constituciones 154 Sermones 13, 15–16, 39
Francisco Jiménez 265–267 Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum et
Breve doctrina cristiana en lengua mejicana Domenicales per Totum Annum cum
267 Aliquibus Tractatibus 13, 15–16
Francisco Ortiz Yáñez 98, 100–101, Tractatus de Articulis Fidei 16, 237
553 Tractatus de Corpore Christi 476
Avisos/Anotaciones sobre los Ejercicios François Lambert d’Avignon
espirituales de San Ignacio 555 Corone de Nostre Saulveur 431–432
De Ornatu Animae/Tratado del Adorno François Rabalais 426
del Alma 510–511, 554 Frans van Zichem 259f, 425
Epístolas familiares 471, 554 Concio de Eleemosynae Efficacia et
Expositio in Orationem Dominicam 264, Utilitate/Enarratio in Psalmum XL
554 260
Homiliae super Psalmum L per totam Orationis Hieremiae 260
Quaresimam 100 Pia Meditatio Quaedam in Orationem
Opuscula Varia Spiritualia 471, 555 Dominicam 259–260
Oratio Latina pro Congregatione Capitulari Septem verborum, que Christus ex cruce
554–555 protulit, brevis et pia explicatio pro
Soliloquium inter Animam et Deum 471, concione habita 260, 508
555 Frans Vervoort 259ff, 424
Tratado de predicación/Avisos para Beghijnken van Mechelen 261
Predicadores 100–101 Bruygoms Mantelken 261
Francisco Sanchez del Campo & De Pane Angelorum 260
Francisco Tenorio Des Vijants Net 260
Passio Duorum (Tratado de devotíssimas y Die Woestijne des Heeren 260
muy lastimosas contemplaciones de la Hoofken der Sielen/Hortulus Animae
pasión del Hijo de Dios e compasión de 260
la Virgen sancta Maria su madre, por Medecin der Sielen 260
esta razón llamado Passio duorum) T’Gulde Gebedeboeck 552
510–511 Thantboekxken der Christenen Menschen
Francisco Ximenes, see: Francesc 261
Eiximenis Franziskus Willer
Franciscus Cauwe 510 Cosmographia 349
Franciscus Titelmans 257 De Immaculata Conceptione 349
De Exercitiis Religiosorum 227 Directorium Confessorum 349
Liber de Sacrosancta et Superbenedicta Lignum Pomiferum Beatae Mariae Virginis
Trinitate 288, 362 349f
Tractatus de Expositione Mysteriorum ‘fra Raphaele’
Missae 372–373 Confessione generale 341
Franciscus Vervoort, see: Frans
Vervoort Gabriele dal Bambaso 408–410
François de Meyronnes Scala del Paradiso Victoriosa 409–410
De Articulis Fidei 237 Gabriele da Perugia
Explicatio Decalogi 237 Declaratione devota et utile de tutte quelle
Expositio de Summa Trinitate et Fide cose che se fanno et dicono nella Messa
Catholica 237 370
Libro Devote, Dicto Libro de Vita sopra li Giacomo da Milano

Principali Misteri de Christo Benedicto Instructio Sacerdotis ad Se Praeparandum
et de la Matre Sua 505–506 ad Celebrandam Missam 360
Gabriele Rangone da Verona 66, Stimulus Amoris 92, 155, 289,
69–71 483–485, 507
Epistola Consolatoria 462–464 Giacomo da Varazze OP, see: Jacopo
Flores Paradisi 69–71 da Voragine OP
Vita S. Joh. de Capistrano 70 Giacomo della Marca 56–60, 72, 349
Gabriel Maria Nicolas Campus Florum 349
Lunetae Confessorum 355 Compendium Theologiae Moralis 349
Novus Tractatus de Decem Plagis Liber Praedicationum & Liber alius
Paupertatis 136–137 Praedicationum 58
Quaedam Brevis Declaratio super Securitate Predica in onore di S. Bernardino 58
Status Observantinorum 136–137 Regola per ben confessarsi 339, 349
Quaestio Cuiusdam Doctoris Theologiae Sermo de Confessione 339
Super Regula S. Francisci ad Litteram Sermones Dominicales 57–58
136–137 Sermones Quadragesimales 57–58
Règle du Tiers Ordre St. François de Summula Iuridico-Moralis 349
Soeurs de Chasteaugontier vivantes en Giacomo Oddi da Perugia
obédience, chasteté, pauvreté et closture Franceschina 474
136–137 Giacomo Paniscotti da Molfetta
Statutz generaulx des seurs de la Vierge 271–274
Marie 136–137 I Divini Precetti 273
Tractatus Novus in Quo vere et clare Opus de S. Fidei Articulis Dialogo 273
Ostenditur Qui Sunt Veri Observatores Opus in Expositione Psalmi ‘Domine quis
Regulae Divi Francisci ad Litteram, ad habitat’ 274
Litteram, ad Litteram 136–137 Giacomo Ungarelli da Padova
Garcia de Cisneros OSB 556–557 Castigationes et Additiones ad Summa
García del Castillo Angelicam 352
Manual per declarar la Regle en solos los De Malatiis et Impietatibus Juadaeorum
preceptos obligatorios 137 Modernorum 352
Gautier de Bruges Sermones 352
Instructiones circa Divinum Officium 363 Gilles Delphini (Aegidius Delphini)
Geiler von Keisersberg (secular cleric, 410
important preacher) 111, 241 Giordano di Giano
Gerard Ithier 217 Chronica Fratris Jordani 5, 17, 21, 141
Gerardo da Cremona 18, 21 Giovanni Buonvisi da Luca 72
Gerardo da Prato Giovanni Buralli da Parma 142, 279,
Breviloquium super Libros Sententiarum 357
239 Giovanni da Capistrano 64–66, 147ff,
Gerardo di Borgo San Donnino 474 193
Gerardus Odonis, see: Guiral Ot Constitutiones Capistranenses 149ff
Gerard van Gouda, see: Gerrit vander Declaratio Primae Regulae S. Chiarae
Goude 135, 185–186
Gerard van St. Trond 309–310 Defensorium Tertii Ordinis 202–203
Géraud du Pescher (Peschier) Epistola ad Albertum Puchelbach
Ars faciendi sermones 48 222–223
Gerrit vander Goude Esposizione della Regula dei Frati Minori
Boexken vander Missen 369–370 135
Giacobino da Reggio Emilia 21 La Breve Dottrina 339
Giacomina Frangipani di Settesogli Quaestio supra Testamentum 135
(‘frate Jacopa’) 193 Sermones 65f
Giacomino da Verona 309 Sermones Duo ad Studentes & Epistola
De Babilonia Civitate Infernali 284 Circularis (1444) de Studio promovendo
De Ierusalem Celesti 284 inter Observantes 65
Sermones Quadragesimales 65 Tabula per la religione cristiana 271,

Speculum Clericorum 65 559–560
Speculum Consciencie 339 Giuseppe Piantanida da Ferno
Super Primum Capitulum Regulae Fratrum Metodo per le quarantore a San Sepolcro
Minorum 135 271, 558–559
Tractatus de Conscientia Serenanda 339 Gosmario dei Gosmari da Verona
Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Jesu Littera de Bono Animae 454
Christi 495 Gregorio da Napoli
Giovanni da Fano, see: Giovanni Pili Sermones 9–11
da Fano Guglielmo da Casale 148f, 183
Giovanni da Parma, see: Giovanni Explicatio Regulae S. Clarae 187
Buralli da Parma Guglielmo Farinari, see: Guilelmo
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine 5, 21 Farinari
Giovanni da Vicenza 21 Guglielmo Piemontese 279
Giovanni de’Cauli Guibert de Tournai 384f, 392
Meditationes Vitae Christi 483–485, De Laude Melliflui Nominis Domini Nostri
506f Iesu Christi 500
Giovanni di Montecorvino De Modo Addiscendi 384–385
Epistolae 245 De Officio Episcopi et Ecclesiae
Giovanni di Murro 379 Caeremoniis 364
Giovanni di San Marco De Virginitate 384
Modus Recipiendi Personas ad Tertium Epistola ad Dominam Isabellam/Epistola
Ordinem S. Francisci 202 Exhortationis de Virginitate 451
Giovanni Firmano della Verna Eruditio Regum et Principum 533–534
Dicta/Detti 379–380 Rudimentum Doctrinae/Erudimentum
Giovanni (?) Marchesini di Reggio Doctrinae 384, 451
Emilia Sermones ad Status 11–13, 16–17,
Mammotrectus 132, 220, 360 385
Opus de Vitiis 319–320 Sermones de Sanctis 12–14
Summa Confessorum (Confessionale) Sermones Dominicales 12–14
319–320 Tractatus de Scandalis Ecclesie 197,
Tractatus de Poenis Peccatorum diversimode 364
Nuncupatis 319–320 Tractatus de Septem Verbis Domini in
Giovanni Maria da Tusa Cruce/De Passione Christi 479–480
Expositione de la Regula di Frati Minori Tractatus de Morte non Timenda
per modo di Sermone 140 384–386
Giovanni Pili da Fano 163, 465, Tractatus de Pace et de Tranquilitate
556f 384–385, 451
Ars Unionis/Arte de la Unione 271, Guichard de Beaulieu
556–557 Grant Mal fist Adam 51
Breve discorso circa l’osservanza del voto Gui d’Evreux OP 294
della minorica povertà (Brevis Discursus Guilelmo Farinari (Guilelmus
super Observantia Paupertatis) 139, Farinerius) 146f
227–228 Guillaume de St. Thierry OSB &
Dialogo de la salute 138–140, 228 Ocist 541
Piccolo catechismo 271 Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei 210,
Giovanni Quaia di Parma 217, 444
De Civitate Christi 403 Guillaume de Vorrilon 99
Expositio super Patrem Nostrem 238 Guillemette de Gruyère
Proverbia 220 Lettres 458–459
Rosarium 403–404 Guiral Ot (Gerard Odonis) 144–145
Girolamo da Molfetta Cathecismus Scolarium Novellorum 47
Alcune regule de la oratione mentale 272, De Septem Verbis D.N. Ihesu Christi in
559–560 Cruce 487
Guittone d’Arezzo 283 Heinrich von Weissenburg, see:

Lettere 283 Heinrich Vigilis
Rime/Laude 283 Heinrich Voss 167
Hélinant de Froidmont OCist
Hartung (Hartwich) von Erfurt 42ff Vers de la Mort 51, 293
Plenariae 44 Helwicus von Magdeburg 316
Postillae 44 Denarius sive Decacordum 380–381
Tractatus 44 Hendrik Herp 79, 90, 260, 557
Haymo of Faversham 18, 21, 129, De Processu Humani Profectus 79–80
142, 356–357 Edenuym seu Eden Contemplativum 420
Heinrich, see also: Hendrik, Henricus, Epistola de Silentio 462
Henry Sermones de Tempore, de Sanctis,
Heinrich Kastner 88f de Tribus partibus Poenitentiae,
Eytlposs 88 de Adventu 80
Sermonarium Viarum Vitae et Mortis 88 Spieghel der Volcomenheit/Speculum
Sermones de Sanctis et Aliis Variis in Aureum 79, 420–421, 439
Principio Annotatis 88–89 Theologia Mystica 79, 420
Sermones Extravagantes 88 Hendrik van den Berghe (Henricus
Sermones Ulmenses 88 Montanus) 408–409
Heinrich Stolysen Definitiones Poenitentiales 409
Predigten über das Vaterunser 112–113 Littera super Actu Reformationis 409
Heinrich Vigilis 84–86, 225, 404, 469 Officia Claustralia/Klösterliche Übungen
Alphabetum Religiosorum 225, 406–407 409
Buch von geistlicher Einkehr und Auskehr Paraeneticum Programma de Reverentia,
85, 405–406 Visitatione et Electione Praelatorum
De VII Gradibus Amoris/Von den Sieben 409
Graden der volkommenen Liebe 85–86 Statutae 409
Die VIII Seligkeiten 85 Hendrik van Santen 81f
Die VII Gaben des hl. Geist 85–86 Collacien 82
Drei Predigten von den Anfechtungen der Sermones de Sacramento Altaris 82
Closterlut 85, 225 Sermones super Evangeliam 82
Ein andehtige Wedrachtung 406–407 Henning Sehle 167
Ein guter Einkehr 406–407 Henri Caupin
Ermahnung zu einem wahren klösterlichen Le désert de dévotion 429
Leben 85, 225 Henricus Hollen
Predigten ueber die evangelische Räte 85 Summa de Peccatis 337
Sieben Predigten für Nonnen 86 Henry d’Avranche
Von den sieben Gaben des Heiligen Geistes Legenda Versificata 301
406–407 Henry de Baume (Henri de Beaume)
Von der Vollkommenheit des geistlichen 156, 182f, 466
Menschen 406–407 Epistolae/Lettres 458
Von dreierlei Abgründen 406 Exhortation de la vie réligieuse 404–405
Was das neugeborene Jesuskind von einer Les six grâces attachées à la récitation
andächtigen Seele begehrt 406–407 commune de l’office divin 404–405
Heinrich von Barben Meditation de la vie, passion, quinze
Casus Penitentiae 317–318 douleurs principales et mort de nostre
Heinrich von Burgeis sauveur 500–502
Der Seele Rat 309 Oraisons 404–405
Heinrich von Friemar 111, 241 Statuta 156
Heinrich von Langenstein xii, 241 Traité de la vie spirituelle 404–405
Heinrich von Merseburg Henry of Burford
Summa super V Libros Decretalium ‘Qui minor es’ (poem) 287
(Summa Titulorum) 316–317 Henry of Wodstone
Heinrich von Ravensburg 189 Summa de Sacramentiis 239, 318
Hermann Topelstein Isabelle de France 359 (liturgical

Casus Abstracti a Iure 335–336 commemoration), 410, 469
Tractatus de Dignitate Sacerdotis (Stella Regula beatae Isabellae Franciae 179f
Clericorum) 335–336, 364
Hilary de Poitiers 388 Jacob Ryman
Holbeche 105 Carols 301
Honorius Augustodunensis OSB? & Jacob Wyg
CanR? Das deutsch roemisch Brevier 358–359
Elucidarium 239 Jacopo da Grumello
Hugh David Miscellanea Iuris Franciscanis 159
Quaestio utrum paenitens, peccata sua Jacopo da Voragine (Giacomo da
confessus fratri licenciato, teneatur eadem Varazze) OP
rursus confiteri proprio sacerdoti 337 Legenda Aurea 107, 111
Hugo Bariols Sermones 43
Doctrina 243–244 Jacopone da Todi 163, 278, 281ff,
Hugues de Digne 18, 20–21, 392 291, 376ff, 426
De Finibus Paupertatis 128–129 Laude spirituali 281–283, 377
Expositio super Regulam Fratrum Stabat Mater Dolorosa (?) 278
Minorum 128–129, 141 Stabat Mater Speciosa (?) 278
Hugues de Saint Victor CRSA 399, Tractatus Utilissimus 377–378
541 Verba/Dicta 377–378
De Institutione Novitiorum 215, 217 Jacques de Vitry OP
Soliloquium de Arrha Animae 388 Sermones ad Status 11, 16–17
Hugues Ripelin OP Jaime de Alcalá
Compendium Theologicae Veritatis 239, Caballería cristiana 136, 438
323, 328 Expositio Regulae 136
Humbert de Romans OP Jan Royaert 92–93
Sermones ad Status 11, 16–17 Enarratio Passionis 93
Huon de Méry (French poet) Homiliae 93
Tournoiement d’Antécrist 52, 293 Jan van Alen 423–424
Contemplationes in duytsche 92,
Iacopa Pollicino 423–424
Lettere 459 Jean Barthelemy
Iacopo Mazza da Reggio Calabria Le livret de la crainte amoureuse 405,
Amatorium 531 469
Lucerna Confessoris 355, 531 Lettre sur les défauts de la langue 405,
Scala de virtuti et via de paradiso 531 469
Illuminata Bembo 411f, 460 Livret de la triple viduité 405, 469
Specchio d’Illuminazione 411–412 Traité de la vanité des choses 405, 469
Iñigo de Mendoza 311f Jean Capet 429f
Cancionero castellano 312 Sermones 429
Coplas 311–312, 511 Traité de patience 429
Dechado e regimiento de príncipes 311, Voie briesve de paradis 429–430
535–537 Jean Couvreur ( Juan de Tecto)
Justa y diferencia que hay entre la razón Primeros Rudimentos de la Doctrina en
y la sensualidad sobre la felicidad y Lengua Mejicana 265–266
bienaventuranza humana 311–312 Speculum Mortalium sive Opus super
Tratado breve y muy provechoso de las Quattuor Novissimis 266
ceremonias de la Misa cun sus Jean de Blois
contemplaciones 311, 369, 510f Sermones 9
Vita Christi fecho por coplas 311–312, Jean de Châtillon
511 Sermones 11
Isabella Villena (Eleanor Manuel de Jean de Combis
Villena) Compendium Totius Theologice Veritatis
Vita Christi 492 239
Jean de Fécamp 388, 475 Jean Vitrier 94, 96–97

Jean de La Rochelle L’Exposition sur le sermon que nostre
Ars Praedicandi 12 seigneur fit en la montaigne contenant les
Expositio Quatuor Magistrorum 129 huyt beatitudes 97
Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis 12 Homéliaire 97
Summa de Articulis Fidei 236 Jehan Clerici
Summa de Decem Preceptis 236 Le Manuel des Chrestiens 346
Summa de Divinis Nominibus 236 Le Traicté de Exemplaire Penitence 346
Summa de Sacramentiis 236 Le Traicté des Fondemens du Temple
Summa Theologicae Disciplinae Spirituel de Dieu 346
236–237 Le Traicté nommé des Trois Passions de
Jean de Rocquetaillade 517 Nostre Seigneur Jesuchrist 346
Jean de Mons Jehan de Journy (French poet)
Sermones 11 Disme de Penitence 52
Jean de Samois Jehan de la Motte (French poet)
Sermones 11 Voie d’Enfer 52
Jean Focher Jehanne Gerande 405
Itinerarium Catholicum Profiscentium ad Joao de Chaves
Infideles Convertendos 270 Tratado de Confissom 347
Tractatus de Baptismo et Matrimonio Johann Düren
270 Tractatus de Decem Praeceptis 348
Jean Gerson (secular cleric, conciliarist) Tractatus de Septem Peccatis Mortalibus
xi, xii, 101, 392, 551 seu Capitalibus 348
De Monte Contemplationis 82 Johann Einzlinger
Epistola de Reformatione Theologiae 241 Deutsche Predigten 84
Opusculum Tripartitum de Praeceptis Johannes Alphart
Decalogi, de Confessioni et de Arte Deutsche Predigten 80–81
Moriendi 241 Johannes Blumendal, see: Johannes von
Testamentum Peregrini 442 Bloemendal
Jean Glapion 94, 97–98, 429f Johannes Brugman 79, 90
Articuli 168 Canticum de Extremo Iudicio 307
La cité du coeur divin 97–98 Devote Oefeninge (alias Leven van Jesus)
La passion de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ 482, 503
représentée dans les cérémonies de la Devotus Tractatus (. . .) ad Exercitia
messe 370–371 Passionis Domini 503–504
Passe-temps du Pèlerin de Vie Humaine ‘Ick hebbe ghejaecht mijn leven
430–431 lanc’ 307
Sermon du jour des Cendres 98 ‘Met vruechden willen wi singen’
Jean Perrini de Neufchâteau 307
Dieta Salutis in Gallico 428 Sermoenen 79
Liber Roderici Zamorensis Speculum Johannes Elen
Humanae Vitae 428–429 Der Gemeynder Bicht 344
Quaedam motivae meditationes ex Johannes Kerberch
S. Scripturae et sanctorum sentenciis Conclusiones de Libertatibus Fratrum ad
compilatae 428–429 Officium Audiendarum Confessionum
Tractatus per Modum Quaestionis 337–338
Theologialis super Dispensatione Fratrum Declaratio Regulae 134–135
Minorum 428 Johannes van Remerswael
Jean Pinet 182 Der Sondaren Troest/Spieghel der
Jean Rigaud 45, 327ff Consciencien 343
Compendium Theologicae Pauperis 45, Johannes von Bloemendal ( Johannes
328 Blontiades/Johannes Blumendal) 42f
Expositio Missae 365 Christus per suam vitam et specialiter
Formula Confessionum 45, 328–330 mortem meruit nobis plura 487
Sermones 45, 328 De XII Articulis Fide 238
Expositio super Magnificat 238 Johann von Zazenhausen

