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Item ordInetur de legenda beatI FrancIscI: A ProlegomenA to the Study

of BonAventure’S legenda mInor

TimoThy J. Johnson

When an esteemed Franciscanist the likes of Felice Accrocca turns his attention to the Legenda minor, those who have lament-ed the marginalization of Franciscan choir texts in academic circles cannot help but rejoice1. Accrocca’s recent La straordinaria fecondità della sterile: la Legenda minor di Bonaventura seeks to bring the oft-neglected liturgical legend of Bonaventure into the light of contem-porary scholarship by comparing and contrasting selected thematic texts with corresponding sources in the Legenda maior. At the outset of his study, Accrocca speaks of the sterility of the scholarship regard-ing the Legenda minor and offers his welcomed efforts both now and in the future to remedy the situation. While Accrocca is undoubtedly correct in noting a paucity of learned concern for the Legenda minor, the last several years have noted a growing scholarly interest in choir legends and Franciscan sources in general, with the occasional focus on the Legenda minor2. Current research on Franciscan choir legends

1 F. AccroccA, La straordinaria fecondità della sterile: la Legenda minor di Bonaventura, in Frate Francesco 75/1 (2009) 179-211. Unless noted otherwise, pri-mary source references for hagiographical texts pertaining to Francis of Assisi come from Analecta Franciscana X, ex typ. Collegii S. Bonaventurae, Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi) 1926-1941. I would like to thank Jacques Dalarun for his close reading of this essay and editorial assistance. I also want to express my appreciation to Peggy Dyess at Flagler College for her assistance in securing numerous bibliographical re-sources crucial to this study.

2 J. DAlArun, Vers une resolution de la question franciscaine: La Légende om-brienne de Thomas de Celano, Fayard, Paris 2007; F. DolciAmi, Francesco d’Assisi: tra devozione, culto, e liturgia, in Collectanea franciscana 71 (2001) 5-45; T. J. Johnson, Lost in Sacred Space: Textual Hermeneutics, Liturgical Worship, and Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori, in Franciscan Studies 59 (2001) 109-131; idem, Into the Light: Bonaventure’s Minor Life of Saint Francis and the Franciscan Production of Space, in Francis of Assisi: History, Hagiography and Hermeneutics in the Early Documents, New City Press, New York 2004, 229-249; idem, Meraviglie di pietre e spazi: la dimen-

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may not have been fecund in comparison to other areas of scholarly production; however, it has been anything but sterile. Indeed these initial investigations have begun raising the profile of liturgical leg-ends against the broader background of the elusive Franciscan Ques-tion, and profiled these texts as a proper spatial-theological genre within the larger field of hagiographical writings. The results of these recent studies offer useful insights for a future, systematic study of the Legend minor.

origin and date of the legenda minor

In his study, Accrocca accepts the common premise that the Leg-enda minor is posterior to the Legenda maior, which he holds was presented to the 1263 chapter in Pisa, and consequently posits the later 1260s as the date for the composition of Bonaventure’s liturgi-cal legend3. A potential interpretative problem arises however when the problematic dating of the Legenda maior is acknowledged4 and the noteworthy liturgical legislation in the 1250s is taken into con-sideration. Already in Haymo of Faversham’s Ordo breviarii from 1243-1244 there is a curious blank where we would expect to find the name of specific choir legend for the Feast of Saint Francis5. What we can ascertain is that as early as 1254 the Minorite Chapter in Genoa requested a new legend of Francis among the rubrics on liturgical practice promoted by the then minister general, John of Parma. His personal piety and dedication to promoting worship and concern for proper behavior of his brothers in choir are well known6. In John’s

sione teologica delle narrazioni sui miracoli in Tommaso da Celano e Bonaventura da Bagnoregio forthcoming in Paradoxien der Legitimation/I paradossi della legitti-mazione/Les paradoxes de la légitimation, Micrologus Library, Florence 2009; idem, Introduction, in La Légende mineure de François d’Assise, trans. Marc Ozilou for-thcoming in François d’Assise. Écrits, Vies et témoignages, dir. J. Dalarun, Éditions franciscaines - Éditions du Cerf, Paris 2009. See also the very important contribution about the Office of Saint Francis written by Julian of Spire of Jean-Baptiste Lebigue, Introduction, in ibidem.

3 AccroccA, La straordinaria fecondità della sterile, 210.4 On the problematic nature of the customary dating of the Legenda maior, see

J. DAlArun, La Malaventura di Francesco d’Assisi, Edizioni Biblioteca Francescana, Milano 1996, 160-161. On the question of dating, see also: DolciAmi, Francesco d’Assisi: tra devozione, culto, e liturgia, 25-29.