Expositio super Patrem Nostrem 238 Die deutsche Passion 487–488
Expositio Symboli Beati Athanasii et Tractatus de Passione Domini 487–488
Lateranensis Consilii 238 Johann Wild ( Johannes Ferus) 89–90
Opusculum Correctionis Textus et Quadragesimal, das ist Fasten Predigt von
Prologorum Biblie 43 der Buss, Beicht, Bann, Fasten,
Sermones (Postilla Pauperum super Communion, Passion und Osterfesten,
Ewangelia Dominicalia per Circulum auff die zwey letste Capitel des Ersten
Anni) 43–44 Büchlins Esre und auff die history von
Sermones de Festivitatibus B.M.Virginis der büssenden Sünderin 89–90
43–44 Johann Zerngast
Sermones Quadragesimales 44 Subarrhatio Animarum seu de Vitiis et
Tractatus de Posituris 43 Virtutibus 336–337
Johannes von Lare John Brakley
Statuten der Klarissen zu Brixen und carols 295
Pfullingen 190 John Clyn 297
Johann Grütsch (secular cleric) 110 John Duns Scotus 99, 116, 258
Johann Heimstedt John Grimestone 291, 299–300
Expositio Orationis Dominicae 238 Carols 299–300
Johann Kannemann ‘Commonplace Book’ 49, 299–300
De Decem Praeceptis/Expositio Decalogi John Lathbury 295
238 John of Stamford 318
De Libertate Confessionem Audiendi John of Wales xx, 247, 322
337–338 Ars Praedicandi 14
De Oratione Dominica 238 Breviloquium de Quatuor Virtutibus
Expositio Symboli 238 Cardinalibus 14, 219, 319, 392,
Passio Jesu Christi 489–490 516
Super Salutationem Angelicam 238 Breviloquium de Tribus Virtutibus
Johann Meder Theologicis 14, 219, 392, 516
Quadragesimale Novum Editum de Communiloquium, sive Summa Collationum
Filio Prodigo et de Angeli Ipsius Dictus ad Omne Hominum Genus
Ammonitione Salubri per Sermones 219, 318, 516, 533
Divisum 86–87 Compendiloquium 14
Johann Pauli 110–112 Declaratio super Regulam 130–131
Deutsche Predigten 111–112 Ordinarium sive Alphabetum Vite Religiose
Schimpf und Ernst 111 219, 319
Johann Reyneke Sermones de Tempore 12, 14
De Discordia Inter Prelatos et Religiosos Summa de Poenitentia 319
336 Summa de Regimine Vite Humane seu
Johann Sintram 40, 105 Margarita Doctorum 219, 392
‘Predigtverse’ 105, 304–305 Summa Iustitiae 319
Rapiarium 105, 304 John Pecham 232–233, 288–291
Sermon Booklets 105, 304 Canticum Pauperis pro Dilecto 130,
Johann von Erfurt ( Johann von 289, 389
Sachsen) Epistolae 449
Decem Casus Respicientes Episcopum Expositio super Regulam Fratrum
325 Minorum 129–130
Quaestio Confessionis 325–326 Hymni 288
Summa Confessorum 324–327 Ignorantia Sacerdotum 233, 361
Tabula Iuris Utriusque 324–326 Lambeth constitutions 232–233,
Johann von Peyne 361, 449
Summa de Poentitentia 337 Officium SS. Trinitatis 288, 361,
Johann von Werden 475
Dormi Secure 106–107 Philomena 289, 479–480
Psalterium Beatae Mariae Virginis 288, Kaspar Schatzgeyer 87–88, 158

361 De Perfecta atque Contemplativa Vita
Sermones 13–15 425
Tractatus de Paupertate 129–130 Formula Vitae Christianae 425
Juan Bautista Viñones 532 Quadragesimale Tractans de Decem
Espejo de Conciencia Para Todos los Preceptis Dei 88
Estados (attributed) 439–440 Quadragesimale de Pugna Vitiorum et Illi
Juan Cazalla Annexis 88
Cartas 434 Katharina Ederin
Libro llamado Lumbre del Alma 434, German version of the Formula de
436 Compositione Hominis Exterioris ad
Juan de Aora 266 Novitios 211
Juan de Argumanes Katharina Pirckheimer
Reglas y Arte Para Aprender a Rezar el Epistolae 461
Oficio Divino, según la Orden de la Klara Pirckheimer
Santa Iglesia Romana 368 Epistolae 461
Juan de Dueñas Konrad Böhmlin (Conrad Böhmlin)
Espejo de consolación de tristes en el qual Christus Passus est pro Nobis (sermon)
se muestran ser mejores los males desta 107, 489
vida que los bienes della, por muy Deutsche Predigten 107–108
claros exemplos de la Sagrada Escritura Gúldin Buch 41, 476
347 Inspice et fac secundum exemplar 41,
Espejo del Pecador y tesoro del ánima 347 476
Remedio de Pecadores 347 Predig von deme liden unseres herren christi
Juan de Guadelupe Jhesu 107, 476, 489
Constituciones 154 Predig von dem hailigen sacrament 107,
Juan de la Puebla 151, 154 489
Juan de Ribas 265–267 Unus Est Magister Vester Christus
Doctrina Christiana 267 (sermon) 107–108
Juan de Tecto, see: Jean Couvreur Vom Leiden Christi (sermon) 41
Juan de Zumárraga 265–269 Konrad Fünfbrunner
Doctrinae Christianae 268 Trostbrief an die Witwe Barbara 470
Regla cristiana breve para ordenar la vida Konrad Holtnicker (Konrad von
y tiempo del cristiano 268–269 Sachsen) 27–28, 305
Juan Garcia de Castrojeriz Sermones 27–28
Glosas al Regimiento de Príncipes Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis 27,
535–537 244
Juan Gill de Zamora Versus Holtnickeri 28
De Preconiis Hispaniae 534–536 Konrad Nater
Juan Pascual German translation of Bonaventura’s
Llibre o Summa de Beatitut 433 Regula Novitiorum 222
Summa de l’Altra Vida 433 Konrad Spitzer
Tractat de las Penas Particulars de Infern, Büchlein von der geistlichen Gemahelschaft
Emperò Primerament de las Penas 310, 397
Comunas Segons los Poetas 433 Konrad von Sachsen, See: Konrad
Tractat o Summa de Pena 433 Holtnicker
Juan Serrano
Información Para las Viudas Cristianas Ladislaus de Temesvar, see: Pelbartus
438 Ladislaus de Temesvar
Juliana Ernstin 112 Ladislaus von Gielniow 98–101, 165,
Julian von Speyer 306–307
Officia Rhythmica S. Francisci et Exercitiae 99, 307
S. Anthonii Patavini 197, 301, 359 Polish songs and poems 99,
Justina Plebin 95, 466 306–307
Sermones 99, 496 Ludolf Nicolai

Taxate Poenitencie Metrice 307 Devote oeffeninge ende een rechte conste
Lamprecht von Regensburg (Lambert omme God te dienen 422–423
von Regensburg) 301, 309 Die beduydinghe der Missen 371
Diu Tohter Syon/Tochter Syon 302 Een tractaetken van vier wercken der liefden
Sanct Francisken Leben 301–302 dye Christus aent cruyce volbracht heeft
Lawrence Briton 371–372, 422–423
‘verse sermons’ 295 Oeffeninghe ende verclaringhe van dat eerste
carols 295 en alder opperste ghebot der liefden Gods
Lope de Salazar y Salinas 148, 152f, 422–423
223 Ludolph von Sachsen OCart. 485f,
Compendio de la vida del Pedro Villacreces 507, 510, 551
152–153 Ludovico da Fossombrone 161
Constituciones de la Custodia de Santa Ludovico da Severino 184
María de los Menores 153 Ludovico Filicaia
Exposición de la Regla franciscana 137 La Vita del nostro salvatore Jesu Christo
Memorial de la vida y ritos de la 514
Custodia de Santa Maria de los Ludwig Henning 155
Menores 153 Statuten der Klarissen zu Weissenfels
Memorial de los oficios activos y 190–191
contemplativos de la religión de los Ludwich von Preußen
frailes menores 153 Trilogium Animae 136, 220–221
Opúsculo sobre el Arbol de la vida Ludwich Schönmerlin
Testamento 153 Bihtebuochs 343
Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagni di De Doloribus, Anxietatibus et
Savona Amaritudinibus Christi 495
Dialogi de Vita Aeterna 444 Jahrzeitenbuch 343
Directorium Humanae Mentis ad Deum Luigi della Genga
444 Carmen de Miraculis S. Bernardini
Directorium Vitae Humanae 444 Senensis 285
Semita Recta ad Mentem Salutis sive Carmen de S. Cruce 285
Dialogi de Monte Orationis 444 Luis de Escobar
Triumphus Amoris D.N.J. Christi 443 Las quatrocientas respuestas 312–313
Triumphus Iustitiae Iesu Christi 443 Passio Duorum 510–511
Triumphus Pudicitiae Beatae Mariae Luis de Maluenda 440ff
Virginis 443 Tratado Llamado Excelencias de la Fe 441
Triumphus Sapientiae Iesu Christi 443 Tratado Llamado Leche de la Fe del
Triumphus Vitae supra Mortem 443 Principe Christiano 442
Lorenzo Massorili Tratado Llamado Mysterios de la Devoción
Hymni 285–286 441
Louis de Toulouse 363–364, 452 Tratado Llamado Mysterios de los Ángeles
Luca da Bitonto (Lucas Apulus/Luca 442
della Puglia) 21, 25f, 30, 38 Vergel de Virginidad 442
Sermones Dominicales, Quadragesimales et
Feriales 25–27 Malachy of Limerick
Lucas van der Heij De Veneno Septem Peccatorum Mortalium
Bouxken van den Oflaeten 485 Eorumque Remedia 323–324, 343
Den Prickel der Minnen Gods 485 Marco da Montegallo
Den spinrocken ghegeven voer een nyeuwe Libro delli commandamenti di Dio
iaer den religiosen ioncfrouwen van 251–252, 531
mariendael binnen diest mitten naycorf Libro intitulato de la divina lege de esso
485 omnipotente Dio 251–253, 531
Sermoen van de Moeder ons Heeren op een Tabula de la salute humana 251–252,
gedaente van een naycorf 485 531
Marco Fantuzzi da Bologna 463 Martin von Wien

Marco Vigerio Expositio Divini Officii Missae 364
Controversia de Excellentia Instrumentorum Matteo da Agrigento
Dominicae Passionis 491 Sermoni Varii 56
Decachordum Christianum 491 Quaresimale 56
De Vita, Morte et Resurrectione Domini Matteo da Bascio 161, 270
491 Severa riprensione 117
Mariano da Firenze Matteo d’Aquasparta 193, 201
Compendium Chronicarum 35 Sermones 11, 12, 14
Libro delle degnità et excellentie del ordine Sermones de Beata Maria Virgine 14
della seraphica madre delle povere donne Matteo Silvaggi 417f
Sancta Chiara da Asisi 187, 459 Apotheca Divini Amoris 417
Trattato del Terz’Ordine 193, 202, Colloquia Trium Peregrinorum 417–418
228–229 De Nuptiis Animae cum Christo eius
Marie de Berghes 459 Sponso 417–418
Marie de Livres 410 Labyrinthi Duo de Mundano et Divino
Mario Fabiani da Mercato Saraceno Amore 417
Canti & Poemetti 287 Modo di Vivere secondo la Divina Volontà
Marquard von Lindau 31, 39f, 305, 417
398ff, 490 Mattia Bellintani da Salò 515
Auszug der Kinder Israel 399–400 Ordini nella orazione delle quaranta ore
De Fide/Der Glob 249 559
De Horto Spirituali 40–41 Trattato della santa orazione delle
De Nabuchodonosor 399–401 quaranta ore 559
De Nobilitate Creaturarum et de Nobilitate Matthias Döring 155
Anime Rationalis 400–402 Matthias Weynsen 90–92, 423, 509
De Paradiso Spirituali 40–41 De verweckinghe der godlijcker liefden
De Reparatione Hominis 41, 399 (translation of the Stimulus Amoris)
De Throno Salomonis 399–401 507
Deutsche Predigten 39–42 Fasciculus Mirre (edition of ) 92, 509
Die zehe Gebot 247–248, 397, 400 Sermoenen 92
Hiob-Traktat 399–401 Melchior Frizzolo da Parma
‘Lesepredigten’ 41 Dialogi de Anima 417
Maitagspredigt 40 Michael of Kildare
Meßerklärung/Eucharistie-Traktat 368 commonplace book 295–296
Regel aller Prälaten 457 Lyrics 295–296
Sermo de Anima Christi 40–41, 476 Michele Carcano da Milano 66,
Sermo de Corpore Christi 40, 366, 368 74–76
Tractatus de SS. Sacramento Eucharistiae Quadragesimale de Fide et de Articulis
110 Fidei 75
Martin Bordet Quadragesimale de Poenitentia 75
Compendium Parvulum 320 Quadragesimale seu Sermonarium
Martin de Lilio Duplicatum Scilicet per Adventum et
Tratado de oración mental 553–554 Quadragesimam de Poenitentia et eius
Martin Lombard Partibus 75–76
Sermones 9 Sermonarium de Commendatione Virtutum
Martin Luther ix, xii, 92, 112, 188, et Reprobatione Vitiorum 75–76
352 Sermonarium per Adventum et
Martin Morin Quadragesima 75
Speculum Minorum 159 Sermonarium Triplicatum per Adventum et
Martin van Gouda (Martinus van Gouda) per Duas Quadragesimales de Peccatis
Devoet Boexken voor alle Devote Personen Capitalibus 75
die gaerne sonder vegevier ten hemel Sermones Quadragesimales de Decem
comen souden 422 Preceptis 75–76
Trattato della confessione 339–340 L’instruction et consolation de la vie

Tractatus de Inferno 64 contemplative 408
Michele da Massa 487 Novum Diversorum Sermonum Opus 94
Michel Menot 114–117 Opus Quadragesimale 94
Perpulcher Tractatus 115 Sermones de Adventu 94
Sermones Quadragesimales 115ff Sermo de Iustitia & Opus Quadragesimale
Miro da Colle 284 94
Sermon de Carême 94
Niccolò Caccini da Firenze 48 Sermones de Sanctis 94
Niccolò dal Monte 184 Sermones Domenicales post Pentecosten 94
Niccolò da Osimo 415–416 Sermones Variae & Sermones de Stipendio
Compendium Salutatis 416 Peccati et Gratiae 94
Declaratio super Regula Fratrum Minorum Oswald Lasko 98
135 Otto von Passau 31, 397f
Della Religione 416 Die vierundzwanzig Alten oder der goldene
Esposizione della nuova dichirazione sopra Thron der minnenden Seele 105,
lo Regola 135 397–398
Explicatio Regulae S. Clarae/Declaratio
Preceptorum Regule Sancte Clare 135, Pacifico da Ascoli 276–277
187 Pacifico da Cerano
Interrogatorium Confessorum 354 Summula ho Vero Sumeta de Pacifica
Quadriga Spirituale 416, 530 Conscientia 350, 354
Supplementum Summae Pisanellae 348 Pacifico da Novara
Nicholas Bozon 282, 293ff Summa Pacifica per li simplici confessori
Contes Moralisés 49–51, 235, 293 352–353
Lyrics 293–294 Panigarola 78
‘verse-sermons’ 52–53, 293 Paolino da Venezia
Nicholas de Lyre 399 Trattato de Regimine Rectoris 538
Nicholas Denyse 266 Paolo da Foligno 117, 270
Nicholas Philip Paolo di Terano
‘commonplace book’/‘sermon De Angelis Damnatis 238, 337
booklets’ 104–105, 300 De Articulis Fidei 238, 337
Nicolas Guiotelli 168 De X Praeceptis 238, 337
Nicolaus Glassberger 221 De Iuramento 238, 337
Chronica 150, 166 De Negotiatione 23, 337
Nikolaas Zegers 257 Eglogae Theoddi. Commentarius 238
Christianae Vitae Speculum F. Thomae Paolo Manassei 515
Herentalini 257 Paoluccio dei Trinci (Paoluccio di
Proverbia 257 Vagnozzo Trinci) 72, 147
Nikolaus von Kosel Paula Antoinette de Nigris (Angelica)
‘Predigtverse’ 234, 305–306 Epistolae Spirituales 460
Rapiarium 234, 305 Paul de Perpignan
Caeremoniale Admissionis Novitae in
Olivier Maillard 93–96, 407f Monasterium 190
Ansprachen 95–96, 466–459 Pedro Caldèz
Chants Royaux en l’Honneur de la Exercici de la Santa Creu 489
Vierge & du Christ Crucifié Pedro de Alcantará
310–311 Constituciones 154
Expositio Epistolarum Totius Anni 94 Tratado de la oración 553–554
Histoire de la Passion Douloureuse de Pedro de Gante, see: Petrus van Gent
Notre Doux Sauveur et Rédempteur Pedro de Villacreces 148, 152f
Remémorée es Sacrés et Saints Exposición de la Regla franciscana 137
Mystères de la Messe 94, 495–496 Memoriale religionis 152
La Confession Générale 346 Pedro Regaledo 148, 152f
Compendio de la vida del Pedro Villacreces Pierre-aux-Boeufs 113–114

152–153 Sermones de Opere Magistri Petri ad Boves
Constituciones, ritos y leyes municipales de Dominicis et Sanctis 113–114
para las casas del Abrojo y de La Sermones de Passione Christi 114,
Aguilera 152 488–489
Ejercicios contemplativos y ocupaciones Sermones in Celeberrimis Lutetiae Parisiensi
activas 152 Eclesiis Habiti 113–114
Exposición de la Regla franciscana 137, Pierre de Grossis
152 Le Jardin des Nobles 428
Opúsculo sobre el Arbol de la vida 152–153 Pierre de La Brosse
Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvar 98–99 Des règles de la perfection 489
Aureum Sacrae Theologiae Rosarium Pierre de St. Benoit
98–99 Sermones de Communi Sanctorum 13–14
Expositio Compendiosa et Familiaris Sermones de Sanctis 13–14
Sensum Litteralem et Mysticum Sermones de Tempore 13–14
Complectens Libri Psalmorum, Pierre Jean Olieu, see: Pietro di
Hymnorum, Soliloquorum Regii Giovanni Olivi
Prophetae, item Expositio Canticorum V. Pierre Reginaldi
et N. Testamenti, Symboli Athanasii, Speculum Finalis Retributionis 427
Hymni Universales Creaturae 98 Pietro Arrivabene di Mantua
Pomerium Sermonum de Sanctis 99 Meditationes Passionis Christi 495
Pomerium Sermonum de Tempore 99 Missale Romanum: Breviarum Secundum
Pomerium Sermonum Quadragesimalium Ritum Romanum 358
99 Pietro da Trani
Stellarium Coronae Mariae Virginis 99 De Ingenuis Puerorum et Adolescentium
Peregrinus von Opeln Moribus 341
Sermones 43 Tratado de la confession 341
Peter, see also: Pedro, Petrus, Pietro Tratado de penitencia 341
Peter Quesel Pietro di Giovanni Olivi (Pierre Jean
Directorium Iuris (Repertorium Iuris Olieu) xx, 379–380, 389ff, 451f,
Canonici/Summa Directoria in Foro 474, 500
Conscientie et Iudicali) 333–334, Brevis Monitio ad Amorem Divinum
349 Obtinendum 390
Petrus Christiani (Petrus Christmann) De Conditionibus et Proprietatibus Amoris
84 Dei 390
Deutsche Predigten 84 De Oratione Vocali 390, 549
Ein schöne auslegung uber den pater noster De 14 Gradibus Amoris Gratiosi 390
84 De renuntiatione papae Coelestini V,
Petrus Comestor CanR quaestio et epistola 379–380
Historia Scholastica 107 De Septem Sentimentis Christi Jesu 390,
Petrus Joannes Olivi, see: Pietro di 480–481
Giovanni Olivi De Septem Tentationibus 390
Petrus Lombardus (secular cleric) Epistola ad Regis Siciliae Filios 391,
Sententiae 235 452
Petrus van Gent 265–267 Exercens Se Sacris Orationibus et
Cartilla para enseñar a leer 266 Meditationibus sive Sacris Affectionibus
Catecismo de la doctrina cristiana con 390, 549
jeroglíficos 266–267 Expositio Septem Verborum Christi in
Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana Cruce Dictorum 480
266–267 Expositio super Patrem Nostrem 237
Philipp Agricola (secular priest) 89 Expositio super Regulam Fratrum
Philipp Melanchthon (humanist and Minorum 129–134
Lutheran reformer) Informatio ad Virtutum Opera 390–392,
De Corrigendis Adolescentium Studiis ix 480–481
Miles Armatus 390–391 Confessionale generale 340–341

Modus Quomodo Quilibet Potest Referre De Acerbissima Passione Domini Nostri
Gratias Deo de Beneficiis ab Eo Iesu Christi (sermon) 489, 495
Receptis 390–392, 549 Prediche 63
Postilla in Isaiam 20 Quadragesimale de Peccatis 63
Principi Quinque in Sacram Scripturam 20 Quadragesimale de Poenitentia 63
Quaestiones de Perfectione Evangelica Quadragesimale Padovano 63
132–133 Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum 63
Remedia Contra Tentationes Spirituales Sermones de Timore Divinorum Iudiciorum
Huius Temporis 390–392 63
Sermones Duo de S. Francisco 20 Sermones per Adventum 63
Visionis Mystice Narratio 390 Sermones Tres de Annunciatione 63
Raffaele da Fossombrone 161 Roberto da Bascia
Ramon Llull 244ff, 435 Expositio Quatuor Magistrorum 129
Doctrina pueril 245–246 Robert Silke
Liber Apostrophe/Liber de Articulis Fidei Fasciculus Morum 235
245 Roger Bacon xv, 532
Liber de Quattuordecim Articulis Roger Cradock 297
Sacrosanctae Romanae Catholicae Fidei Rudolf von Biberach
245 De excellenti Praerogativa Benedictae
Libro de la contemplación 552 Virginis 396
Vita Coaetanea 381 De Officio Cherubyn 364
Raniero da Genova 196 De Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti 396
Raoul de Châteauroux 11 De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis 84,
Raoul de Houdenc (French poet) 396–397
Songe d’Enfer 52, 293, 435 Die siben strassen zu got 396–397
Voie de Paradis 52, 435 Sermones super Canticum Canticorum 396
Raphaele (‘fra’ Raphaele) Rufino Gurgone 195–196
Confessione generale 341
Raymond de Peñyaforte OP Salimbene da Parma
Summula de Poenitentia 315, 334 Cronica 17–18, 20–21, 26, 28, 33,
Raymond Gaufredi 142, 207, 279, 357
Sermones 13, 15 Sebastian Brant (satirist) 86, 312
Remigio Girolani 284 Sebastian von Heusenstamm
Richard de Cournouailles (Archbishop of Mainz) 89
Sermones 9 Servasanto da Faenza 27, 35–38, 320ff
Richard de St. Victor CRSA 396, Collationes Quadragesime 36–37
400–401, 451 Liber de Exemplis Naturalibus 37–38,
Richard Ledrede 320–322
Cantilenae 298–299 Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis 320–321
Rizzerio di Muccia 377 Sermones de Communi Sanctorum 35–36
Robert Grosseteste (Bishop of Lincoln) Sermones de Festivitatibus B.M. Virginis
231–233, 290, 323, 448 36–37
Constitutiones 232 Sermones de Mortuis 36–37
Deus Est 232 Sermones de Proprio Sanctorum 35–36
Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste 231 Sermones Dominicales 36–38
Templum Dei 232 Summa de Poenitentiae (Antidotarium
Robert Le Messier 408ff Animae) 320–323
Adresse de Salut 410–411, 469–470 Sigmund der Barfues
Officium B. Isabellae 410 Predigt von dem heiligen sacrament 108
Sermones super Epistolas et Evangelia Silvestro Bini d’Assisi
totius Quadragesimae 410 Dechiarazione della regola de’ frati minori
Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce 62–64, cavata da’ sommi pontefici e diversi
72, 101 dottori dell’Ordine 140
Silvestro Radicundulo da Siena Thomas Winchelsae

Sermones 526–527 Donatus Devotionis (?) 442–443
Tractatus Contritionis Confessionis Instructorium Providi Peregrini
Satisfactionis et Conscientiae 526 442–443
Tractatus de Caritate Dei et Proximi Tomasuccio da Foligno
527 Visione de la festa che fano li sancti in
Tractatus de Perfectione Iustitiae paradiso el di de ogni sancti 415
527–529 Tommaso da Celano 278
Tractatus de Unitate, Pax et Concordia Vita Prima Beati Francisci 1, 48, 301
Civium 527 Vita Secunda Beati Francisci 48
Simon de Courcy 485 Tommaso d’Aquino OP x, 79, 89,
Simone Fidati da Cascia 484 99, 116, 352
Sopramonte del Varisio (Sopramonte De Articulis Fidei et Ecclesiae Sacramentis
da Varese/Superanzio da Varese) 236, 249, 482
Sermones de Tempore 25 De Decem Praeceptis et Lege Amoris 236
Stephan Fridolin 95, 407–408, 466 Expositio Orationis Dominicae 236
Der geistliche Herbst 83, 407, Expositio Salutationis Angelicae 236
504–505 Expositio Symboli Apostolorum 235–236
Der geistliche Mai 83, 407, 504–505 Tommaso Illyrico da Osimo
Der Schatzbehalter 83, 407–408 Epistolae 462, 464–465
Lehre für angefochtene und kleinmütige
Menschen 83, 86, 407 Ubertino da Casale 79, 128–129,
Predigten über Prim, Terz, Non und 446, 551
Komplet 83–84 Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu 125,
Stephan May 107 481–483, 500, 506
Stephen Baron Rotulus 129
Tractatulus de Regimine seu Caritate Ugolino dei Conti di Segni (Cardinal
Principum 536 and later pope Gregory IX) 3, 123,
Stephen of Sawley 475 170ff
Forma Vitae 170–174, 178, 192
Teuto (‘Graeculus’) 42f Memoriale Propositi 192
Sermones de Sanctis 43 Privilegium Paupertatis 172–174, 178
Sermones de Tempore per Circulum Anni Ugo Panziera da Prato
43 Laude 283, 379
Thomas Eccleston xx Trattati Spirituali 379, 454
Tractatus de Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Ulrich Horn
Angliam 10, 17–18, 21, 141 Betrachtung des Leidens Christi 490
Thomas Mürner 425ff Umile da Milano 18
Der Schelmen Zunfft 426 Ursula (Abbess of the Eger monastery)
Die Gäuchmat zu Straff allen wybschen 187
Mannen 426–427 Ursula Haider
Die Mühle von Schwyndelszheim 426 Betrachtungen 413
Ein andechtig geistliche Badenfart 427 Ursula Kollerin 85
Narrenbeschwörung 426
Thomas of Hales 292–293 Vincent de Beauvais OP
Luue Ron 292–293 De Eruditione Filiorum Nobilium 532
Vita Sancte Marie 292 De Morali Principis Institutione 532
Thomas of York Speculum Majus 534
Sermo de Morte Christi Cogitanda 476 Vita Lucchese 279
Thomas van Herenthals
Christianae Vitae Speculum F. Thomae Walter Winbourne
Herentalini 257 Hymni 288
Den Speghel des Kersten Levens Tractatus Moralis super Quatuor Elementa
256–259 288
Werner von Regensburg Hymni 296–297

Soliloquia/Liber Soliloquiorum 388–389 Sermones 49
Wilhelm von Lenzfried William Melton 105
Ermahnung und Katechismus 254–255 William of Falgar
Ler von der Mess 369 Sermones 11
Willem Tergouw (Willem van Gouda) William of Middleton 300
Expositio Mysteriorum Missae/Tractatus Opusculum super Missam 362, 366
de Expositione Missae 365–366, 369 William of Pagula (OP?)
William Herebert 295f Oculus Sacerdotis 233, 365
Carols 296–297
‘Commonplace Book’ 49, 296–297 Zaffarino da Firenze 17
INDEX OF WORKS
Abbreviatio Tractatus Restitutionum S. Aureum Sacrae Theologiae Rosarium

Bernardini (Alessandro Ariosto) 354 (Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvar)
Abecedario Espiritual (Francisco de 98–99
Osuna) 263, 512–514, 521–523, Aus dem Baumgarten geistlicher Herzen
552–553 383
Acta et Statuta Generalis Capituli Tertii Auszug der Kinder Israel (Marquard von
Ordinis Poenitentium D. Francisci Lindau) 399–400
Bononiae Celebrati 199–200 Ave Maria (David von Augsburg)
Admonitiones (Francesco d’Assisi) 242–243
125–126, 375–376 Aviso de Privados y Doctrina de Cortesanos
Admonitioni (Bernardino da Fossa) 250 (Antonio de Guevara) 537
Adresse de Salut (Robert Le Messier) Avisos/Anotaciones sobre los Ejercicios
410–411, 469–470 espirituales de San Ignacio (Francisco
Advisamenta pro Reformatione Facienda Ortiz) 555
Ordinis (Francesco Michele del
Padovano) 102, 158 Beghijnken van Mechelen (Frans Vervoort)
Alcune regule de la oratione mentale 261
(Girolamo da Molfetta) 272, Benedictio (Chiara d’Assisi) 447
559–560 Betrachtung des Leidens Christi (Ulrich
Alphabetum Religiosorum (Heinrich Vigilis Horn) 490
von Weissenburg) 225, 406–407 Betrachtungen (Ursula Haider) 413
Alphabetum Vite Religiose, see: Ordinarium Betrachtungen und Gebete (David von
Amatorium (Iacopo Mazza da Reggio Augsburg) 383
Calabria) 531 Bihtebuochs (Ludwich Schönmerlin) 343
Annales Stadenses (Albert von Stade) Boechelgen van ynwendiger oeffnungen
315 (Dietrich Colde) 421–422
Ansprachen Boexken vander Missen (Gerrit vander
Caritas Pirckheimer 413–414 Goude) 369–370
Olivier Maillard 95–96, 466–469 Book of Kildare/Book of Ross 295
Antidotarium Animae (Servasanto da Bouxken van den Oflaeten (Lucas van der
Faenza), see: Summa de Poenitentia Heij) 485
Apotheca Divini Amoris (Matteo Silvaggi) Breve discorso circa l’osservanza del voto della
417 minorica povertà (Giovanni Pili da
Apparatus ad Summam Henrici de Merseburg Fano) 139, 227–228
317 Breve doctrina cristiana en lengua mejicana
Arbor Vitae Crucifixae Jesu (Ubertino da (Francisco Jiménez) 267
Casale) 125, 481–483, 506 Breve modo di confessarsi (anonymous
Ars Faciendi Sermones (Géraud du Capuchin friar) 271, 274–275, 343
Peschier) 48 Breviloquium (Bonaventura da
Ars Praedicandi Bagnoreggio) 239, 318, 323, 388
Jean de La Rochelle 12 Breviloquium de Quatuor Virtutibus
John of Wales 14 Cardinalibus ( John of Wales) 219,
Ars Unionis (Giovanni Pili da Fano) 319, 392, 516
271, 556 Breviloquium de Tribus Virtutibus Theologicis
Arte para servir a Dios (Alonso de ( John of Wales) 219, 392, 516
Madrid) 518–521 Breviloquium super Libros Sententiarum
Articuli ( Jean Glapion) 168 (Gerardo da Prato) 239
648 index of works
Brevis Monitio ad Amorem Divinum Carro de las Donas 394

Obtinendum (Pietro di Giovanni Cartas ( Juan Cazalla) 434
Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) 390 Cartas familiares (Antonio de Guevara)
Brevissima forma e modo de confessar gli suoi 471
peccati 342 Cartilla para enseñar a leer (Petrus van
Brevissima introductione de done che se voleno Gent) 266
ben Confessare (Francesco da Castigationes et Additiones ad Summa
Mozzanica) 341 Angelicam (Giacomo Ungarelli da
Bruygoms Mantelken (Frans Vervoort) Padova) 352
261 Casus Abstracti a Iure (Hermann
Buch von geistlicher Einkehr und Auskehr Topelstein) 335–336
(Heinrich Vigilis) 85, 405–406 Casus Penitentiae (Heinrich von Barben)
Büchlein von der geistlichen Gemahelschaft 317–318
(Konrad Spitzer) 310, 397 Catechismus Catholicus (Conrad Clinge)
261–262
Caballería cristiana ( Jaime de Alcalá) Catechismus Scolarium Novellorum
136, 438 (Guiral Ot) 247
Caeremoniale Admissionis Novitae in Catecismo de la doctrina cristiana con
Monasterium (Paul de Perpignan) jeroglíficos (Petrus van Gent) 266–267
190 Centiloquio del Alma (Bernabé de Palma)
Campus Florum (Giacomo della Marca) Centiloquium 436
349 Centurio (Bernardino da Fossa) 73
Cancionero ( Juan Alfonso de Baena) Cercapou (Francesc Eiximenis) 249
311 Chants Royaux en l’Honneur de la Vierge &
Cancionero castellano (Iñigo de Mendoza) du Christ Crucifié (Olivier Maillard)
3312 310–311
Canti (Felice da Cantalice) 286 Christe Deus Christe Meus, Christe Rex et
Canti & Poemetti (Mario Fabiani da Domine (Enrico da Pisa) 279
Mercato Saraceno) 287 Christenspiegel/Der Kerstenen Spiegel
Cantico dell’amore (anonymous Franciscan (Dietrich Colde) 91, 255–256, 421
friar) 277 Christianae Vitae Speculum F. Thomae
Cantico delle creature/Cantico di frate Sole Herentalini (Thomas van Herenthals
(Francesco d’Assisi) 275–276, 543 & Nikolaas Zegers) 257
Canticum de Extremo Iudicio ( Johannes Christianorum Institutionum Liber
Brugman) 307 (Francesco Michele del Padovano)
Canticum Pauperis pro Dilecto ( John 102, 524–525
Pecham) 130, 289, 389 Christus Assistens Pontifex 370
Cantilenae (Richard Ledrede) 298–299 Christus Passus est pro Nobis (Konrad
Cantilenae in Dei Servitium et Gloriosae Böhmlin) 107, 489
Virginis eius Matris et Aliorum Sanctorum Christus per suam vitam et specialiter mortem
Compositae (Diego de Valencia) 311 meruit nobis plura ( Johannes von
Canto di esortazione (Francesco d’Assisi) Bloemendal) 487
275–276, 375–376 Chronica (Nicolaus Glassberger) 150,
Canto con la Filomena (Francesco d’Assisi) 166
275 Chronica Fratris Jordani (Giordano di
Carmen de Miraculis S. Bernardini Senensis Giano) 5, 21, 141
(Luigi della Genga) 285 Chronica Fratrum Minorum Observantiae
Carmen de S. Cruce (Luigi della Genga) (Bernardino da Fossa) 72
285 Chronica XIV vel XV Generalium 141
Carols 290ff Circolo dell’Amore Divino (Francesco
Jacob Ryman 301 Ripanti da Jesi) 419
John Brackley 295 Codex Illuminati 280
John Grimestone 299–300 Collacien
Lawrence Briton 295 Dietrich Colde 91
William Herebert 296–297 Hendrik van Santen 82
index of works 649
Collationes ad Status (Bertrand de la Compendium Totius Theologice Veritatis