5 S. J. P. VAn DiJk, Sources for the Modern Roman Liturgy, 2, Brill, Leiden 1963, 165. See also volume 1, 84.

6 R. B. Brooke, Early Franciscan Government, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge1959, 263.

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Ceremoniale Ord. Minorum Vetustissimum the following is found, «Likewise, with regard to the legend of blessed Francis, it is so or-dered that one good one be compiled from all of them»7. The editor of this text, Hieronymus Golubovich, notes this rubric refers to the need for a new liturgical legend since several were in use among the broth-ers8. Acceptance of the 1254 date is not unanimous. A review of schol-arly opinion reveals that both the chapters of 1257 in Rome and the 1260 chapter in Narbonne are other possibilities for the origin of this rubric. The 1257 date was advanced by Ferdinand Delorme9 and 1260 by the Quaracchi Editors10. If 1260 is correct, the immediate ques-tion arises as to why it did not appear in the Diffinitiones from the Narbonne chapter11. Regardless of the year, Fernando Uribe states the rubric in question concerned a liturgical choir legend12. Given the broad range of opinion regarding the rubric brought to light by Golubovich, it is no surprise to find scholars positing a composition date for the Legenda minor as early as 1257 in the case of Damien Vorreux13, who considered the text as Bonaventure’s response to the wishes of the 1257 chapter where he was elected minister general, and as late as 1268 for Jacques Cambell14, who claimed the liturgi-cal vita appeared after the acceptance of the Legenda maior at the 1266 chapter in Paris and before Bonaventure’s departure from Paris in the winter of 1268. Most scholars follow the timeline of Jacques Bougerol15, who suggests a period between 1260 and 1263 but the judgment of contemporary writers often assumes the customary, al-beit problematic, dating of the Legenda maior and a priori belief that the Legenda minor is a summary of the Legenda maior.

7 «Item ordinetur de legenda beati Francisci, ut de ominibus una bona compiletur»

in Ceremoniale Ord. Minorum Vetustissimum sue “Ordinationes divini officii” sub B. Ioanne de Parma Ministo Bli emanatae an. 1254, ed. H. Golubovich in Archivum fran-ciscanum historicum 3 (1910) 76, n. 74.

8 Ceremoniale Ord. Minorum, 76, n. 3. 9 F. Delorme, Diffinitiones Capituli Generalis O.F.M. Narbonensis (1260), in

Archivum franciscanum historicum 3 (1910) 492, n. 1. This view is also held by VAn DiJk, Sources for the Modern Roman Liturgy, II, 417, n. 3.

10 Praefatio, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, LXIII, n. 1.11 Delorme, Diffinitiones Capituli , 502-504.12 F. uriBe, Introducción a las hagiografías de San Francesco y Santa Clara de Asís

(siglos XIII-XIV), Editorial Espigas, Murica1999, 233.13 T. DesBonneTs - D. Vorreux, Saint Francois d’Assise. Documents, écrits et

premieres biographies, Paris 1968 1468.14 J. cAmBell, Une tentative de résoudre la question franciscane, in Miscellanea

francescana 69 (1962) 20315 J. Bougerol, Francesco e Bonaventura, Edizioni L.I.E.F., Vicenza 1984, 18-20.

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The subordination of the Legenda minor to the Legenda maior in terms of chronology and content runs the risk of minimizing the im-portance of the communal liturgy as a source of fraternal spirituality and institutional identity for second generation Minorites. Following on Haymo of Faversham’s efforts in the 1240s, John of Parma’s ex-pressed a similar attention to liturgical worship and legislation16 that is evident in the Ceremoniale. Haymo’s Ordo breviarii already stipu-lated that lessons from a legend be read during the Feast of Saint Francis, but oddly enough no specific legend is offered, but instead an evocative blank17. Interest in choir legends was by no means limited to the Franciscans, as the intensive liturgical reform of the Domini-cans in the 1250s reveals. Humbert of Romans undertook to write a new liturgical vita of Saint Dominic at the request of the 1254 chapter of Preachers and culminated in an official legend for choir approved in by the Dominican chapter in 125618. This text19 is divided into in-dividual lessons for the octave liturgy just as the Legenda minor and is accompanied in Angelus Waltz’s edition by nine lessons, similar in structure to chapter fifteen of the Legenda maior, intended for the choir celebration of the translation of Dominic’s miraculous corpse20. John of Parma’s liturgical directives reflect that of the Preachers, with whom he cultivated a fraternal institutional relationship21, and consequently is at least conceivable that the minister general pushed for a single liturgical vita as early as 1254. If the chapter of Genoa is too early for the origin of the rubric, the date of 1257 appears more likely than 1260 given the efforts of the Preachers and corresponding Minorite liturgical legislation that emulated their mendicant coun-terparts throughout the 1250s. If the Dominicans focused on choir legends of their founder for the octave celebration and the translation of his body, it is entirely feasible to consider the possibility that Bon-aventure, who was elected in the Roman chapter of 1257, responded

16 Brooke, Early Franciscan Government, 262.17 «Lectiones leguntur legenda ipsius scilicet», in Sources of the Modern Roman

Liturgy, II, ed. S.J.P. Van Dijk, Brill, Leiden 1963, 165.18 A. WAlTz, Einführung in Legenda sancti Dominici auctore Humberto de Romanis,

ed. A. Waltz (Monumenta Historica Sancti Patris Nostri Dominici 16), Institutum Historicum FF. Praedicatorum, Rome 1935, 358. See also E. T. BreTT, Humbert of Romans: His Life and Views of Thirteenth-Century Society, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto 1984, 93.