Tour) 47 ( Jean de Combis) 239
Collationes de Decem Praeceptis seu Expositio Compilatio Exemplorum 352
Decalogi (Bonaventura da Concio de Eleemosynae Efficacia et
Bagnoreggio) 7, 238–239 Utilitate/Enarratio in Psalmum XL
Collationes de Sanctis (Bertrand de la (Frans van Zichem) 260
Tour) 47 Conclusiones de Libertatibus Fratrum ad
Collationes de Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti Officium Audiendarum Confessionum
(Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) 7 ( Johann Kerberch) 337–338
Collationes Dominicales (Bertrand de la Confessionale
Tour) 46 Bartolomeo da Milano 336–337,
Collationes in Hexaëmeron (Bonaventura 355
da Bagnoreggio) 7 Giovanni Marchesini 319–320
Collationes Quadragesime (Servasanto da Confessionale generale (Roberto Caracciolo
Faenza) 36–37 da Lecce) 340–341
Collectio de Scandalis Ecclesie (Guibert de Confessionale Metricum ( Jean Rigaud) 330
Tournai), see: Tractatus de Scandalis Confessionario (Francisco de Hevia) 347,
Ecclesie 440
Colloquia Trium Peregrinorum (Matteo Confessionario breve en lengua mexicana y
Selvaggi) 417–418 castellana (Alonso de Molina) 269,
Commentarius super Regulam Sanctae Clarae 347
(Augustinus von Alveldt) 136–137, Confessionario mayor, en lengua mexicana y
187 castellana (Alonso de Molina) 269,
Commentarius super Regulam Sancti Francisci 347
(Augustinus von Alveldt) 136–137 Confession de Maria Maddalena 342
‘Commonplace Book’ (sermon outlines Confessione generale
and praedicabilia, mixed with Angelo da Venezia 343
hymns, carols etc.) Bernardino da Feltre 340
John Grimestone 49, 299–300 Bonaventura 340
Michael of Kildare 295–296 ‘fra Raphaele’ 341
Nicholas Philip 300–301 Conforto Spirituale de’Caminanti a Porto di
Richard Ledrede 297–299 Salute (Cherubino da Spoleto)
William Herebert 49, 296–297 529–530
Communiloquium, sive Summa Collationum Constituciones
Dictus ad Omne Hominum Genus ( John Francisco de Quiñones 154
of Wales) 219, 318, 516, 533 Juan de Guadelupe 154
Compendiloquium ( John of Wales) 14 Pedro de Alcantará 154
Compendio de la vida del Pedro Villacreces Constituciones de la Custodia de Santa María
(Pedro Regaledo & Lope de Salazar de los Menores (Lope de Salazar y
y Salinas) 152–153 Salinas) 153
Compendium Chronicarum (Mariano da Constituciones que hizo la Observancia para
Firenze) 35 los recoletos de España 154
Compendium de Virtute Humilitatis 386 Constituciones, ritos y leyes municipales para
Compendium Parvulum (Martin Bordet) las casas del Abrojo y de La Aguilera
320 (Pedro Regaledo) 152–153
Compendium Privilegiorum Fratrum Minorum Constitutiones (Robert Grosseteste) 232
159 Constitutiones a. Card. Iacobo de Columna
Compendium Salutatis (Niccolò da Osimo) pro monasterio S. Silvestri in Capite,
416 Romae, conditae 181
Compendium Theologicae Pauperis ( Jean Constitutiones Albacinenses 161–162,
Rigaud) 45, 328 226–227, 556
Compendium Theologicae Veritatis (Hugues Constitutiones Alexandrinae 158
Ripelin OP) 239, 323, 328 Constitutiones Barcinonenses, see: Statuta
Compendium Theologiae Moralis (Giacomo Generalia Observantium Ultramontanorum
della Marca) 349 anno 1451 Barcinonae condita
650 index of works
Constitutiones Barcinonenses Burgis revisae De Angelis Damnatis (Paolo di Terano)

160 238, 337
Constitutiones Barcinonenses Tolosae Revisae De Articulis Fidei
160 François de Meyronnes 237
Constitutiones Capistranenses 149ff, 160 Paolo di Terano 238, 337
Constitutiones Caturcenses 146 De Articulis Fidei et Ecclesiae Sacramentis
Constitutiones Farinerianae 146ff, 160, (Tommaso d’Aquino OP) 236, 249,
207 482
Constitutiones Martinianae 148ff, 155f De Babilonia Civitate Infernali (Giacomino
Constitutiones Narbonenses 142ff, da Verona) 284
206–207, 226, 357 De Bono Animae (Gosmario dei Gosmari
Constitutiones O.F.M. Cap. anno 1536 da Verona) 454
Ordinatae et Anno 1552 Recognitae De Brevitate Vitae Humanae (Francesco
162–164 Michele del Padovano) 524, 526
Constitutiones Parmenses 160 Decachordum Christianum (Marco Vigerio)
Constitutiones Praenarbonenses 142, 491
206–207 Decem Casus Respicientes Episcopum
Constitutiones Provinciarum, see: Statuta ( Johann von Erfurt) 325
Provincialia Dechado e Regimiento de Príncipes (Iñigo de
Constitutiones Robertus Episcopus Linc. Mendoza) 311, 535–537
(Lincoln statutes) 231–232 Dechiarazione della regola de’ frati minori
Constitutiones Sixtinae 158 cavata da’ sommi pontefici e diversi dottori
Contemplationes in duytsche ( Jan van Alen) dell’Ordine (Silvestro Bini d’Assisi)
92, 423–424 140
Contes Moralisés (Nicholas Bozon) Decisiones con sus probaciones acerca del
49–51, 235, 293 estado y manera de vivir de los frailes
Controversia de Excellentia Instrumentorum Menores (Bernardino de Arévalo)
Dominicae Passionis (Marco Vigerio) 137
491 De Civitate Christi (Giovanni Quaia di
Coplas (Iñigo de Mendoza) 311–312, Parma) 403
511 Declaración de los misterios de la Misa
Corona della beatissima Vergine Maria (Bernabé de Palma) 436
(Bernardino da Busti) 77 Declaratione devota et utile de tutte quelle cose
Corone de Nostre Saulveur (François che se fanno et dicono nella Messa
Lambert d’Avignon) 431–432 (Gabriele da Perugia) 370
Cosmographia (Franziskus Willer) 349 Declaratio Primae Regulae S. Chiarae
Cransken van Minnen 508 (Giovanni da Capistrano) 135,
Cronica (Salimbene da Parma) 17–18, 185–186
20–21, 26, 28, 33, 142, 207, 279, Declaratio Regulae
357 Cristoforo Picinelli da Varese 136
Cur Fratres Non Promoveant Ordinem Jaime de Alcalá 136
Poenitentium (Bonaventura da Johannes Kerberch 134–135
Bagnoreggio) 196 Declaratio S. Bernardini de Senis circa aliqua
dubia super Regulam Fratrum Minorum
Das deutsch roemisch Brevier ( Jacob Wyg) (. . .) Fratribus de Observantia totius
358–359 Italiae (Bernardino da Siena) 135,
Das Testament Eynes Waren Cristen 462
Mynschen (Dietrich Colde) 255–256, Declaratio seu Interpretatio Bullarum
421–422 Indulgentiarum Sixti IV (Angelo
Datarium 359 Carletti) 351
Dat Cleyne Bondeken van Mirre, see: Declaratio super Regula Fratrum Minorum
Fasciculus Mirre (Niccolò da Osimo) 135
De Acerbissima Passione Domini Nostri Iesu Declaratio super Regulam ( John of Wales)
Christi (Roberto Caraccioli) 489 130–131
index of works 651
Declarazione circa il vestire (Bernardino De Fide/Der Glob (Marquard von

d’Asti) 139 Lindau) 249
De Conditionibus et Proprietatibus Amoris De Finibus Paupertatis (Hugues de Digne)
Dei (Pietro di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre 128–129
Jean Olieu) 390 Definitiones Poenitentiales (Hendrik van
De Conformitate Vitae Beati Francisci ad den Berghe) 409
Vitam Domini Iesu (Bartolomeo da De Floccipendendo Vulgo et Contemnendis
Rinoncio) 35, 48, 134, 201, 473 Eius Ineptiis et de Quidditate Fortunae
De Contemptu Mundi (hymn) 278 (Francesco Michele del Padovano)
De Corpore Christi (Marquard von 524, 526
Lindau) De Horto Spirituali (Marquard von
De Corrigendis Adolescentium Studiis Lindau), see: Sermo de Horto Spirituali
(Philipp Melanchthon) ix De Ierusalem Celesti (Giacomino da
Decretum Gratiani 191, 352 Verona) 284
De Decem Praeceptis/Expositio Decalogi De Immaculata Conceptione (Franziskus
Anonymous 238 Willer) 349
François de Meyronnes 237 De Ingenuis Puerorum et Adolescentium
Johann Kannemann 238 Moribus (Pietro da Trani) 341
Paolo di Terano 238 De Insensata Cura Mortalium (Francesco
Tommaso d’Aquino OP 236 Michele del Padovano) 524–526
De Decem Praeceptis Decalogi et de Septem De Institutione Novitiorum (Hugues de
Vitiis Capitalibus (Angelo Carletti) St. Victor) 215, 217
351 De Investigatione Creatoris per Creaturas
De Discipulorum Preceptorumque Moribus (Bertram von Ahlen) 402
(Bonvesin della Riva) 246–247 De Iuramento (Paolo di Terano) 337
De Discordia Inter Prelatos et Religiosos Dekalogerklärung (Marquard von Lindau)
(Dietrich Struve & Johann Reyneke) 368
336 De Laude Domini Novi Saeculi (Bertram
De Doloribus, Anxietatibus et Amaritudinibus von Ahlen) 402
Christi (Ludwich Schönmerlin) 495 De Laude Melliflui Nominis Domini Nostri
De Dominica Oratione/Erklärung des Iesu Christi (Guibert de Tournai)
Vaterunser (David von Augsburg) 500
242 De Libertate Confessionem Audiendi ( Johann
De XII Articulis Fidei ( Johannes Kannemann) 337–338
Blumendal von Köln) 238 Della Religione (Niccolò da Osimo) 416
De duodecim fructibus confessionis/Sermone De los cuatro Novissimos y Postrimerias del
de’ dodici frutti della confessione (Antonio Hombre (Bernabé de Palma) 436
da Vercelli) 68 De Malatiis et Impietatibus Juadaeorum
De Eruditione Filiorum Nobilium (Vincent Modernorum (Giacomo Ungarelli da
de Beauvais OP) 532 Padova) 352
De excellenti Praerogativa Benedictae Virginis De Modo Addiscendi (Guibert de Tournai)
(Rudolf von Biberach) 396 384–385
De Exercitiis Religiosorum (Franciscus De Monte Contemplationis ( Jean Gerson)
Titelmans) 227 82
De Exterioris et Interioris Compositione De Morali Principis Institutione (Vincent
Hominis (David von Augsburg) de Beauvais OP) 532
209–213, 382 De Nabuchodonosor (Marquard von
Defensorium Elucidativum Observantiae Lindau) 399–401
Regularis Fratrum Minorum (Bonifacio Denarius sive Decacordum (Helwicus von
da Ceva) 158 Magdeburg) 380–381
Defensorium Montis Pietatis (Bernardino De Negotiatione (Paolo di Terano) 238,
da Busti) 78 337
Defensorium Tertii Ordinis (Giovanni da Denkwürdigkeiten (Caritas Pirckheimer)
Capistrano) 202–203 382, 461
652 index of works
De Nobilitate Creaturarum et de Nobilitate De Quinque Festivitatibus Pueri Jesu

Anime Rationalis (Marquard von (Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) 406,
Lindau) 400–402 477–478, 545
De Non Negligendo vel Etiam Abdicando De Regimini Animae (Bonaventura da
Litterarum Studio (Francesco Michele Bagnoreggio) 386
del Padovano) 101–102 De Regimine Principum (Egidio da Roma)
De Novem Effusionibus Sanguinis D.N.J.C. 533ff
(Bernardino da Balvano) 514 De renuntiatione papae Coelestini V, quaestio
Den Prickel der Minnen Gods (Lucas van et epistola (Pietro di Giovanni
der Heij) 485 Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) 379–380
Den Speghel des Kersten Levens (Thomas De Reparatione Hominis (Marquard von
van Herenthals) 256–259 Lindau) 41
Den spinrocken ghegeven voer een nyeuwe iaer Der geistliche Hand (David von Augsburg)
den religiosen ioncfrouwen van mariendael 421
binnen diest mitten naycorf (Lucas van Der geistliche Herbst (Stephan Fridolin)
der Heij) 485 83, 407, 504–505
De Nuptiis Animae cum Christo eius Sponso Der geistliche Mai (Stephan Fridolin) 83,
(Matteo Silvaggi) 417–418 407, 504–505
De Officio Cherubyn (Rudolf von Der Gemeynder Bicht/Der ghemeenten biechte
Biberach) 364 ( Johannes Elen) 344
De Officio Episcopi et Ecclesiae Caeremoniis Der kersten eeuwe/Spieghel oft reghel des
(Guibert de Tournai) 364 kersten gheloofs 258–259
De Officio Magistri Novitiorum & Qualiter Der Kerstenen Spieghel/Christenspieghel
Novitius se Praeparat ad Horam (David (Dietrich Colde) 255–256
von Augsburg) 211 Der Rosengarten Jesu und Marias 482
De Oratione (David von Augsburg) Der Schatzbehalter (Stephan Fridolin) 83,
546ff 407–408
De Oratione Dominica ( Johann Der Schelmen Zunfft (Thomas Mürner)
Kannemann) 238 426
De Oratione Vocali (Pietro di Giovani Der Seele Rat (Heinrich von Burgeis)
Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) 390, 549 309
De Ornatu Animae/Tratado del Adorno del Der Sondaren Troest ( Johannes van
Alma (Francisco Ortiz Yáñez) 554 Remerswael) 343
De Pane Angelorum (Frans Vervoort) 260 Der Spiegel der Tugend (David von
De Paradiso Spirituali (Marquard von Augsburg) 383
Lindau), see: Sermo de Paradiso De Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti (Rudolf
Spirituali von Biberach) 396
De Peccatorum Nocumentis (Berthold Kule) De Septem Gradibus Amoris/Von den Sieben
402 Graden der volkommenen Liebe (Heinrich
De Perfecta atque Contemplativa Vita Vigilis von Weissenburg) 86
(Kaspar Schatzgeyer) 425 De Septem Gradibus Orationis (David von
De Perfectione Vitae ad Sorores seu de Forma Augsburg) 547–548
Perfectionis Religiosorum (Bonaventura De Septem Itineribus Aeternitatis (Rudolf
da Bagnoreggio) 217–218, 404, von Biberach) 84, 396–397
477, 545 De Septem Processibus Religiosorum (David
De Preconiis Hispaniae ( Juan Gill de von Augsburg) 210, 382, 546–547
Zamora) 534–536 De Septem Sentimentis Christi Jesu (Pietro
De Processu Humani Profectus (Hendrik di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu)
Herp) 79–80, 420 390
De Proprietatibus Rerum (Bartholomaeus De Septem Tentationibus (Pietro di
Anglicus) 49–50, 111, 533 Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu)
De 14 Gradibus Amoris Gratiosi (Pietro di 390
Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) De Septem Verbis D.N. Ihesu Christi in
390 Cruce (Guiral Ot) 487
index of works 653
De Sex Alis Seraphim (Bonaventura da Dialogi de Anima (Melchior Frizzolo da

Bagnoreggio) 361, 477, 540 Parma) 417
Des règles de la perfection (Pierre de La Dialogi de Vita Aeterna (Lorenzo
Brosse) 489 Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona)
De Summa Trinitate et Fide Catholica in 444
Decretalibus (Benedict d’Alignan) 243 Dialogo, see also: Dyalogo
Des Vijants Net (Frans Vervoort) 260 Dialogo de la salute (Giovanni Pili da
De Tempore Mortis eiusque Incertitudine Fano) 138–140, 228
(Berthold Kule) 402 Dialogo del maestro e del discepolo (Antonio
Determinationes Quaestionum circa Regulam da Pinerolo) 272–273
Fratrum Minorum (Bonaventura da Dialogus de Gestis Sanctorum Fratrum
Bagnoreggio) 4–5, 130 Minorum 26
De Throno Salomonis (Marquard von Dicta/Detti
Lindau) 399–401 Conrad da Offida 379–380
De Triplici Via (Bonaventura da Giovanni Firmano della Verna
Bagnoreggio) 386–387, 396, 406, 379–380
544–545 Jacopone da Todi 377–378
Deus Est (Robert Grosseteste) 232 Dicta Aurea (Egidio d’Assisi) 6, 376,
Deutsche Predigten 544
Berthold von Regensburg 31–32 Die acht Seligkeiten (Heinrich Vigilis) 85
Conrad Böhmlin 107–108 Die beduydinghe der Missen (Ludolf
Johann Einzlinger 84 Nicolai) 371
Johannes Alphart 80–81 Die den menschen leert sonder mont
Johann Pauli 111–112 (Cornelis Raven) 424, 470–471
Marquard von Lindau 39–42 Die deutsche Passion ( Johann von
Petrus Christiani 84 Zazenhausen) 487–488
De Veneno Septem Peccatorum Mortalium Die doernen Crone onses heren Ihesu Cristi
Eorumque Remedia (Malachy of (Dietrich Colde) 421, 507–508
Limerick) 323–324, 343 Die Gäuchmat zu Straff allen wybschen
De Vera et Perfecta Laetitia (Francesco Mannen (Thomas Mürner) 426–427
d’Assisi) 376 Die Mühle von Schwyndelszheim (Thomas
De Veritate et Firmitate Christiane Fidei Mürner) 426
(Bernardino da Siena) 251 Die seven getzide (Dietrich Colde) 91
De verweckinghe der godlijcker liefden Die siben Gaben des hl. Geist (Heinrich
(translation of the Stimulus Amoris) Vigilis) 85–86
92, 507 Die siben strassen zu got (Rudolf von
De Virginitate/Epistola de Virginitate Biberach) 396–397
(Guibert de Tournai) 384 Die sieben Staffeln des Gebets (David von
De Vita, Morte et Resurrectione Domini Augsburg) 243, 383, 547–548
(Marco Vigerio) 491 Die sieben Vorregeln der Tugend (David
De Vita Scolastica (Bonvesin della Riva) von Augsburg) 243, 382–383,
246–247 546–547
Devoet Boexken voor alle Devote Personen die Dies Irae 278
gaerne sonder vegevier ten hemel comen Dieta Salutis 328, 428
souden (Martin van Gouda) 422 Dieta Salutis in Gallico ( Jean Perrini)
Devote Oefeninge (alias Leven van Jesus) 428
( Johannes Brugman) 482, 503 Die vier Fittige geistlicher Betrachtung (David
Devote oeffeninge ende een rechte conste omme von Augsburg) 383
God te dienen (Ludolf Nicolai) Die vierundzwanzig Alten oder der goldene
422–423 Thron der minnenden Seele (Otto von
Devotus Tractatus (. . .) ad Exercitia Passau) 105, 397–398
Passionis Domini ( Johannes Brugman) Die wandelinghe der bloemen 509
503–504 Die Woestijne des Heeren (Frans Vervoort)
Dialogi (Bernardino Ochino) 418–419 260
654 index of works
Die zehe Gebot (Marquard von Lindau) Edenuym seu Eden Contemplativum
247–248, 397, 400 (Hendrik Herp) 420
Die Zeichen (Bezeichenunge) der heiligen Een corte oefeninghe vander Passien ons heeren
Messe (Berthold von Regensburg) Ihesu Cristi (Dietrich Colde) 421,
31, 366 507–508
Directorium Humanae Mentis ad Deum Een devoot ende profitelijck boecxken,
(Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagni di inhoudende veel gheestelijcke liedekens ende
Savona) 444 leysenen 308
Directorium Iuris Eene sonderlinge lesse om in alle duechden toe
Durand de Champagne 330–333 te nemen (Dietrich Colde) 421
Franziskus Willer 349 Een hant vol wysheyden (Dietrich Colde)
Peter Quesel 333–334, 349 421
Directorium Vitae Humanae (Lorenzo Een salich ende profitelijck onderwijs vander
Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona) Biechten (Adriaan van Mechelen)
444 344–345
Disme de Penitence ( Jehan de Journy) Een scoon spieghel der simpelre
52 menschen/Manuale Simplicium (Dietrich
Disputatio Puerorum (Alcuin) 230 Colde) 255
Distinctiones (Ascencio di Santa Een tractaetken van vier wercken der liefden
Colomba) 47–48 dye Christus aent cruyce volbracht heeft
Dit is een suverlijc boecxken 307 (Ludolf Nicolai) 371–372, 422–423
Diu Tohter Syon/Tochter Syon Eglogae Theoddi. Commentarius (Paolo di
(Lamprecht von Regensburg) Terano) 238
302–303 Ein andechtig geistliche Badenfart (Thomas
Doctrina (Hugo Bariols) 243–244 Mürner) 427
Doctrina beatae Caterina (Caterina Vigri) Ein andehtige wedrachtung lignum vite
411 (Heinrich Vigilis) 406
Doctrina Christiana Ein guter Einkehr (Heinrich Vigilis)
Antonio de Valenzuela 264–265 406–407
Bernabé de Palma 436 Ein schöne auslegung über den pater noster
Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexicana (Petrus Christiani) 84
Alonso de Molina 69 Ejercicios contemplativos y ocupaciones activas
Juan de Ribas 267 (Pedro Regaledo) 152–153
Petrus van Gent 266–267 El Crestiá (Francesc Eiximenis) 249,
Doctrina cristiana breve traducida en lengua 515–518
mexicana (Alonso de Molina) 269 El Monte Calvario (Antonio de Guevara)
Doctrinae Christianae ( Juan de 510–514
Zumárraga) 268 El Norte de los Estados (Francisco de
Doctrina pueril (Ramon Llull) 245–246 Osuna) 263–264, 521
Doctrina utile alle religiose maxime alle Elucidarium (Honorius Augustodunensis)
novitie 225 239
Donatus Devotionis (Thomas Winchelsae?) Elucidatio in Tertiam S. Francisci Regulam
442–443 203–204
Dormi Secure ( Johann von Werden) Enarratio Passionis ( Jan Royaert) 93
106–107 Enchiridion Militis Christiani (Erasmus)
Dotzen libre de regiment dels princeps e de ix
comunitats (Francisco de Eiximenis) Enchiridion seu Manuale Fratrum Minorum
219 159
Drei Predigten von den Anfechtungen der Enchiridion sive Interrogatorium pro Animabus
Closterlut (Heinrich Vigilis) 85, 225 Regendis sive Interrogatorium Confessorum
Dulcissimo amore mio Iesu Cristo (Alessandro Ariosto) 354
(Eustochia Calafato) 551 Epistola ad Abbatem Sanctae Mariae
Dyalogo de la unione spirituale de Dio con Blessensis (Bonaventura da
l’anima (Bartolomeo Cordoni) 419 Bagnoreggio) 449
index of works 655
Epistola ad Abbatissam et Sorores Sanctae Epistola Consolatoria (Gabriele Rangone)