19 Legenda sancti Dominici auctore Humberto de Romanis, 369-423.20 In translatione beati Dominici, in Legenda sancti Dominici auctore Humberto de

Romanis, 424-428. The subsequent lessons are introduced by the rubric “Residum legi potest in mensa”, 428.

21 Brooke, Early Franciscan Government, 263; BreTT, Humbert of Romans, 24-30.

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to the desire of the capitulars and followed Humbert of Romans as he was inclined to do22. We know that the transferal of the miracu-lous body of Francis to the Basilica of Saint Francis was a Minorite feast since the introduction of Haymo of Faversham’s reform in the 1240s23, and this event is found in the Legenda umbra of Celano24, the impetus for the choir readings taken from Celano’s Vita secunda S. Francisci25, and noted in the fifteenth chapter of the Legenda maior26. If chapter fifteen of the Legenda maior was written by Bonaventure before the rest of that same vita27, it is conceivable that the Legenda minor was the newly elected Minister General’s response to the 1257 request for a new choir legend for the octave of Saint Francis and, similar to the material of chapter fifteen that was intended for the Feast of the Transferal, composed prior to the Legenda maior. With the Legenda minor and lessons for the Feast of the Transferal com-pleted, Bonaventure could expand and collate this material for the Legenda maior and delete all other legends, liturgical or otherwise, through the controversial declaration of the Pisa chapter in 126628.

22 Dominic Monti notes, «Too often Franciscan history is viewed in isolation from that of other religious orders. Especially considering the impact of the Dominican con-stitutions on the Friars Minor, it is very helpful to compare Bonaventure’s activities with those of his counterpart, Humbert of Romans, the Dominican master general from 1254 to 1263. The two leaders faced many of the same problems, both exter-nal and internal, and their responses were remarkably similar» in sAinT BonAVenTure, Writings concerning the Franciscan Order, introd. and trans. D. Monti, Franciscan Institute, Saint Bonaventure 1994, 29, n. 79. It is worth pointing out that a Dominican vita of Francis appeared in the mid-1250s. See WAlTz, Einführung in Legenda sancti Dominici auctore Humberto de Romanis, 363; and for the text, see Testimonia minori saeculi XIII, ed. L. Lemmens Collegium s. Bonaventurae, Quaracchi 1926, 57-59. On the celebration of Dominic in the liturgy of the Preachers, see Le sanctoral du lection-naire de l’office dominicain, 1254-1256, édition et étude d’apres le ms Rome, Sainte-Sabine XIV L1, “Ecclesiasticum officium secundum ordinem fratrum praedicatorum”, éd. A. É. Urfels-Capot (Mémoires et documents de l’École des chartes 84), Paris 2007, 82-85, 294-295.

23 VAn DiJk - J. hAzAlDen WAlker, The Origins of the Modern Liturgy, Md.: Newman Press, Westminster 1960, 379.

24 DAlArun, Vers un resolution de la question franciscaine, 272-273.25 Ibidem 317.26 Legenda maior in Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis, c. 14, n. 8, 626.27 T. DesBonneTs, La diffusion du culte de saint François en France d’apres les

bréviaires manuscrits étrangers à l’Ordre, in Archivum franciscanum historicum 75 (1982) 212. It is noteworthy that chapter fifteen of the Legenda maior is separated into nine possible lessons in the critical edition reflecting the nine-fold structure of readings found in the Legenda minor. The only other chapter of the Legenda maior divided into nine possible readings is chapter nine.

28 On this chapter decision, see J. DAlArun, Comment détruire les légendes fran-ciscaines? Une ingénieuse application de la définition de 1266 dans le manuscrit Reg.

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An examination of the external criteria surrounding the Legenda minor suggests that it may indeed have preceded the Legenda maior29. There are internal reasons that point to a similar conclusion. Accroc-ca argues for the later 1260s as the composition date for the Legenda minor30. The principal reasons are the mentioning of John, the first name give to Francis by his mother, in the Legenda minor and not the Legenda maior, the variegated presentations of Sylvester’s vision of the dragon as an expression of heighten eschatological concerns in the later 1260s, and a specific detail regarding the stigmata found in the Legenda minor and not the Legenda maior. The absence of John may be due to an omission that Bonaventure wanted to correct in a later vita or even a reconsideration of his material, but it also may simply be an example of personal information more likely to be found in an earlier liturgical legend directed toward the confreres of the Poverello gathered in prayer, and thus reflecting the literary style and spiritual concerns of the minister general in the period surround-ing the watershed chapter in Narbonne in 126031. Indeed Bonaven-

lat. 1738 de la Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, in Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae 14 (Studi e Testi 443), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 2007, 219-220.

29 When speaking of external evidence, it should be noted that the Codex Assisiensis Bibliothecae Communalis 347, 2v (13th-14th) contains the rubric «Hec minor Vita B. Francisci ad hoc de maior excerpta est: ut in Breviariis portatilibus et etiam in choralibus habeantur. Et legentur de ipsa in choro secundum quod in ea Lectiones distincte sunt: in festivitatibus B. Francisci et per octavam natalis eius. Convenientius etiam de legi potest ad mensam: ipsis diebus festivitatum B. Francisci. Maior vero Vita haberi debet merito in locis singulis: ad edificationem Fratrum. Scriptores ergo compellantur tenere punctationes et litteram exemplaris; et iuxta exemplar hoc erro-res illorum per Fratrum dilegentiam corrigantur». A similar rubric is found in Codex Assisiensis Bibliothecae Communalis 335, 68v (14th). The following codices (14th) in the same collection do not have this rubric, 330, 334, 345, and 418. On this question and Bibliothecae Vaticana 7570 (14th), see DAlArun, Comment détruire les légendes franciscaines?, 219-220. A study of the Legenda minor must certainly take into ac-count these rubrics, but their presence does not offer a definitive proof of the chronol-ogy of Bonaventure’s own hagiographical work. They do indicate that some brothers believed the “prayed Francis” of the Legenda minor was far more suitable for the two moments of communal reflection in the choir and refectory. On hagiographical literatu-re and time of respite such as prayer and meals, see M. De cerTeAu, A Variant: Hagio-Graphical Edification, in M. De cerTeAu, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley, Columbia Press, New York 1988, 273-274.

30 AccroccA, La straordinaria fecondità della sterile, 209-210.31 T. J. Johnson, Prologue as Pilgrimage: Bonaventure as Spiritual Cartographer,

in Miscellanea francescana 106-107 (2006-2007) 451-456. As Accrocca notes (196), the fact that John was the original name of Francis was already mentioned in both the Legend of the Three Companions and Celano’s Remembrance of the Desire of the Soul.

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ture’s account of his own healing through the intercession of Francis is far more intimate in the Legenda minor where he mentions his ill-ness and votive action of his own mother, both personal details absent in the prologue of the Legenda maior. With regard to the scene with Sylvester, Accrocca asks why Bonaventure would describe the same episode in two different ways and concludes that the Legenda minor must have come some years – in the later 1260s – after the Legenda maior when the eschatological role of Francis was more pronounced. While dragons both imagined and real were a stable of Christian lit-erature since the fifth century32, the appeal to the apocalyptic is a two-edged hermeneutical sword that could also cut in the opposite di-rection in support of earlier date for the Legenda minor. Eschatology, apocalyptic urgency, and mendicant ministry were burning issues in the 1250s. A glance at Humbert of Romans’ choir legend for Dominic reveals the Preachers intense concern in the 1250s with their institu-tional identity in an apocalyptic age33. Eschatology, apocalyptic con-cerns, and ministry also preoccupied the Minorites during the period as the controversy swirling around the Introductorius of Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino so vividly demonstrates. Bonaventure could have put the final touches on the Legenda minor in 1259 or 126034 with an

32 J. J. o’Donnell, The Ruin of Roman Empire, HarperCollins Publishers, New York 2008, 381.

33 «Multifarie, multique modis olim Deus electos ad eternum invitans convivium, novissime diebus istis, id est hora undecima, misit servum suum dicere invitatis, ut venirent, quia iam parata sunt omnia. Servum hunc ordinem Predicatorum sanctus interpretatur, novissimis dirigendum temporibus, ad humanas videlicet mentes de vi-cino adventu iudicis commonendas. Novum enim aliquem Predicatorum ordinem futu-rum scriptura premonuit, quem circa finem seculi mittendum tam signanter expressit: “Misit, inquiens, servum suum hora cene”. Hora cene finis est mundi. Nos autem su-mus, in quos fines seculorum devenerunt. Missus est igitur hora cene, id est novissimis diebus, ordo novus. Novus, inquam, partier et antiques. Novus institutione, antiques auctoritate. Novus, immo novissimus spatio, primus autem officio. Conductis equidem primo mane vinee ex denarii conventione cultoribus et etiam hora tertia, sexta et nona, hora restat, immo iam extat undecima, qua novissima multiplicentur cultores. Hi sunt Predicatores, quorum ordinem temporum horum novissimorum periculis dispensatio divina providit, ut appropinquante iudicio illius, cuius in humilitate iudicium est su-blatum, testium numerus augeretur» Legenda sancti Dominici auctore Humberto de Romanis, 369-370.