Clarae Monasterii de Assisio 462–464
(Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) 449 Epistola Continens Viginti Quinque
Epistola ad Albertum Puchelbach (Giovanni Memoralia (Bonaventura da
da Capistrano) 222–223 Bagnoreggio) 449–450, 509
Epistola ad Clericos (Francesco d’Assisi) Epistola de Concordia (Bonaventura da
445 Bagnoregio) 450
Epistola ad Dominam Isabellam/Epistola Epistola de Imitatione Christi (Bonaventura
Exhortationis de Virginitate (Guibert de da Bagnoreggio) 449–451, 477
Tournai) 451 Epistola de Peculiaribus Fratris Minoris
Epistola ad Fratrem Laurentium Capuccini Virtutibus Caritate Scilicet et
(Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) 450 Paupertate (Bernardino Palli d’Asti)
Epistola ad Fratrem Leonem (Francesco 465
d’Assisi) 445 Epistola de Reformatione Theologiae ( Jean
Epistola ad Fratrem Simonem de Rhegio Gerson) 241
OFM (Alessandro Ariosto) 463 Epistola de Sandalis Apostolorum
Epistola ad Fratres Custodem et Guardianum (Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) 449
Pisarum (Bonaventura da Epistola de Silentio (Hendrik Herp) 462
Bagnoreggio) 450 Epistola de Tribus Quaestionibus ad
Epistola ad Fratres de Monte Dei magistrum Innominatum seu Declaratio
(Guillaume de St. Thierry) 210, quorundam Articulorum Regulae Fratrum
217, 444 Minorum (Bonaventura da
Epistola ad Fratres Universos (Bonaventura Bagnoreggio) 130
da Bagnoreggio) 450 Epistola de Virginitate (Guibert de
Epistola ad Guidonem Comitem Flandrie et Tournai), see: De Virginitate
Matildem Uxorem Eius (Bonaventura Epistola Dominae Jacobae Scripta
da Bagnoreggio) 450 (Francesco d’Assisi) 445
Epistola ad Ministrum & Epistola ad Epistolae
Quendam Ministrum (Francesco Adam Marsh 448–449
d’Assisi) 445 Alberto da Sarteano 462–463
Epistola ad Ministrum et Fratres Angelo Clareno 453
Congregationis Beatae Virginis in Civitate Antonio da Vercelli (Antonio
Brixiensi (Bonaventura da Balocco) 462
Bagnoreggio) 450 Caritas Pirckheimer 461
Epistola ad Omnes Ministros Provinciales et Felizitas Grundherrin 461
Custodes Ordinis Fratrum Minorum Francesco Michele del Padovano
(Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) 450 462
Epistola ad Omnes Ordinis Ministros Giovanni di Montecorvino 245
Provinciales (Bonaventura da Henry de Baume 458
Bagnoreggio) 450 John Pecham 449
Epistola ad Populorum Rectores (Francesco Katharina Pirckheimer 461
d’Assisi) 445 Klara Pirckheimer 461
Epistola ad Quendam Novitium Insolentem et Tommaso Illyrico da Osimo 462,
Instabilem 214 464–465
Epistola ad Recommendatos Beatae Virginis Epistolae ad Custodes (Francesco d’Assisi)
in Urba Roma (Bonaventura da 445
Bagnoreggio) 450 Epistolae ad Fideles (Francesco d’Assisi)
Epistola ad Regis Siciliae Filios (Pietro di 193–195, 375–376, 445, 473
Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) Epistolae Spirituales (Paula Antoinette de
391, 452 Nigris) 460
Epistola ad Sewallum (Adam Marsh) Epistolae Variae (Alvaro Pelayo)
448–449, 545 455–456
Epistola Civibus Bononiensibus Scripta Epistola Fratribus Franciae Missae
(Francesco d’Assisi) 445 (Francesco d’Assisi) 445
656 index of works
Epistola S. Clarae de Ieiunio Scripta Exhortation de la vie réligieuse (Henry de

(Francesco d’Assisi) 445 Baume) 404–405
Epístolas familiares Explanationes Constitutionum Generalium
Francisco Ortiz Yáñez 471, 554 Narbonensium (Bonaventura da
Epistola Toti Ordini Missa una cum Bagnoreggio) 143
Oratione: Omnipotens, Aeterne (Francesco Explicatio Decalogi (François de
d’Assisi) 125, 445–446 Meyronnes) 237
Erklärung des Ave Maria (David von ‘Explicatio Formae Vitae’ (Caterina da
Augsburg) 242–243 Bologna) 188–189
Ermahnung und Katechismus (Wilhelm von Explicatio Regulae S. Clarae
Lenzfried) 253–254 Guglielmo da Casale 187
Ermahnung zu einem wahren klösterlichen Niccolò da Osimo 135, 187
Leben (Heinrich Vigilis von Exposición de la Regla franciscana (Pedro
Weissenburg) 85, 225 de Villacreces, Pedro Regaledo
Erudimentum Doctrinae (Guibert de et al.) 137, 152–153
Tournai), see: Rudimentum Doctrinae Expositio Anonyma 129
Eruditio Regum et Principum (Guibert de Expositio Compendiosa et Familiaris Sensum
Tournai) 533–534 Litteralem et Mysticum Complectens Libri
Escalera del Paraíso 436 Psalmorum, Hymnorum, Soliloquorum
Espejo de Conciencia Para Todos los Estados Regii Prophetae, item Expositio Canticorum
( Juan Bautista Viñones?) 439 V. et N. Testamenti, Symboli Athanasii,
Espejo de consolación de tristes en el qual se Hymni Universales Creaturae (Pelbartus
muestran ser mejores los males desta vida Ladislaus de Temesvar) 98
que los bienes della, por muy claros Expositio Decalogi, see: De decem Praeceptis
exemplos de la Sagrada Escritura Expositio de Summa Trinitate et Fide
( Juan de Dueñas) 347 Catholica (François de Meyronnes)
Espejo de Illustres Personas (Alonso de 237
Madrid) 518, 520 Expositio Divini Officii Missae (Martin von
Espejo del Alma (Francisco de Hevia) Wien) 364
347, 440 Expositio Epistolarum Totius Anni (Olivier
Espejo del Pecador y tesoro del ánima ( Juan Maillard) 94
de Dueñas) 347 Expositio in Pater Noster, see: Expositio
Espejo de Religiosos 434–435 super Patrem Nostrem & Expositio
Esposizione della nuova dichirazione sopra lo Orationis Dominicae
Regola (Niccolò da Osimo) 135 Expositio Missae/De Significationibus Missae
Esposizione della Regula dei Frati Minori ( Jean Rigaud) 365
(Giovanni da Capistrano) 135 Expositio Mysteriorum Missae/Tractatus de
Estatutos por que se regián las casas de Expositione Missae (Willem Tergouw)
recolección 154 365–366, 369
Excerpta Bertrami ex Operibus Henrice Expositione de la Regula di Frati Minori per
Gandavensis, Godefride Fontibus et Iacobi modo di Sermone (Giovanni Maria da
de Viterbo (Bertram von Ahlen) 402 Tusa) 140
Exempel van een goede maghet Machtelt hielt Expositiones Catonis (Bonvesin della Riva)
(Cornelis Raven) 424 246–247
Exercens Se Sacris Orationibus et Expositionis super Missus est alter liber
Meditationibus sive Sacris Affectionibus (Franciscus de Osuna) 263
(Pietro di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Expositio Orationis Dominicae/in Orationem
Olieu) 390, 549 Dominicam
Exercici de la Santa Creu (Pedro Caldèz) Antonio da Matelica della Marca
489 238–239
Exercitiae (Ladislaus von Gielniow) 99, Francisco Ortiz Yáñez 264, 554
307 Johann Heimstedt 238
Exercitio spirituale (Antonio da Atri) 490 Tommaso d’Aquino OP 236
Exhortatio ad Laudem Dei (Francesco Expositio Quatuor Magistrorum (Alexander
d’Assisi) 542 of Hales, Jean de La Rochelle,
index of works 657
Roberto da Bascia and Eudes Forma Vitae Fratrum Minorum (part of

Rigaud) 129 Pecham’s Canticum pro Dilecto) 130
Expositio Regulae (Antonio de Córdoba) Forma Vivendi (Francesco d’Assisi) 120f,
137 170
Expositio Regulae Fratrum Minorum Formula Confessionum ( Jean Rigaud) 45,
Angelo Clareno 128–129 328–330
Angelo Tancredi 140 Formula de Compositione Hominis Exterioris
Expositio Salutationis Angelicae ad Novitios (David von Augsburg)
Johann Kannemann 238 210, 382, 546
Tommaso d’Aquino OP) 236 Formula de Interioris Hominis Reformatione
Expositio Septem Verborum Christi in Cruce ad Proficientes (David von Augsburg)
Dictorum (Pietro di Giovanni Olivi) 210, 382
480 Formula Vitae (1209: Francesco d’Assisi)
Expositio super Magnificat ( Johannes 120
Blumendal von Köln) 238 Formula Vitae Christianae (Kaspar
Expositio super Patrem Nostrem/in Pater Schatzgeyer) 425
Noster Franceschina (Giacomo Oddi da Perugia)
Francesco d’Assisi 242, 263, 264, 474
542–543 Funerale B. Bernardini Aquilanae de Fossa
Giovanni Quaia di Parma’ 238 (Bernardino da Fossa) 74
Johannes Blumendal von Köln 238
Pietro di Giovanni Olivi 237 Gesta Romanorum 111, 235
Expositio super Regulam Fratrum Minorum Giardino de oratione 551
Hugues de Digne 128–129, 141 Glosas al Regimiento de Príncipes ( Juan
John Pecham 129–130 Garcia de Castrojeriz) 535–537
Pietro di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Glosa super Regulam Fratrum Minorum
Olieu 129–134 (David von Augsburg) 130–131
Expositio Symboli Apostolorum Gracioso Convite de las gracias del santo
Johann Kannemann 238 Sacramento del altar (Francisco de
Tommaso d’Aquino (OP) 235–236 Osuna) 263, 371, 521
Expositio symboli beati Athanasii et Grados de la Oración y contemplación
lateranensis consilii ( Johannes (Barnabé de Palma) 436
Blumendal von Köln) 238 Grant Mal fist Adam (Guichard de
Eyn schone Christliche underrichtung Beaulieu) 51
(Christian von Honneff ) 254 Gúldin Buch (Konrad Böhmlin) 41, 476
Eytlposs (Heinrich Kastner) 88
Harley Lyrics 290ff
Fasciculus Mirre (Dat Cleyne Bondeken van Hiob-Traktat (Marquard von Lindau)
Mirre) & the Spanish Fasciculus 399–401
Myrrhe 92, 423, 509–512 Histoire de la Passion Douloureuse de Notre
Fasciculus Morum (Robert Silke) 235, Doux Sauveur et Rédempteur Remémorée es
304 Sacrés et Saints Mystères de la Messe
Fioretti 48 (Olivier Maillard) 94, 495–496
Firmamenta Trium Ordinum Beatissimi Historia Ordinis Fratrum Minorum
Patris Nostri Francisci 159, 202 Capuccinorum (Bernardo da
Flores Paradisi (Gabriele Rangone da Colpetrazzo) 161
Verona) 69–71 Historia Scholastica (Petrus Comestor)
Forma Recognoscendi et Confitendi Peccata 107
342 Historia Septem Tribulationum (Angelo
Forma Vitae Clareno) 473
Chiara d’Assisi (‘Regula Prima’) Homéliaire ( Jean Vitrier) 97
156, 170, 174–178, 180f, Homiliae ( Jan Royaert) 93
183–190, 207, 550–551 Homiliae super Psalmum L per totam
Ugolino dei Conti di Segni Quaresimam (Francisco Ortiz Yáñez)
170–172, 174, 178, 192 100
658 index of works
Hoofken der Sielen/Hortulus Animae (Frans Itinerario de la oración (Francisco de

Vervoort) 260 Hevia) 554–555
Horologium Fidei (André de Prado) 262 Itinerarium Catholicum Profiscentium ad
Hubertynus spreect vander maghet marien Infideles Convertendos ( Jean Focher)
482 270
Hymni Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (Bonaventura
John Pecham 288 da Bagnoreggio) 402
Lorenzo Massorili 285–286 Itinerarium sive de Sacra Peregrinatione
Walter Winbourne 288 (Alessandro Ariosto) 463
William Herebert 296–297
Jahrzeitenbuch (Ludwich Schönmerlin)
‘Ick hebbe ghejaecht mijn leven lanc’ 343
( Johannes Brugman) 307 Josephina (Bernardino de Laredo) 437
I Divini Precetti (Giacomo Paniscotti da Jubilus Rythmicus de Nomine Jesu 397
Molfetta) 273–274 Justa y diferencia que hay entre la razón
I Dodici Giardini (Caterina Vigri) 411 y la sensualidad sobre la felicidad y
I dolori mentali di nostro signore Gesù nella bienaventuranza humana (Iñigo de
sua passione (Battista da Varano) Mendoza) 311–312
224, 493
Ignorantia Sacerdotum ( John Pecham) Kristi Leben unser Vorbild (David von
233, 361 Augsburg) 383, 477
Illuminata Conscientia (Antonio Sassolini)
341–342 La Breve Dottrina (Giovanni da
Il mistero della flagellazione di N.S. Gesù Capistrano) 339
Cristo ridotto in forma di meditazione per Labyrinthi Duo de Mundano et Divino Amore
tutti i giorni della settimana (Bernardino (Matteo Silvaggi) 417
da Balvano) 514 La cité du coeur divin ( Jean Glapion)
Il nome di Gesù. Predica volgare inedita 97–98
(Bernardino da Siena) 54 La confessione di sancto Bernardino volgare
In die verissenisse sullen wij wesen als utilissima e brieve (Bernardino da
enghelen (Cornelis Raven) 424 Siena) 338
In Divini Dyonisii Misticam Theologiam La Confession Générale (Olivier Maillard)
Clarissima Commentaria (Antonio de 346
Moneglia) 415 Lambeth constitutions ( John Pecham)
Información Para las Viudas Cristianas 232–233, 361, 449
( Juan Serrano) 438 L’amore evangelico sopra la Regola di S.
Informatio ad Virtutum Opera (Pietro di Francesco 138
Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) La passion de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ
390–392, 480–481 ( Jean Glapion) 370–371
Inspice et fac secundum exemplar (Konrad Las quatrocientas respuestas (Luis de
Böhmlin) 41, 476 Escobar) 312–313
Instructiones circa divinum officium (Gautier Las Siete Palabras (Antonio de Guevara)
de Bruges) 363 514
Instructions for Parish Priests 233 Laudario di Cortona 280–281
Instructio Sacerdotis ad Se Praeparandum ad Laude 279–284, 290f
Celebrandam Missam (Giacomo da Guittone d’Arezzo 283
Milano) 360 Ugo Panziera da Prato 283, 379
Instructorium Providi Peregrini (Thomas Laudes ad Omnes Horas Dicendae
Winchelsae) 442–443 (Francesco d’Assisi) 275, 367,
Interrogatorium Confessorum (Niccolò da 375–376
Osimo) 354 Laude spirituali ( Jacopone da Todi)
Interrogatorium seu Confessionale 281–283, 377
(Bartolomeo da Milano) 336–337, Laudismus de Sancta Cruce (Bonaventura
354–355 da Bagnoreggio) 278, 477
index of works 659
La vida y la muerte o Vergel de Religiosos Guittone d’Arezzo 283

en metro castellano (Francisco de Avila) Iacopa Pollicino 459
312 Lettere de electione e de la reprensione
La Vita del nostro salvatore Jesu Christo (Bernardino Palli d’Asti) 465
(Ludovico Filicaia) 514 Lettres
Lay Folks’ Catechism 233 Agnes de Vaux 458
Le cinquanta cortesie da tavola (Bonvesin Catherine Rufiné 458–459
della Riva) 246–247 Colette de Corbie 457–458
Le désert de dévotion (Henri Caupin) Élisabeth de Bavière 458–459
429 Guillemette de Gruyère 458–459
Legenda Aurea ( Jacopo da Voragine OP) Henry de Baume 458
107, 111 Lettre sur les défauts de la langue ( Jean
Legenda Major (Bonaventura da Barthelemy) 405, 469
Bagnoreggio) 48, 359, 545 L’Exposition sur le sermon que nostre seigneur
Legenda Minor (Bonaventura da fit en la montaigne contenant les huyt
Bagnoreggio) 359 beatitudes ( Jean Vitrier) 97
Legenda Perusina 127, 129, 276 Ley de amor santo (Francisco de Osuna)
Legenda Trium Sociorum 1, 48 263
Legenda Versificata (Henry d’Avranche) Libellum de Usuris (Alessandro Ariosto)
301 354
Leggenda della Serafica Vergine Santa Chiara Liber Apostrophe/Liber de Articulis Fidei
(Battista Alfani) 188, 413 (Ramon Llull) 245
Lehre für angefochtene und kleinmütige Liber de Exemplis Naturalibus (Servasanto
Menschen (Stephan Fridolin) 83, 86, da Faenza) 37–38, 320
407 Liber de Laudibus Beati Francisci (Bernard
Le Jardin des Nobles (Pierre de Grossis) de Besse) 12, 192, 197
428 Liber de Quattuordecim Articulis Sacrosanctae
Le livret de la crainte amoureuse ( Jean Romanae Catholicae Fidei (Ramon Llull)
Barthelemy) 405, 469 245
Le livret de la triple viduité ( Jean Liber de Sacrosancta et Superbenedicta
Barthelemy) 405, 469 Trinitate (Franciscus Titelmans) 288
Le Manuel des Chrestiens ( Jehan Clerici) Liber de Virtutibus et Vitiis (Servasanto da
346 Faenza) 320–322
Ler von der Mess (Wilhelm von Liber Exemplorum ad Usam Praedicantium
Lenzfried) 369 235
‘Lesepredigten’ 225 Liber Praedicationum & Liber alius
Hendrik van Santen 82 Praedicationum (Giacomo della Marca)
Marquard von Lindau 41 58
Le sette armi necessarie alla battaglia Liber Roderici Zamorensis Speculum
spirituale (Caterina Vigri) 223–224 Humanae Vitae ( Jean Perrini)
Les six grâces attachées à la récitation 428–429
commune de l’office divin (Henry de Liber Sapientiae Spiritualis 415
Baume) 404–405 Liber Soliloquiorum (Werner von
Le Traicté de Exemplaire Penitence ( Jehan Regensburg), see: Soliloquia
Clerici) 346 Libre de la Sancta Terçera Regla 434–435
Le Traicté des Fondemens du Temple ‘Libretti della Regola’ 161, 227–228
Spirituel de Dieu ( Jehan Clerici) 346 Libro Áureo de Marco Aurelio (Antonio de
Le Traicté nommé des Trois Passions de Guevara) 537
Nostre Seigneur Jesuchrist ( Jehan Clerici) Libro de la contemplación (Ramón Llull)
346 552
Letteratura devozionale predicabile 559 Libro de la Passione (Eustochia Calafato)
Lettere 413, 492
Caterina Vigri 460 Libro delle degnità et excellentie del ordine
Eustochia Calafato 459 della seraphica madre delle povere donne
660 index of works
Sancta Chiara da Asisi (Mariano da Llibre o Summa de Beatitut ( Juan Pascual)