34 The Quaracchi editors note that Bonaventure sent Thomas of Celano’s Vita pri-ma S. Francisci to the Cistercian Order in response to the request from their 1259 Chapter. If their hypothesis is correct, neither the Legenda minor or Legenda maior were completed by 1259. This does not mean, of course, that Bonaventure was not al-ready at work on his new hagiographical account of Francis before 1259 in response to the chapter request of 1257. See Praefatio in Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, XVI. For a different perspective on this question, see Luigi Pellegrini, who

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emphasis on the universality of Francis call to evangelical conversion at the end of the ages, and then subsequently reworked the material at the outset of the 1260s in the form found in the Legenda maior.

The fascinating detail about the stigmata, which Bonaventure heard from eyewitnesses and also stated in a sermon dating from 1267, regards the bent nails under the feet of Francis which were so pronounced and curved that a finger could be placed into loop. Ac-crocca points out that this interesting detail about the stigmata is found in Legenda minor, c. 6, n. 3 but not in the Legenda maior, c. 13, n. 3. He does not mention, however, Legenda maior, c. 14, n. 135. This indication that Francis is unable to walk, which is not found in the Legenda minor, presupposes the information found in Legenda minor, c. 6, n. 3, thereby indicating that Bonaventure was well aware of the material in the Legenda minor when he wrote this chapter of the Legenda maior. Once again, the absence of this detail in the Leg-enda maior could be may be due to an omission, a reconsideration of his earlier material, or as Accrocca maintains, the result of new in-formation Bonaventure gleaned from the companions of Francis after the composition of the Legenda maior in 1265. When considering the minister general’s contact with these companions, it is essential to re-call that Bonaventure was in Assisi in 1260 and most notably for our purposes, in the Assisi-Viterbo region in 125736, where he heard, in the company of many confreres, Alexander IV who preached on Fran-cis and affirmed that he had seen the stigmata himself when Francis was still alive37. It is possible that the companions of Francis also heard the papal sermon personally or heard of it from others. With talk of the stigmata in the air so to speak, they could have shared with details of the stigmata with the minister general. He then included selected aspects of their personal revelations in the earlier Legenda minor and the later Sermon on the Feast of the Transferal, which,

claims the possible text to be the Legenda ad usum chori in San Bonaventura: Opusculi francescani XIV/1, Città Nuova, Rome 1993, 42, n. 94. Dalarun follows the Quarrachi thesis, see DAlArun, Vers un resolution de la question franciscaine, 208, n. 577.

35 «Faciebat proinde, quoniam propter excrescentes in pedibus clavos ambulare non poterat, corpus emortuum per civitates et castella circumvehi, ut ad crucem Christi ferendam ceteros animaret» Legenda maior, c. 14, n. 1; Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 620-621.

36 J. G. Bougerol, Introduzione generale, Opere di San Bonaventura, Città Nuova Editrice, Rome 1990, 11-12.

37 Legenda maior, c. 13, n. 8, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 619.

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unlike the Legenda maior, were both directed toward his brothers gathered together in a liturgical celebration of their founder.

rationale and genre of the legenda minor

Accrocca’s most welcome study of the Legenda minor employs the common and beneficial chronological approach of Franciscan-ists which compares earlier and later legends of the Poverello and draws historical conclusions from differences and similarities in the respective hagiographical texts. In particular, Accrocca examines se-lected periscopes of the Legenda minor and the Legenda maior. The potential difficulty with this hermeneutic is twofold: 1) The Legenda minor may indeed precede the Legenda maior in terms of their re-spective dates of composition; 2) The Legenda minor is not identical to the Legenda maior with regard to hagiographical genre. Since the first issue has already been raised, it is now time to comment on the second. When Accrocca looks at the Legenda minor, it appears to be a later summary, albeit edited for length and the inclusion of new material, of the same type of hagiographical literature. A persuasive case can be made that the Legenda minor is a nuanced expression of the hagiographical genre given the intended liturgical context of the legend. When the Legenda minor is seen from this perspective the importance of comparing it to other liturgical vitae – especially Fran-ciscan – becomes imperative. Now the crucial question is not what Bonaventure altered or added in the Legenda minor compared to the Legenda maior, but how does his liturgical legend compare to other liturgical legends such as Thomas of Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori and other such vitae.

As noted elsewhere, the rationale for choir legends such as the Legenda minor requires the recognition of their unique genre; they are primarily conceived, composed, and received as spatial-theolog-ical texts, ritually performed in a designated sacred space and sea-son38. The ritual context is the liturgical celebration of the Divine Of-fice, where believers enter into a dialogical exchange with the divine interlocutor within in the paradox of the Paschal mystery39. These

38 Johnson, Meraviglie di pietre e spazi forthcoming in Paradoxien der Legitimation/I paradossi della legittimazione/Les paradoxes de la légitimation, Micrologus Library, Florence 2009 and idem, Introduction, La Légende mineure de François d’Assise forth-coming in Saint François d’Assise. Documents, écrits et premieres biographies.