Firenze) 187, 459 433
Libro delle tre scritture (Bonvesin della Loci Communes Theologici (Conrad Clinge)
Riva) 284 261
Libro delli commandamenti di Dio (Marco Lucerna Confessoris (Iacopo Mazza da
da Montegallo) 251–252, 531 Reggio Calabria) 355, 531
Libro del Via Spiritus abreviado de nuevo Lunetae Confessorum (Gabriel Maria
(Andrés de Ortega) 434 Nicolas) 355
Libro Devote, Dicto Libro de Vita sopra li Luue Ron (Thomas of Hales) 292–293
Principali Misteri de Christo Benedicto et Lyrics
de la Matre Sua (Gabriele da Perugia) Michael of Kildare 295–296
505–506 Nicholas Bozon 293–294
Libro devoto (Caterina Vigri) 411
Libro intitulato de la divina lege de esso Maitagspredigt (Marquard von Lindau)
omnipotente Dio (Marco da 40
Montegallo) 251–253, 531 Mammotrectus (Giovanni (?) Marchesini
Libro llamado Fuente de Vida 434–436 di Reggio Emilia) 132, 220, 360
Libro llamado Lumbre del Alma ( Juan Manual per declarar la Regle en solos los
Cazalla) 434 preceptos obligatorios (García del
Libro llamado Relox de Príncipes (Antonio Castillo) 137–138
de Guevara) 537 Manuscriptum (. . .) in Quo Agit de Decem
Libro llamado Thesoro de los Ángeles Praeceptis Decalogi et de Septem Vitiis
(Francisco de Hevia) 347, 440 Capitalibus (Angelo Carletti) 351
Libro llamado Thesoro de virtudes (Alfonso Mariale de Singulis Festivitatibus Beatae
da Ilha) 434 Virginis Mariae (Bernardino da Busti)
Libro llamado Via de la Perfección Espiritual 77, 472
del Anima (Bernabé de Palma) Martyrologium 359
436–437, 553 Medecin der Sielen (Frans Vervoort) 260
Liedeken van devocien: Och edel ziele mercke Meditaçõ da inoctissima morte e payxã de
(Dietrich Kolde) 307–308 nosso señor em estile metrificado (António
Lignum Pomiferum Beatae Mariae Virginis de Portalegre) 514
(Franziskus Willer) 349 Meditation de la vie, passion, quinze douleurs
Lignum Vitae (Bonaventura da principales et mort de nostre sauveur
Bagnoreggio) 85, 217, 406, (Henry de Baume) 500–502
477–479, 545 Meditationes (Anselm of Canterbury
L’instruction et consolation de la vie OSB) 475
contemplative (Olivier Maillard) 408 Meditationes de Vita Christi et Eius Matris
Littera ad Ermentrudem (Chiara d’Assisi) Virginis Mariae (Bernardino da
447 Balvano) 514
Littera ad Fratrem Juvenalem (Alvaro Meditationes Passionis Christi (Pietro
Pelayo) 456 Arrivabene) 495
Litterae ad beatam Agnetem de Praga Meditationes Vitae Christi (Giovanni
(Chiara d’Assisi) 446–447, 550–551 de’Cauli/Pseudo-Bonaventura) 114,
Littera Sorori Nicolinae Abbatissae 483–485, 500, 506f
(Bernardino da Siena) 462 Meditatio Pauperis in Solitudine 389–390
Littera super Actu Reformationis (Hendrik Meditazione della Passione (Bernardino
van den Berghe) 409 Ducaina da Montolmo) 514
Livre de dévotions (Bonaventure) 507, 550 Memorial de la Vida de Jesucristo (Alonso
Livret de la triple viduité ( Jean de Madrid?) 510, 512, 520–521
Barthelemy) 405 Memorial de la vida y ritos de la Custodia
Llibre del Angels (Francesc Eiximenis) de Santa Maria de los Menores (Lope
432–433, 442 de Salazar y Salinas) 153
Llibre de les Dones (Francesc Eiximenis) Memorial de los oficios activos y
394–395 contemplativos de la religión de los
index of works 661
frailes menores (Lope de Salazar y Nonnenverse 304

Salinas) 153 Novem Gladii Dolorum B. Virginis seu
Memoriale di Monteluce 414 Tractatus de Compassione B.M.V.
Memoriale Propositi (Ugolino dei Conti di (Berthold Kule) 402
Segni) 192, 197, 229 Novum Diversorum Sermonum Opus (Olivier
Memoriale Religionis (Pedro Villacreces) Maillard) 94
152 Novus Tractatus de Decem Plagis Paupertatis
Menosprecio de Corte y Alabanza de Aldea (Gabriel Maria Nicolas) 136–137
(Antonio de Guevara) 537
Meßerklärung/Eucharistie-Traktat Oculus Sacerdotis (William of Pagula)
(Marquard von Lindau) 368 233, 365
Metodo per le quaranture a San Sepolcro Oefening van St. Ubertinus 482
(Giuseppe Piantanida da Ferno) Oeffeninghe ende verclaringhe van dat eerste en
271, 558–559 alder opperste ghebot der liefden Gods
‘Met vruechden willen wi singen’ (Ludolf Nicolai) 422–423
( Johannes Brugman) 307 Officia Claustralia/Klösterliche Übungen
Miles Armatus (Pietro di Giovanni (Hendrik van den Berghe) 409
Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) 390–391 Officia Rhythmica S. Francisci et S. Anthonii
Minnengaerd (Cornelis Raven) 424 Patavini ( Julian von Speyer) 197,
Miscellanea (Antonio di Padova) 23 301, 359
Miscellanea Iuris Franciscanis ( Jacopo da Officium B. Isabellae (Robert Le Messier)
Grumello) 159 410
Missale Romanum: Breviarum Secundum Officium de Passione Domini (Bonaventura
Ritum Romanum (Pietro Arrivabene) da Bagnoreggio) 360, 367, 475,
358 477, 545
Modo breve per confessarse 342 Officium Passionis Domini (Psalmos quos
Modo d’incaminare i novizi con santa Ordinavit b. Franciscus (Francesco
uniformità di cerimonie e riti d’Assisi) 367, 473, 475
(Bartolomeo Vecchi da Bologna) Officium SS. Trinitatis ( John Pecham)
228 288, 361, 475
Modo di Vivere secondo la Divina Volontà O Minnende ziel (Cornelis Raven) 424
(Matteo Silvaggi) 417 Onderwijsinghe ende instructie hoe hem een
Modus Concionandi (Diego Estella) 101 yeghelijck sal bereyden ter taferelen Gods te
Modus Quomodo Quilibet Potest Referre gane ende te ontfanghen dat weerde heylighe
Gratias Deo de Beneficiis ab Eo Receptis Sacrament (Adriaan van Mechelen)
(Pietro di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean 344–345, 372
Olieu) 390–391, 549 Opera devotissima ne la quale se continua el
Modus Recipiendi Personas ad Tertium modo del vivere de una vera religiosa 225
Ordinem S. Francisci (Giovanni di Opuscula Varia Spiritualia (Francisco
San Marco) 202 Ortiz) 471, 555
Monologion (Anselm of Canterbury) Opúsculo sobre el Arbol de la vida (Pedro
388 Regaledo & Lope de Salazar y
Monte de la oratione Salinas) 152–153
Anonymous 551 Opusculum Correctionis Textus et Prologorum
Eustochia Calafato 551 Biblie ( Johannes von Bloemendal)
Monumenta Antiqua Seraphica pro 43
Immaculata Conceptione Virginis Mariae Opusculum super Missam (William of
472 Middleton) 362, 366
Monumenta Ordinis Minorum 159 Opusculum Tripartitum de Praeceptis
Decalogi, de Comfessioni et de Arte
Narrenbeschwörung (Thomas Mürner) Moriendi ( Jean Gerson) 241
426 Opus de S. Fidei Articulis Dialogo
Niemant en mach twee heeren dienen (Giacomo Paniscotti da Molfetta)
(Cornelis Raven) 424 273–274
662 index of works
Opus de Vitiis (Giovanni Marchesini) Piccolo catechismo (Giovanni Pili da Fano)

319–320 271
Opus in Expositione Psalmi ‘Domine quis Plenariae (Hartung von Erfurt) 44
habitat’ (Giacomo Paniscotti da Polish songs and poems (Ladislaus
Molfetta) 274 von Gielniov) 99, 306–307
Oraisons (Henry de Baume) 404–405 Pomerium Sermonum de Sanctis (Pelbartus
Oratio Ante Crucificum Dicta (Francesco Ladislaus de Temesvar) 99
d’Assisi) 473, 542–543 Pomerium Sermonum de Tempore (Pelbartus
Oratio Latina pro Congregatione Capitulari Ladislaus de Temesvar) 99
(Francisco Ortiz) 554–555 Pomerium Sermonum Quadragesimalium
Orationes de Corpore Christi (Alberto da (Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvar)
Sarteano) 495 99
Orationis Hieremiae Enarratio (Frans van Postillae (Hartung von Erfurt) 44
Zichem) 260 Postilla super Epistolas Dominicales et
Oratio per quamdam dedictam Christo Feriales (Bertrand de la Tour) 46
iuvenculam ad sanctimoniales recitata Postilla super Epistolas Sanctorales
virginalis continentiae privilegia (Bertrand de la Tour) 46
(Francesco Michele del Padovano) Postilla super Evangelia Dominicalia
102 (Filippo di Moncalieri) 47
Oratorio de religiosos y ejercicio de virtuosos Postilla super Evangelia Dominicalia et
(Antonio de Guevara) 225–226 Ferialia (Bertrand de la Tour) 46
Orazione devote (Bernardino Palli d’Asti) Postilla super Evangelia que Leguntur in
556–558 Quadrigesima (Filippo di Moncalieri)
Ordinarium sive Alphabetum Vite Religiose 47
( John of Wales) 219, 319 Praeparantia Christi Iesu Habitationem
Ordinationes a Benedicto XII pro Fratribus (Angelo Clareno) 453–454
Minoribus Promulgatae 145ff, 160, 209 Praeparatio Mortis (Francisco de Hevia)
Ordini nella orazione delle quaranta ore 347, 440
(Mattia Bellintani da Salò) 559 Predica devotissima (Bernardino da Feltre)
61
Paraeneticum Programma de Reverentia, Predica in onore di S. Bernardino (Giacomo
Visitatione et Electione Praelatorum della Marca) 58
(Hendrik van den Berghe) 409 Prediche Nove (Bernardino Ochino) 118
Paratus Continens Sermones de Tempore et de Prediche Volgari
Sanctis (Berthold von Wiesbaden) 45 Bernardino da Feltre 61
Passe-temps du Pèlerin de Vie Humaine Bernardino da Siena 54–55
( Jean Glapion) 430–431 Giacomo della Marca 58
Passio D.N.J.Chr. Secundum Quatuor Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce 63
Evangelistas (Daniel Agricola) 496 Predigten über das Vaterunser (Heinrich
Passio Duorum (Francisco Sanchez del Stolysen) 112–113
Campo, Francisco Tenorio & Luis Predigten ueber die evangelische Räte
Escobar) 510–511 (Heinrich Vigilis) 85
Passio Jesu Christi ( Johann Kannemann) Predigten über Prim, Terz, Non und Komplet
489–490 (Stephan Fridolin) 83
Pastorale (Francesc Eiximenis) 365 ‘Predigtverse’
Pectorale Dominicae Passionis 508 Johann Sintram 105, 304–305
Pastoralis Officii (Nicholas V) 203 Nikolaus von Kosel 234, 305–306
Peregrinus Sermonum (Bernardino da Predigt von dem heiligen sacrament
Fossa) 73 (Sigmund der Barfues) 108
Perpulcher Tractatus (Michel Menot) 115 Predig von deme liden unseres herren christi
Philomena ( John Pecham) 289, Jhesu (Konrad Böhmlin) 476, 489
479–480 Predig von dem hailigen sacrament (Konrad
Pia Meditatio Quaedam in Orationem Böhmlin) 107, 489
Dominicam (Frans van Zichem) Primeros Rudimentos de la Doctrina en Lengua
259–260 Mejicana ( Jean Couvreur) 265–266
index of works 663
Principia in Theologia (Ascencio di Santa Quadragesimale de Pugna Vitiorum et Illi

Colomba) 47–48 Annexis (Kaspar Schatzgeyer) 88
Principi Quinque in Sacram Scripturam Quadragesimale & Opus Sermonum de
(Pietro di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Tempore & Alphabetum Sermonum
Olieu) 20 (Conrad Grütsch) 110
Privilegium Paupertatis (Ugolino dei Conti Quadragesimale & Registrum de
di Segni) 172–174, 178 Evangeliorum et Epistolarum Thematibus
Problemi (Baldasare Olimpo da atque Introductionibus (Conrad Grütsch)
Sassoferrato) 103 110
Proverbia Quadragesimale Novum Editum de Filio
Giovanni Quaia di Parma 220 Prodigo et de Angeli Ipsius Ammonitione
Nikolaas Zegers 257 Salubri per Sermones Divisum ( Johann
Proverbios de Salomón (Francisco del Meder) 86
Castillo) 312 Quadragesimale Padovano (Roberto
Prüder Davids lere von geistleichen leuten Caracciolo da Lecce) 63
31, 212–213 Quadragesimale ‘Seraphim’ (Bernardino da
Psalterium Beatae Mariae Virginis ( John Siena) 54
Pecham) 288, 361 Quadragesimale seu Sermonarium Duplicatum
Psalterium Laudatorium/Saltiri (Francesc Scilicet per Adventum et Quadragesimam de
Eiximenis) 549–550 Poenitentia et eius Partibus (Michele
Pugna Virtutum et Vitiorum 284 Carcano da Milano) 75–76
Pupilla Oculi 233 Quadragesimale Tractans de Decem Preceptis
Dei (Kaspar Schatzgeyer) 88
Quadragesimal, das ist Fasten Predigt von der Quadriga Spirituale (Niccolò da Osimo)
Buss, Beicht, Bann, Fasten, Communion, 416, 530
Passion und Osterfesten, auff die zwey Quaedam Brevis Declaratio super Securitate
letste Capitel des Ersten Büchlins Esre und Status Observantinorum (Gabriel Maria
auff die history von der büssenden Sünderin Nicolas) 136–137
( Johann Wild) 89–90 Quaedam motivae meditationes ex S.
Quadragesimale Scripturae et sanctorum sentenciis
Bernardino da Feltre 61–62 compilatae ( Jean Perrini) 428
Olivier Maillard 94 Quaestio Confessionis ( Johann von Erfurt)
Quadragesimale de Aeternis Fructibus Spiritus 325–326
Sancti (Antonio da Vercelli) 68–70 Quaestio Cuiusdam Doctoris Theologiae Super
Quadragesimale de Articulis Fidei Regula S. Francisci ad Litteram (Gabriel
(Bernardino Caimi da Milano) Maria Nicolas) 136–137
76–77 Quaestio de Fide (François de Meyronnes)
Quadragesimale de Casibus Conscientiae 237
(Bartolomeo da Rinoncio) 48 Quaestio de Septem Peccatis Mortalis
Quadragesimale de Christiana Religione (François de Meyronnes) 237
(Bernardino da Siena) 54 Quaestiones de Articulis Fidei (François
Quadragesimale de Contemptu Mundi de Meyronnes) 237
(Bartolomeo da Rinoncio) 48 Quaestiones de Celebratione Missarum
Quadragesimale de XII Mirabilibus (François de Meyronnes) 237, 363
Christianae Fidei Excellentiis (Antonio Quaestiones de Perfectione Evangelica (Pietro
da Vercelli) 67–68 di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu)
Quadragesimale de Evangelio Aeterno 132–133
(Bernardino da Siena) 54 Quaestiones Disputate de Fide et de Cognitione
Quadragesimale de Fide et de Articulis Fidei (François de Meyronnes) 237
(Michele Carcano da Milano) 75 Quaestiones super Pater Noster (François de
Quadragesimale de Peccatis (Roberto Meyronnes) 237
Caracciolo da Lecce) 63 Quaestio supra Testamentum (Giovanni da
Quadragesimale de Poenitentia Capistrano) 135
Michele Carcano da Milano 75 Quaestio Utrum Paenitens, Peccata Sua
Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce 63 Confessus Fratri Licenciato, Teneatur
664 index of works
Eadem Rursus Confiteri Proprio Sacerdoti Regula beatae Clare Vulgarizata

(Hugh David) 337 (Evangelista da Perugia) 188
Quaestio Utrum Videlicet Confessor Habeat Regula beatae Isabellae Franciae (Isabelle
Auctoritatem Absolvendi (Alberto da de France) 179ff
Perugia) 337 Regula Bullata (Francesco d’Assisi) 3, 4,
Quarantore prayer exercises 558–559 52, 119, 120ff, 138f, 140, 141ff,
Quare Fratres Minores Praedicent et 151f, 161f, 174ff, 206–207, 216, 227,
Confessiones Audiant (Bonaventura da 356, 359, 473, 542
Bagnoreggio) 4–5, 318–319, 335 Regula Innocenziana (Innocent IV) 174,
Quaresimale (Matteo da Agrigento) 56 178
Quaresimale Padovano (Roberto Regula Monasterii Complutensis (Francesc
Caracciolo da Lecce) 63 Eiximenis de Cisneros) 202
Quattordici Discorsi (Francesco Michele Regula non Bullata (Francesco d’Assisi)
del Padovano) 102 2, 120ff, 141, 206–207, 356, 473
‘Qui minor es’ (Henry of Burford) Regula Novitiorum (Bonaventura da
287–288 Bagnoreggio) 216, 360, 546
Quinquagesilogium/Sermones (Alvaro Pais/ Regula Ordinis S. Chiarae (Regula
Alvaro Pelayo) 39 Urbaniana; Regula Secunda) 180ff
Regula Pastoralis (Gregory the Great)
Raimundus (Albert von Stade) 315 230
Rapiarium Regula pro Eremitoriis Data (Francesco
Johann Sintram 105, 304 d’Assisi) 124–125, 151
Nikolaus von Kosel 234, 305 Regula Tertii Ordinis
Red Book of Ossory 298 Andreas Alvares & Paul III
Regel aller Prälaten (Marquard von 204–205
Lindau) 457 Regula Tertii Ordinis S. Francisci cum
Regestrum Visitationum (Eudes Rigaud) Ceremoniis ad Induendum Fratres et
231 Sorores, cum Sermone Amplissimo ac
Regiment de la cosa pública (Francesc Quibus Gaudeant Privilegiis 204–205,
Eiximenis) 219, 515–516, 535 229
Regla cristiana breve para ordenar la vida y Remedia Contra Tentationes Spirituales Huius
tiempo del cristiano ( Juan de Temporis (Pietro di Giovanni
Zumárraga) 268–269 Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu) 390–392
Reglas y Arte Para Aprender a Rezar el Remedio de Pecadores ( Juan de Dueñas)
Oficio Divino, según la Orden de la Santa 347
Iglesia Romana ( Juan de Argumanes) Rime (Guittone d’Arezzo) 283
368 Ritus ad Benedicendum Vestes 229
Règle du Tiers Ordre St. François de Soeurs Rosella Casuum Conscientiae/Summa Rosella
de Chasteaugontier vivantes en obédience, (Battista Trovamala de Salis)
chasteté, pauvreté et closture (Gabriel 350–351
Maria Nicolas) 136–137 Rosarium (Giovanni Quaia di Parma)
Regola della Vita Matrimoniale (Cherubino 403–404
da Spoleto) 529–531 Rosarium de Vita et Morte Christi
Regola della Vita Spirituale (Cherubino da (Cristoforo Picinelli da Varese) 136,
Spoleto) 72, 529–530 507
Regola e Modo del Vivere nel Stato Viduale Rosarium Metricum de Mysteriis Passionis
(Cherubino da Spoleto) 529–530 Christi Domini (Caterina Vigri) 411,
Regola per ben confessarsi (Giacomo della 491
Marca) 339, 349 Rosarium Sermonum Praedicabilium ad
Regole del Vivere nel Stato Virginale e Faciliorem Predicantium (Bernardino da
Contemplativo (Cherubino da Spoleto) Busti) 78, 202
529–530 Rotuli (Robert Grosseteste) 231
Regula beatae Clarae (Regula Prima), see: Rotuli/Intentio Regulae (circle of friar Leo)
Forma Vitae 129
index of works 665
Rotulus (Ubertino da Casale) 129 Sermo de Iustitia & Opuss Quadragesimale

Rudimentum Doctrinae (Guibert de (Olivier Maillard) 94
Tournai) 384, 451 Sermo de Modo Vivendi (Bonaventura da
Rusticanus de Communi Sanctorum Bagnoreggio) 91
(Berthold von Regensburg) 29–30 Sermo de Morte Christi Cogitanda (Thomas
Rusticanus de Dominicis (Berthold von of York) 476
Regensburg) 29–30 Sermo de Omnibus Sanctis (Servasanto da
Rusticanus de Sanctis (Berthold von Faenza) 36
Regensburg) 29–30 Sermo de Paradiso Spirituali (Marquard
von Lindau) 40–41
Salutatio Beatae Mariae Virginis (Francesco Sermo de Sanctissimo Corpore Christi
d’Assisi) 275, 542 (Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) 477
Salutatio Virtutum (Francesco d’Assisi) Sermo de Sancto Bernardino Senensi
275, 542 (Giovanni da Capistrano) 65
Sanct Francisken Leben (Lamprecht Sermo de Sancto Iohanne Baptista
von Regensburg) 301–302 (Servasanto da Faenza) 36
Sanctuarium Biblicum (Francisco de Sermo de Scientiarum Studiis (Bernardino
Osuna) 263 da Siena) 500
Sankt-Klara-Buch 188 Sermo de Septem Amorosis et Ardentissimis
Scala Dei o Tractat de Contemplació Verbis quae Christus in Cruce Dixit
(Francesc Eiximenis) 395–396 (Bernardino da Siena) 480
Scala del Paradiso Victoriosa (Gabriele dal Sermoenen
Bambaso) 409–410 Dietrich Colde 91
Scala de virtuti et via de paradiso (Iacopo Johannes Brugman 79
Mazza da Reggio Calabria) 531 Matthias Weynsen 92
Schimpf und Ernst ( Johann Pauli) 111 Sermoen van de Moeder ons Heeren op een
Scolastica Moralis (Bonvesin della Riva) gedaente van een naycorf (Lucas van der
246–247 Heij) 485
Scuole della dottrina cristiana Sermo in Circumcisione Domini (Servasanto
Secretum Secretorum (in the version edited da Faenza) 36
by Roger Bacon) 532 Sermo in Die Veneris Sancta: passio domini
Semita Recta ad Mentem Salutis sive Dialogi nostri Jhesu Christi secundum quatuor
de Monte Orationis (Lorenzo evangelistas devote collecta (Bonaventura
Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona) da Bagnoreggio) 477
444 Sermo in Festo Apostolorum Simonis et Iudae
Sendbrief an geistliche Kinder 457 (Servasanto da Faenza)
Sententiae (Petrus Lombardus) 235 Sermonarium (Francisco de Osuna) 263
Sentiments (Colette de Corbie) 183 Sermonarium de Commendatione Virtutum et
Septem verborum, que Christus ex cruce Reprobatione Vitiorum (Michele Carcano
protulit, brevis et pia explicatio pro concione da Milano) 76
habita (Frans van Zichem) 508 Sermonarium per Adventum et Quadragesima
Sermo de Anima Christi (Marquard von (Michele Carcano da Milano) 75
Lindau) 40–41, 476 Sermonarium Triplicatum per Adventum et per
Sermo de Caritate Salvatoris (Alberto da Duas Quadragesimales de Peccatis
Pisa) 476 Capitalibus (Michele Carcano da
Sermo de Confessione (Antonio da Bitonto) Milano) 75–76
339 Sermonarium Viarum Vitae et Mortis
Sermo de Confessione Sacramentali/Ein (Heinrich Kastner) 88
Sermon von der sacramentalen beycht ‘sermon booklets’
(Augustinus von Alveldt) 345 Johann Sintram 105, 304
Sermo de Corpore Christi (Marquard von John Grimestine 49, 299–300
Lindau) 40–41, 366, 368 Nicholas Bozon 49, 293f
Sermo de Horto Spirituali (Marquard von Nicholas Philip 104–105, 300
Lindau) 40 William Herebert 49, 296–297
666 index of works
Sermon de Carême (Olivier Maillard) 94 Sermones ad Status

Sermon du jour des Cendres ( Jean Glapion) Cherubino da Spoleto 72
98 Guibert de Tournai 11–13, 16–17,
Sermone de’ dodici frutti della confessione 385
(Antonio da Vercelli) 68 Humbert de Romans OP 11,
Sermones 16–17
Ascencio di Santa Colomba 47–48 Jacques de Vitry OP 11, 16–17
Bartolomeu Catany 20 Sermones de Adventu/per Adventum
Bernardino da Siena (Selecta ex Bernardino da Feltre 61–62
Autographa Budapestinensi ) 54 Olivier Maillard 94
Bernardino Ochino 118 Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce 63
Bindo da Siena 39 Sermones de Beatae Virginis Festivitatibus
Bonaventura 11, 12 (Antonio da Bitonto) 67
Christian von Hiddesdorf 476 Sermones de Beata Virgine
Conrad Böhmlin (Konrad Böhmlin) Albertino da Verona 34
107–108 Matteo d’Aquasparta 14
‘Der Schölzerin’ 476 Sermones de Communi Sanctorum
‘Der von Halle’ 42 Albertino da Verona 34
Dreux de Provence 11 Konrad Holtnicker 28
Erasmus Schaltdorfer 87 Pierre de St. Benoit 13–14
Eudes de Rosny 11 Servasanto da Faenza 35–37
François de Meyronnes 13–15, 39 Sermones de Diversis (Bonaventura da
Giacomo della Marca 57–59 Bagnoreggio) 12
Giacomo Ungarelli da Padova 352 Sermones de Doctrina Ecclesiastica (Antonio
Giovanni da Capistrano 65–66 da Bitonto) 67
Gregorio da Napoli 9–11 Sermones de Dominicalibus Evangeliis et
Jacopo da Voragine 43 Epistolis (Konrad Holtnicker) 28
Jean Capet 429 Sermones de Dominicis et Sanctis
Jean de Blois 9 (Pierre-aux-Boeufs) 113–114
Jean de Châtillon 11 Sermones de Evangeliis Dominicalibus
Jean de Mons 11 (Bertrand de la Tour) 46
Jean de Samois 11 Sermones de Evangeliis Sanctorum (Bertrand
Jean Rigaud 45 de la Tour) 46
Johannes von Bloemendal (Postilla Sermones de Festis (Konrad Holtnicker)
Pauperum super Ewangelia Dominicalia 28
per Circulum Anni ) 43–44 Sermones de Festivitatibus B.M. Virginis
Johann Sintram 104–105 Johannes von Bloemendal 44
John Pecham 13–15 Servasanto da Faenza 36–37
Konrad Holtnicker 27–28 Sermones de Festivitatibus Sanctorum
Ladislaus von Gielniow 99, 496 (Albertino da Verona) 34
Martin Lombard 9 Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum (Roberto
Matteo d’Aquasparta 11, 12, 14 Caracciolo da Lecce) 63
Peregrinus von Opeln 43 Sermones de Laudibus Sanctorum et
Pierre-aux-Boeufs 113–114 Domenicales per Totum Annum cum
Pietro di Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Aliquibus Tractatibus (François de
Olieu 20 Meyronnes) 13, 15–16
Raymond Gaufredi 13–15 Sermones de Mortuis
Richard de Cournouailles 9 Albertino da Verona 34
Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce 63–64 Bertrand de la Tour 46
Silvestro Radicundulo da Siena Servasanto da Faenza 36–37
526–527 Sermones de Passione Christi
William of Falgar 11 (Pierre-aux-Boeufs) 114, 488–489
Sermones ad Religiosos Sermones de Privilegiis Sanctorum (Antonio
Berthold von Regensburg 29–30 da Bitonto) 66
index of works 667
Sermones de Proprio Sanctorum (Servasanto Sermones Duo ad Studentes & Epistola

da Faenza) 35–36 Circularis de Studio promovendo
Sermones de Sacerdotibus et Prelatis inter Observantes (Giovanni da
(Konrad Holtnicker) 28 Capistrano) 65
Sermones de Sacramento Altaris (Hendrik Sermones Extravagantes (Heinrich
van Santen) 82 Kastner) 88
Sermones de Sanctis Sermones Imperfecti (Bernardino da
Guibert de Tournai 12–14 Siena) 54
Heinrich Kastner 88–89 Sermones Quadragesimales (see also under
Konrad Holtnicker 28 Quadragesimale and Quaresimale)
Olivier Maillard 94 Albertino da Verona 34
Pierre de St. Benoit 13–14 Antonio da Bitonto 66
Teuto (‘Graeculus’) 43 Bernardino Ochino 118
Sermones de Sancto Francisco ad Plebem Cherubino da Spoleto 72
(Francesco Michele del Padovano) Francesco Vaccari 102–103
102 Giacomo della Marca 57–58
Sermones de Sancte Marie Auxilio Giovanni da Capistrano 65
(Servasanto da Faenza) 36 Johannes von Bloemendal 44
Sermones de Tempore Konrad Holtnicker 28
Bernardino da Siena 54 Michel Menot 115f
Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio 12 Sermones Quadragesimales de Decem Preceptis
John of Wales 12, 14 (Michele Carcano da Milano)
Pierre de St. Benoit 13–14 75–76
Sopramonte del Varisio Sermones Speciales vel Extravagantes
(Sopramonte da Varese/ (Berthold von Regensburg) 29–30
Superanzio da Varese) 25 Sermones super Canticum Canticorum
Teuto (‘Graeculus’) 43 (Rudolf von Biberach) 396
Sermones de Tempore, de Sanctis, de Tribus Sermones super Epistolas Domenicales
partibus Poenitentiae, de Adventu per Totum Annum (Antonio da
(Hendrik Herp) 80 Bitonto) 66
Sermones de Tempore et de Sanctis Sermones super Epistolas et Evangelia totius
Jean de La Rochelle 12 Quadragesimae (Robert Le Messier)
Sermones de Tempore et Sermones Festivales 410
(= Collatio Fratrum Minorum/Summa Sermones super Evangeliam (Hendrik van
Que Dicitur Legifer de Collationibus Per Santen) 82
Annum; Bonaventure/Bonfortune de Sermones Tres de Annunciatione 63
Paris) 14–16 Sermones Ulmenses (Heinrich Kastner)
Sermones de Timore Divinorum Iudiciorum 88
63 Sermones Variae & Sermones de Stipendio
Sermones Diversi (Bernardino da Fossa) Peccati et Gratiae Proemio (Olivier
73 Maillard) 94
Sermones Dominicales Sermoni
Albertino da Verona 34 Baldasare Olimpo da Sassoferrato
Bindo da Siena 39 103
Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio 12, 540 Caterina Vigri 411
Giacomo della Marca 57–58 Sermoni varii (Matteo da Agrigento) 56
Guibert de Tournai 12–14 Sermon von der sacramentalichen beycht
Olivier Maillard 94 (Augustinus von Alveldt) 345
Servasanto da Faenza 36–38 Sermo super Regulam Fratrum Minorum
Sermones Dominicales et Festivi (Antonio di (Bonaventura da Bagnoregio) 130
Padova) 22–24, 476, 540 Seven Cranskens op des H. Ubertinus
Sermones Dominicales, Quadragesimales et oeffeninghe 482–483
Feriales (Luca da Bitonto/Lucas Severa riprensione (Matteo da Bascio)
Apulus) 25–27 117
668 index of works
Sex Documenta Beati Bonaventurae, Cuilibet Speculum Regum (Alvaro Pelayo)

Proficere Volenti Utilissima (pro Iuvenum 535–536
et Novissiorum Instructione) 227 Spieghel der Consciencien ( Johannes van
Sieben Predigten für Nonnen (Heinrich Remerswael) 343
Vigilis) 86 Spieghel der Volcomenheit (Hendrik Herp)
Soliloquia/Liber Soliloquiorum (Werner von 79, 420–421
Regensburg) 388–389 Spieghel oft reghel des kersten gheloofs, see:
Soliloquium (Bonaventura da Der kersten eeuwe
Bagnoreggio) 82 Spill de la Vida Religiosa 434–435
Soliloquium de Arrha Animae (Hugues de Stabat Mater Dolorosa ( Jacopone da
St. Victor) 380–381, 388 Todi?) 278
Soliloquium de IV Mentalibus Exercitiis Stabat Mater Speciosa ( Jacopone da
(Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio) Todi?) 278
386–388, 545 Statuta Consortii B. Mariae Virginis et
Soliloquium inter Animam et Deum S. Francisci Parmae (Raniero da
(Francisco Ortiz Yáñez) 471, 555 Genova) 196
Songe d’Enfer (Raoul de Houdenc) 52, Statutae
293, 435 Alessandro Vincioli 202
Specchio/Trattato della Confessione Benvenuto da Orvieto 195–196
(Bernardino da Siena) 338 Bonincontrò di Brescia 198
Specchio d’Illuminazione (Illuminata Hendrik van den Berghe 409
Bembo) 411–412 Rufino Gurgone 195–196
Specchio d’Orazione (Bernardino da Statuta Fr. Henrici de Balma (Henry de
Balvano) 560 Baume) 156–157
Speculum Animae (Antonio da Bitonto) Statuta Generalia ac Decreta Fratrum Tertii
339 Ordinis Sancti Francisci de poenitentia
Speculum Aureum (Hendrik Herp) 79, (Bonaventura da Vicenza) 205
420–421, 439 Statuta Generalia Observantium
Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis (Konrad Ultramontanorum anno 1451 Barcinonae
Holtnicker) 27, 244 condita 150ff, 160
Speculum Christianae Probitatis (Francesco Statuta Juliana 158
Michele del Padovano) 102, Statuta Monasteriorum Clarissarum 189–190
524–525 Statuta Observantium Cismontanorum in
Speculum Christiani 234–235 Compendium Redacta (1461) 150
Speculum Clericorum (Giovanni da Statuta pro Clarissis (Angelo da Chivasso)
Capistrano) 65 189
Speculum Consciencie (Giovanni da Statuta Provincialia 164–168, 206
Capistrano) 339 Statuten der Klarissen zu Brixen und
Speculum Disciplinae (Bernard de Besse) Pfullingen ( Johannes von Lare) 190
214–216, 360, 546 Statuten der Klarissen zu Weissenfels
Speculum Dominarum (Durand de (Ludwich Henning) 190–191
Champagne) 392–394 Statuts de la Réforme de Sainte Colette
Speculum Finalis Retributionis (Pierre (Colette de Corbie) 156, 183–185
Reginaldi) 427 Statutum pro Scribendis Libris Choralibus
Speculum Laicorum 234–235 cum Notis Quadratis (Bonaventura da
Speculum Majus (Vincent de Beauvais Bagnoreggio) 358
OP) 534 Statutz generaulx des seurs de la Vierge
Speculum Minorum (Martin Morin) 159 Marie (Gabriel Maria Nicolas)
Speculum Minorum seu Firmamentum Trium 136–137
Ordinum 159 Stella Clericorum (Hermann Topelstein),
Speculum Mortalium sive Opus super see: Tractatus de Dignitate Sacerdotis
Quattuor Novissimis ( Jean Couvreur) Stellarium Coronae Mariae Virginis
266 (Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvar)
Speculum Perfectionis 48, 276–277 99
index of works 669
Stimulus Amoris (Giacomo da Milano) Summa Halensis (Alexander of Hales