39 A. hollAArDT, Die Feier des Studengebetes und das Pascha-Mysterium, in Lebendiges Studengebet: Vertiefung und Hilfe, ed. M. Klöckner - H. Rennings, Herder,

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choir vitae are unique witnesses to a particular communal image of a saint, whose life of virtue and miraculous deeds are recounted within the dynamics of liturgical prayer and the dominant cultic-cultural identity of the institution in question. Given their essential status within worship, these particular hagiographical texts take on a level of iconicity, not shared by non-liturgical documents40. Intended more specifically for communal contemplation than the promulgation of the saint’s cult throughout the universal church, choir legends re-count through ritual narratives the stories of the saints whose power and authority construct and confirm identity41. Since hagiographical texts offer models to be emulated42, and the performative dimension of liturgical prayer offers a ritual context for the transformation for those at prayer, the choice of which choir legend was decisive in the formation of Franciscan identity. The need for a new image of Francis of Assisi that would represent the Order’s self-understanding in the 1250s and 1260s, and serve as the transformative instructional para-digm in choir, undoubtedly induced Bonaventure and other second generation friars to suppress Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori, along with his Vita prima and any other legends – liturgical or otherwise – in circulation, and construct a performative identity for Minorites with his Legenda minor.

When the liturgical rationale of the Legenda minor is taken into consideration and the unique genre of such hagiographical texts is recognized, new avenues for research are opened. Questions also emerge regarding current scholarship pertaining to the Legenda mi-nor. If Bonaventure’s Legenda minor is examined in comparison to Celano’s Legenda ad usum chori, many of the conclusions reached by Accrocca may require reconsideration and revision. Assuming that the Legenda minor is subsequent to the Legenda maior and the iden-tical genre, he compares and contrasts several narrative segments in

Freiburg 1989, 140-147.40 T. J. heFFernAn, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle

Ages, Oxford University Press, New York 1988, 36-37.41 On hagiographical legends, liturgical celebrations, and identity, see: S. BoynTon,

Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy & History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000-1125, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 2006, esp. 65-80; 184-185; 208.

42 For example, David of Augsburg writes «Lege Sanctorum vitam et dotrinam, ut in comparatione eorum semper humilieris et instruaris et accendaris ad devotionem et provoceris ad studium, et ut informeries in intellectu Scripturarum et illumineris ad fidei intellectum, ut scias discernere verum a falso, bonum a malo, vitium a virtute et remedia vitiorum ac tentationem» c. 13, n. 1, De exterioris et interioris hominis compo-sitione, Collegium S. Bonaventurae, Quaracchi 1899, 16-17.

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the life of Francis: moment in the conversion process; events tied to the institution of the Order; and the stigmata. That the accounts in the Legenda minor are brief and absent many of the details found in the Legenda maior is hardly suspicious per se since the very ration-ale and genre of a choir legend require a focused, contemplative text to foster institutional identity, not extended and drawn-out narra-tives of the Poverello’s life. Where Accrocca sees the minister general downplaying, altering or eliminating crucial aspects of the Francis narrative, other scholars could contend that Bonaventure is fashion-ing his choir vita for prayer against the backdrop of existing choir legends. This distinct possibility fosters a different set of conclusions. Accrocca contends that in contrast to the Legenda maior the Legenda minor offers a pacified picture of the conversion, where there is an emphasis on mystical events, no reference to the encounter with the leper, and the choice of the Poverello to decision to drawn near to the poor and assimilate with them is absent43. That Bonaventure would accentuate the mystical in a brief liturgical text intended for prayer is self-explanatory44, but even more significant is that Celano does something similar to Bonaventure in his choir legend with regard to the poor and the leper. Celano does not recount the encounter with Francis and the leper even though it is found in the earlier Vita pri-ma, but he does write of the care Francis manifested toward the lep-ers whom he previously despised, and how he wiped their sores and washed their bloody wounds45. When this account is read together with Bonaventure’s account, it appears more likely that the minister general is building on the choir text of Celano and not radically re-dacting a pre-existing Legenda maior for ideological-theological pur-poses.

Following this line of reasoning, similar conclusions could be drawn with regard to Accrocca’s reading of other salient aspects in

43 AccroccA, La straordinaria fecondità della sterile, 186-187.44 Johnson, Into the Light, 244-249.45 Legenda ad usum chori, c. 3, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et

XIV, 120. The scene of Francis kissing the leper is found in a choir legend based on Julian of Speyer’s Vita S. Francisci, See DesBonneTs, La diffusion du culte de saint François en France d’apres les breviaries manuscripts étrangers à l’Orde, 171, Lectio 3a. Debonnets speaks (170, n. 1) of this text as a Legenda ad usum chori from Julian of Speyer. This does not mean that Julian composed the liturgical legend. Mention of the encounter with the leper, or indeed any ministry to the lepers, is absent in Legenda S. Francisci liturgica found in Testimonia minori saeculi XIII, 55-57. On this choir le-gend, which may chronologically follow Celano’s text and precede Bonaventure’s text, see DAlArun, Vers un resolution de la question franciscaine, 208, n. 577.