92, 155, 289, 483–485, 507 et al.) 236, 362
Subarrhatio Animarum seu de Vitiis et Summa Iustitiae ( John of Wales) 319
Virtutibus ( Johann Zerngast) Summa Pacifica per li simplici confessori
336–337 (Pacifico da Novara) 352–353
Subida del Monte Sion (Bernardino de Summa Quaestionum Sacrae Scripturae de
Laredo) 437, 513, 553 Omni Materia (Astesano d’Asti) 332
Summa Brevis super Decretales 318 Summa super V Libros Decretalium/Summa
Summa Casuum Conscientiae Titulorum (Heinrich von Merseburg)
Antonio de Córdoba 349–350 316–317
Battista Trovamala de Salis Summa Theologicae Disciplinae 236–237
350–351 Summa Titulorum super Decretalibus Gregorii
Summa Confessionis IX (Balduinus von Brandenburg)
Bernardino da Siena 338 318
Summa Confessorum Summula de Poenitentia (Raymond de
Durand de Champagne 330–333 Peñyaforte OP) 315
Giovanni Marchesini 319 Summula de Testamentis Faciendis
Jean Rigaud 328–330 (Bartolomeo da Milano) 337
Johann von Erfurt 324–327 Summula ho Vero Sumeta de Pacifica
Summa de Articulis Fidei ( Jean de la Conscientia (Pacifico da Cerano) 350,
Rochelle) 236 354
Summa de Casibus Conscientiae Summula Iuridico-Moralis (Giacomo della
Angelo Carletti de Chivasso (Summa Marca) 349
Angelica) 253, 351–352 Super Primum Capitulum Regulae Fratrum
Astesano d’Asti 332–333 Minorum (Giovanni da Capistrano)
Bartolomeo da Milano 336–337 135
Summa de Confessione (anonymous) 352 Super Salutationem Angelicam ( Johann
Summa de Decem Preceptis ( Jean de la Kannemann) 238
Rochelle) 236 Supplementum seu Nova ac Tertia Compilatio
Summa de Divinis Nominibus ( Jean de la Multorum Privilegiorum 159
Rochelle) 236 Supplementum Summae Pisanellae (Niccolò
Summa de l’Altra Vida ( Juan Pascual) da Osimo) 348
433 Supra Montem (Nicholas IV) 197–201,
Summa de Peccatis (Henricus Hollen) 203
337 Sursum Corda (Antonio de Moneglia)
Summa de Poenitentia 415
Adam Marsh 316
Johann von Peyne 337 Tabula de la salute humana (Marco da
John of Wales 319 Montegallo) 251–252, 531
Servasanto da Faenza 320–322 Tabula Iuris Utriusque ( Johann von
Summa de Regimine Vite Humane seu Erfurt) 325–326
Margarita Doctorum ( John of Wales) Tabula per la religione cristiana (Girolamo
219, 392 da Molfetta) 271, 560
Summa de Sacramentiis Taxate Poenitencie Metrice (Ladislaus von
Henry of Wodstone 239, 318 Gielniov) 307
Jean de la Rochelle 236 Templum Dei (Robert Grosseteste) 232
Summa de Statu et Planctu Ecclesiae Tesoro de Virtudes (Alfonso de Isla) 434
(Alvaro Pelayo) 455 Testament (Colette de Corbie) 183,
Summa de Virtutibus (once ascribed to 458
Alexander of Hales) 315–316 Testamento
Summa de Vitiis (once ascribed to Battista Girolama di Montefeltro
Alexander of Hales) 236, 315–316 185
Summa Doctrinae Christianae Catholicae Cecilia Coppoli 185
(Conrad Clinge) 261–262 Lope de Salazar y Salinas 153
670 index of works
Testamentum Tractatus de Cura Filiorum/De Eruditione

Chiara d’Assisi 177–178, 458 Liberorum (Cherubino da Spoleto)
Francesco d’Assisi 123, 125–128, 72, 529
138, 141, 161f, 227, 446 Tractatus de Decem Praeceptis ( Johann
Testamentum Senis Factum (Francesco Düren) 348
d’Assisi) 127 Tractatus de Dignitate Sacerdotis/Stella
T’Gulde Gebedeboeck (Franciscus Clericorum (Hermann Topelstein)
Vervoort) 552 336, 364
Thantboekxken der Christenen Menschen Tractatus de Expositione Mysteriorum Missae
(Frans Vervoort) 261 (Franciscus Titelmans) 372–373
Theologia Mystica (Hendrik Herp) 79 Tractatus de Fide sive Explicatio Symboli
Thesauro Spirituale (Bernardino da Busti) Niceni (Bartolomeo da Colle)
77–78 250–251
Tochter Syon, see: Diu Tohter Syon Tractatus de Hedificatione Domus Spiritualis
Topografia Terrae Promissionis (Alessandro 415
Ariosto) 463 Tractatus de Imitatione Christi (Bernardino
Tournoiement d’Antécrist (Huon de Méry) da Busti) 78
52, 293 Tractatus de Inferno (Michele Carcano)
Tractat de las Penas Particulars de Infern, 64
Emperò Primerament de las Penas Tractatus de Morte non Timenda (Guibert
Comunas Segons los Poetas ( Juan de Tournai) 384–386
Pascual) 433 Tractatus de Octo Beatitudinibus Evangelicis
Tractat o Summa de Pena ( Juan Pascual) (Bernardino da Siena) 54
433 Tractatus de Oratione (David von
Tractato utile e salutifero degli consigli de la Augsburg) 211, 547–548
salute dello peccatore (Antonio da Tractatus de Pace et de Tranquilitate
Vercelli) 341, 416 (Guibert de Tournai) 384–385, 451
Tractatulus de Regimine seu Caritate Tractatus de Passione Domini Nostri Jesu
Principum (Stephen Baron) 536 Christi
Tractatus (Sermones: Hartung von Erfurt) Antonio da Bitonto 495
44 Bernardino da Siena 495–500
Tractatus ( Jacopone da Todi) 377–378 Giovanni di Capistrano 495
Tractatus Contritionis Confessionis Johann von Zazenhausen 487–488
Satisfactionis et Conscientiae (Silvestro Tractatus de Paupertate ( John Pecham)
Radicundulo da Siena) 526–527 129–130
Tractatus de Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Tractatus de Perfectione Iustitiae (Silvestro
Angliam (Thomas Eccleston) 10, Radicundulo da Siena) 527–529
17–18, 21, 141 Tractatus de Poenis Peccatorum diversimode
Tractatus de Articulis Fidei (François de Nuncupatis (Giovanni Marchesini)
Meyronnes) 16, 237 319
Tractatus de Baptismo et Matrimonio ( Jean Tractatus de Posituris ( Johannes von
Focher) 270 Bloemendal) 43
Tractatus de Caritate Dei et Proximi Tractatus de Praeparatione ad Missam
(Silvestro Radicundulo da Siena) Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio 360,
527 545
Tractatus de Communione sub Utraque Specie David von Augsburg 360
(Augustinus von Alveldt) 345 Tractatus de Preceptis Regulae Fratrum
Tractatus de Confessione (Bernardino da Siena) 135
Bartolomeo da Colle 340 Tractatus de Pulchritudine Anime et eius
Egidio Guilelmi Missali 338 Deformatione (Berthold Kule) 402
Tractatus de Conscientia Serenanda Tractatus de Quolibet Statu Fidelium
(Giovanni da Capistrano) 339 (Bernardino da Fossa) 73–74
Tractatus de Corpore Christi (François de Tractatus de Restitutionibus (Angelo
Meyronnes) 476 Carletti) 351
index of works 671
Tractatus de Sacro Sacramento Eucharistiae Tratado de la Doctrina Christiana (Alonso

(Marquard von Lindau) 110 de Madrid?) 520–521
Tractatus de Sanctissimo Nomine Jesu 480 Tratado del Adorno del Alma/De Ornatu
Tractatus de Scandalis Ecclesiae (Guibert Animae (Francisco Ortiz Yáñez) 510,
de Tournai) 197, 364 512
Tractatus de Securitate Conscientiae (Conrad Tratado de la oración (Pedro de
Clinge) 261–262 Alcántara) 553–554
Tractatus de Septem Peccatis Mortalibus seu Tratado de oración (Christoforo Ruiz)
Capitalibus ( Johann Düren) 348 553
Tractatus de Septem Verbis Domini in Tratado de oración mental (Martin de
Cruce/De Passione Christi (Guibert de Lilio) 553–554
Tournai) 479–480 Tratado de penitencia (Pietro da Trani)
Tractatus de Septem Vitiis Capitalibus et 341
Decem Preceptis (Francesco da Perugia) Tratado de predicación/Avisos para
336 Predicadores (Francisco Ortiz Yáñez)
Tractatus de Spiritu Sancto et de 100–101
Inspirationibus (Bernardino da Siena) Tratado Llamado el Desseoso 434
54 Tratado Llamado Excelencias de la Fe (Luis
Tractatus de Unitate, Pax et Concordia de Maluenda) 441
Civium (Silvestro Radicundulo da Tratado Llamado Leche de la Fe del
Siena) 527 Principe Christiano (Luis de Maluenda)
Tractatus de Virtutibus (Antonio da 442
Vercelli) 341 Tratado Llamado Mysterios de la Devoción
Tractatus de Vita Christiana (Bernardino (Luis de Maluenda) 441
da Siena) 54 Tratado Llamado Mysterios de los Ángeles
Tractatus in Regulam Fratrum Minorum seu (Luis de Maluenda) 442
Serena Conscientia (Alessandro Ariostio Tratado muy provechoso de muchos avisos que
di Bologna) 135–136 tocan a nuestra Regla y estado
Tractatus Moralis super Quatuor Elementa (Bernardino de Arévalo) 137
(Walter Winbourne) 288 Trattati (Caterina Vigri) 411
Tractatus Novus in Quo vere et clare Trattati Spirituali (Ugo Panziera da
Ostenditur Qui Sunt Veri Observatores Prato) 379, 454
Regulae Divi Francisci ad Litteram, ad Trattato della confessione (Michele
Litteram, ad Litteram (Gabriel Maria Carcano da Milano) 339–340
Nicolas) 136–137 Trattato della perseveranza 551
Tractatus per Modum Quaestionis Trattato della santa orazione delle quaranta
Theologialis super Dispensatione Fratrum ore (Mattia Bellintani da Salò) 559
Minorum ( Jean Perrini) 428 Trattato del Terz’Ordine (Mariano da
Tractatus Praedicabilis Intitulatus de Floribus Firenze) 193, 202, 228–229
(Bernardino da Fossa) 73 Trattato de Regimine Rectoris (Paolino da
Tractatus Utilissimus ( Jacopone da Todi) Venezia) 538
377–378 Tria Sunt Genera Religiosorum Dominus
Traité de la vanité des choses ( Jean Resurrectus (Berthold von Regensburg)
Barthelemy) 405, 469 212–213
Traité de la vie spirituelle (Henry de Trilogium Animae (Ludwich von Preußen)
Baume) 405 136, 220–221
Traité de patience ( Jean Capet) 429 Trilogium Evangelicum (Francisco de
Tratado breve y muy provechoso de las Osuna) 263
ceremonias de la Misa (Iñigo de Triumphus Amoris D.N.J. Christi (Lorenzo
Mendoza) 311, 369, 510f Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona)
Tratado de Confissom ( Joao de Chaves) 443
347 Triumphus Iustitiae Iesu Christi (Lorenzo
Tratado de la confession (Pietro da Trani) Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona)
341 443
672 index of works
Triumphus Pudicitiae Beatae Mariae Virginis Vidas de los Diez Emperadores Romanos
(Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagni di (Antonio de Guevara) 537
Savona) 443 Visione de la festa che fano li sancti in
Triumphus Sapientiae Iesu Christi (Lorenzo paradiso el di de ogni sancti
Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona) (Tomasuccio da Foligno) 415
443 Visionis Mystice Narratio (Pietro di
Triumphus Vitae supra Mortem (Lorenzo Giovanni Olivi/Pierre Jean Olieu)
Guglielmo Traversagni di Savona) 390
443 Vita Beatae Virginis/Vita Sancte Marie
Troilus (Albert von Stade) 315 (Thomas of Hales) 292
Trostbrief an die Witwe Barbara (Konrad Vita Christi
Fünfbrunner) 470 Isabella Villena 492
Ludolph von Sachsen Ocart. 249,
Ultima Voluntas Scripta S. Chiarae 485f, 507, 510
(Francesco d’Assisi) 127 Vita Christi fecho por coplas (Iñigo de
Una doctrina di sancto Bernardino utile del Mendoza) 311–312, 511
modo che se deba lo homo confessare Vita Coaetanea (Ramon Llull) 381
(Bernardino da Siena) 338 Vita Prima Beati Francisci (Tommaso da
Unus Est Magister Vester Christus (sermon, Celano) 1, 48, 301
Konrad Böhmlin) 107–108 Vita Secunda Beati Francisci (Tommaso da
Celano) 48
Vanden inwindigen lijden ons liefs heeren Jesu Vita S. Joh. de Capistrano (Gabriele
Christi 482 Rangone da Verona) 70
Van een vrouken van XXIJ jaren (Cornelis Vita Spiritualis (Camilla Battista da
Raven) 424 Varano) 381–382
Venustissima Materia Passionis Christi Jesu Vitis Mystica (Bonaventura da
(Conrad Oesterreicher) 496 Bagnoreggio) 217, 477–479
Verba ( Jacopone da Todi) 377–378 Voie briesve de paradis ( Jean Capet)
Verba Salvatoris Nostri Domini Iesu Christi 429–430
in Missali Posita (Andalo da Imola) Voie d’Enfer ( Jehan de la Motte) 52
368, 488 Voie de Paradis (Raoul de Houdenc)
Vergel de Virginidad (Luis de Maluenda) 52, 435
442 Vom Empfang des Herren (Berthold von
Vers de la mort (Hélinant de Froidmont) Regensburg) 32
51, 293 Vom Leiden Christi (Konrad Böhmlin)
‘verse-sermons’ 41, 476
Lawrence Briton 295 Von den sieben Gaben des Heiligen Geistes
Nicholas Bozon 51–52 (Heinrich Vigilis) 406
Versi devotissimi de l’anima inamorata in Von den zehen Geboten unsers Herren
miser Jesu Christo (Cherubino da (Berthold von Regensburg) 32
Spoleto) 529 Von der Anschauung Gottes (David von
Versus Holtnickeri 28 Augsburg) 383
Viaggio spirituale per la meditazione Von der Bîhte (Berthold von
(Dorotéa Paleotti & Bianca Maria Regensburg) 32
Scappi) 412, 491–492 Von der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit (David
Via Spiritus/Libro llamado Via de la von Augsburg) 383
Perfección Espiritual del Anima (Bernabé Von der Offenbarung und Erlösung des
de Palma) 436–437, 553 Menschengeschlechtes (David von
Via Spiritus Abreviada (Andrés Ortega Augsburg) 383
et al.) 555 Von der unergründlichen Fülle Gottes
Vida de Christo (Bernabé de Palma) (David von Augsburg) 383
436 Von der Vollkommenheit des geistlichen
Vida de Jesucrist (Francesc Eiximenis) Menschen (Heinrich Vigilis)
487–488 406–407
index of works 673
Von dreierlei Abgründen (Heinrich Vigilis) Wider Luthers Trostunng an die Christen zu
406 Hall (Augustinus von Alveldt) 345
Von siben übergrôzen sünden (Berthold von Wyngaert van Sinte Franciscus 421
Regensburg) 32
Zwolf zeichen do by du maht mercken obe du
Was das neugeborene Jesuskind von einer die gobe und kraft und genode des ewigen
andächtigen Seele begehrt (Heinrich almehtigen gottes empfangen hast (Conrad
Vigilis) 406 Ströber) 404

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FRANCISCAN LITERATURE OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

HENRY CHADWICK, Cambridge

FRANCISCAN LITERATURE OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

© Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal

printed in the netherlands

Abbreviations .............................................................................. vii

Chapter One Franciscan Preaching as Religious Instruction 1

Chapter Two Religious Instruction in Rules,

Chapter Four Franciscan Catechisms .................................... 230

f. Religious poetry as a medium for catechistic instruction:

Chapter Five Confession Handbooks .................................... 314

Chapter Six Instructory Works for the Mass and the

Chapter Seven Works of Religious Ediﬁcation .................... 374

Chapter Eight Prayer Guides ................................................ 540

Bibliography of secondary sources ............................................ 561

AF Analecta Franciscana (1885–).

In the prefatory letter to the 1518 edition of his Enchiridion Militis

with materials of religious instruction, they all univocally denounced

is presented as the outcome of the Reformation and Counterreforma-

In this process of re-evaluation, the later medieval Franciscan tra-

extent that they deal with Franciscan materials, limit themselves to

I hope to present a massive amount of material that should be taken

Boyle’s chosen pastoralia cover a wide range of texts for religious

théologiques et philosophiques médiévales. Déﬁnition, critique et exploitation. Actes du Colloque

Although none of these approaches has given me a blueprint for

This whole volume is very much the ﬁrst result of a work in

FRANCISCAN PREACHING AS RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

Throughout the later medieval period and beyond, preaching con-

of exhortatory preaching, probably proﬁting from Innocent III’s

onwards, an increasing number of Franciscan friars had suﬃcient

heretics and their errors publicly (without sketching in too much

A. Franciscan sermon collections from the

this production originated in the context of centres of higher learning,

a regular basis, but also were expected to preach regularly themselves,

In between sermons by secular masters and Dominican friars, we

ers, preaching before a mixed public of students, teachers and inter-

speciﬁcally point to the sought-after model sermon collections made

and John of Wales,35 as well as to the surviving sermons of Pierre

L. Mees, Bio-bibliographia franciscana neerlandica ante saeculum XVI, II (Nieuwkoop, 1974),

names and is by no means complete.40 An additional cycle of sought-

or Bonaventure de Paris, active as a provincial minister in France

this namesake of the more famous Franciscan minister general prob-

Most of these surviving model sermons and sermon outlines do

Insofar as we can rely on chroniclers’ reports, popular preachers

source for religious instruction. However, many Franciscan preachers

bodily death), and their gloriﬁcation furnished even so many exem-

erary trace, we still do have such an impressive number of sermon

de Digne, Giovanni da Vicenza, Giacobino da Reggio Emilia, Luca della Puglia,

his predicazione quaresimale of 1231, when Antonio preached at public

Whereas Antonio’s written sermons on their own had a considerable

preacher with whom we are dealing was hailed by Salimbene da

On top of the Franciscan university preachers mentioned before,

Nationale Lat. 15958; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Nouvelles Acquisitions 410;

becoming a source of inspiration not solely for Franciscan preach-

1255, he composed at least three and possibly ﬁve overlapping Latin

instruction and straightforward anti-heretical education, concentrat-

predicarentur qualia ipsi notaverant, populus in errorem duceretur per falsitates

In addition to Berthold’s Latin sermon cycles, several collections

and had access to his Latin texts.80 Contrary to the authenticated