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the life of Francis such as ill-fated military experience, the role of the Portiuncula, the growth of the early fraternity, and the confirmation of the Rule. He rightly notes how the attempt to participate in the expedition to Apulia and the subsequent dream of Francis in Spoleto are absent in the Legenda minor but not in the Legenda maior46. This complete elimination of any reference to military action in his youth is judged to be the result of precise hagiographical choices by Bonaven-ture, who wants to present a pacified founder to his confreres. This may be true but then again what if Bonaventure was simply following the pre-existing hagiographical model found in the Legenda ad usum chori? For his part, Celano utterly ignores the military experience of Francis and never mentions the Spoleto dream47. Accrocca also com-ments on the fact that whereas the Legenda maior designates the Portiuncula as playing an important role in the life of Francis, the Legenda minor mentions neither the fondness Francis held for the lit-tle church nor the significance it held for the Poor Man from Assisi48. A glance at the Legenda ad usum chori quickly confirms the fact that there is absolutely no specific reference at all to the Portiuncula or San Damiano for that matter. Although Bonaventure is reticent re-garding the Portiuncula in his liturgical vita, at least he mentions the church dedicated to the Virgin49 and comments on the restoration program and Francis’s encounter with the Crucified in San Damiano while Celano ignores these pivotal aspects50. In this case Bonaven-ture goes beyond Celano’s choir narrative and actually interjecting new information into liturgical celebration of the founder, highlight-ing the importance of the cross in his conversion51.

When treating the institution of the Order, Accrocca speaks of surprising absences in the Legenda minor, which include a suspicious

46 AccroccA, La straordinaria fecondità della sterile, 188-189.47 Legenda ad usum chori, cs. 1-2, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII

et XIV, 119-120. These incidents are present in the Legenda S. Francisci liturgica, Lectio 5, 56, but not in the choir legend from Julian of Speyer.

48 AccroccA, La straordinaria fecondità della sterile, 194. Furthermore he notes (195) that any reference to the Portiuncula indulgence is lacking. In point of fact, this absence is another argument for an earlier dating of the Legenda minor, not a later dating.

49 Legenda minor, c. 2, n. 1, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 658. The Portiuncula is cited in Speyer’s Legenda ad usum chori, Lectio 4a, 172 but not in the Legenda S. Francisci liturgica.

50 Legenda minor, c. 1, n. 9, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 658.

51 Johnson, Into the Light, 235.

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silence regarding the confirmation of the Rule by Honorius III52 and the omission of the first companions53. The logical answer to the que-ry regarding the Rule is to found, according to Accrocca, in the height-ened tension between the mendicants and their secular counterparts and ecclesial hierarchy that flared in the mid-1250s. The claim alone could actually support an earlier dating of the Legenda minor, but what is noteworthy for our purposes here is that the Legenda ad usum chori completely disregards the confirmation of the Rule by Honorius and, instead relates – as does the Legenda minor – that Innocent III confirmed the Rule54. Clearly for liturgical writers like Celano and Bonaventure what is more important for the construction of identity in choir prayer is the foundational, personal approbation of the pontiff, not real or imagined controversies with others outside the fraternity. Accrocca’s attention is also drawn to Bonaventure’s unwillingness to name the first members of the fraternitas such as Bernard, Peter Catani, Giles or the aggregation of other specific in-dividuals to the eventual twelve. Once again these elements of the narrative deemed vital when present and troubling when absent are not found in the Legenda ad usum chori as Celano, echoing the Testa-ment, simply states that God gave Francis companions55. Given the rationale and genre of liturgical legends, Bonaventure’s focus on the founder of the religious community, to the exclusion of other person-ages found in longer hagiographical narratives, is to be expected. He, along with Celano, is concerned with the “prayed Francis” of the

52 AccroccA, La straordinaria fecondità della sterile, 198-199.53 Ibidem 200.54 Legenda ad usum chori, c. 5. Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et

XIV, 121. Speyer’s Legenda ad usum chori, Lectio 5a, 172, reads, «Tunc fratres sibi as-sumens jam fratrum excrescente numero [perrexit] ad dominum Innocentium papam tertium cum fratribus regulam sub brevi sermone conscriptam ab ipso confirmari». The Legenda S. Francisci liturgica, Lectio Octava, 56, has «Ordinem Fratrum Minorum ipse plantavit et ea scilicet occasione hoc ei nomen imposuit, cum nempe se in regula scriberetur: ‘Et sint minores». The reference to the “regula” here is to the Regula non bullata, not the Regula bullata. On minority and identity, see L. lehmAnn, Sed sint mi-nores. La minorità nella Regula non bullata: proposte e reazioni, in Minores et subditi omnibus. Tratti caratterizzanti dell’identità francescana, Laurentianum, Rome 2003, 129-147.

55 Legenda ad usum chori, c. 4, S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 120. Speyer’s Legenda ad usum chori, Lectio 6a speaks of the growing number of brothers. See the preceding footnote. The Legenda S. Francisci liturgica, Lectio Septima, 56, only refers to the founding of three Orders, mirroring the three churches Francis restored.

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choir who is the mediator of institutional identity and the archetype of transformation56.

Conclusion

With the growing interest in the choir vitae, Franciscanists are now beginning to examine the legends that were most frequently encountered and read by the followers of Francis and paradoxically least sought out and studied by scholars. Accrocca’s recent “La straor-dinaria fecondità della sterile: la Legenda minor di Bonaventura” is a most welcome addition to the growing body of studies on this here-tofore overlooked area of Franciscan studies. His promise in the con-cluding section “il cammino futuro” is a harbinger of his forthcoming systematic study that will amplify the results of his initial research. This essay maintains that road ahead is indeed a new thoroughfare that should begin with a careful consideration of the still unsettled question of the chronology of the Legenda minor. To begin, it would be a mistake to simply assume that a richly composed, nuanced theo-logical writing like the Legenda minor is merely a truncated version of a preceding, more important major legend57. For his part Accrocca argues for dating later than most scholars, yet this would mean the capitular desire for a liturgical legend, expressed as early as 1254, was not fulfilled until as late as 1268. Given Bonaventure’s profound respect for liturgy, which echoed that of his ill-fated predecessor John of Parma, and the minister general’s predilection for organiza-tion and regulation, it is difficult to believe that he, together with his brothers, waited a decade for a choir legend as they watched their oft emulated fellow mendicants, the Preachers, compose and prom-ulgate the very genre of hagiography the Franciscans requested in the mid 1250s. The style of Bonaventure’s liturgical text, with its em-phasis on mysticism and personal experience, suggests a date around 1259-1260 when he was composing other works like the Itinerarium in mentis Deum, the De quinque festivitatibus, and the Soliloquium. In this process he may have even collaborated with by his gifted Pa-risian confrere, Julian of Speyer, who had composed both the Vita S. Francisci and Officium S. Francisci58. For example, when describing

56 On the “prayed Francis” see Johnson, “Introduction”, La Légende mineure de François d’Assise, forthcoming in Saint François d’Assise. Documents.

57 Johnson, Into the Light, 244-245.58 On these texts and Julian’s contribution to the liturgy of the Minors, see J.-

B. leBigue, “Introduction”, L’Office et la Vie de saint François forthcoming in Saint

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the depth of forgiveness experienced by Francis in the Legenda mi-nor59, Bonaventure appeals to the phraseology from Matthew 5:26 “to the last penny” utilized by Julian his vita60. This scriptural reference appears neither in Celano’s Vita prima Francisci61 or Bonaventure’s Legenda maior62 when they relate the same incident.

The liturgical genre of the text also requires attentive considera-tion in any future study of Bonaventure’s choir legend. Comparing the Legenda minor with the Legenda maior and other legends not in-tended explicitly for choir performance inevitably leads in some cases to problematic conclusions. In such a reading other liturgical legends demand their due if for no other reason than they reveal the “prayed Francis” diffused throughout medieval Europe and beyond for the various feasts associated with the Poor Man from Assisi63. Jacques Dalarun has suggested one possible iter of examination: The Legenda ad usum chori of Thomas of Celano, Legenda ad usum chori of Julian of Speyer, the Legenda S. Francisci liturgica, and finally the Legenda minor of Bonaventure64. Accrocca’s careful considerations and asser-tions in “La straordinaria fecondità della sterile: la Legenda minor di Bonaventura” are often formulated in the subjunctive, as are many of the claims in this essay suggesting both often operate in the realm of theories and hypotheses. These studies are consequently open to reconsideration and reformulation; nevertheless, this essay contends that a path toward the future should not ignore the birth and progeny of a fertile, albeit deceivingly simple rubric, Item ordinetur de legenda beati Francisci.

François d’Assise. Documents, écrits et premieres biographies. Accrocca (197, 207) cites Bonaventure use of Julian’s works. His comments in fact tangentially underscore the hypothesis that Bonaventure was working with Julian’s texts and that the Legenda minor could precede the Legenda maior.

59 «certificatus est de remissione plenaria omnium delictorum, usque videlicet ad ‘quadrantem novissimum» Legenda minor, c. 2, n. 3; Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 659.

60 «sibique usque ad ‘quadrantem novissimum’ remissionis debiti culparum certi-tude daretur» Vita S. Francisci, c. 3, n. 18, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 343.

61 Vita prima S. Francisci, c. 11, n. 26; Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 22.

62 Legenda maior, c. 3, n. 6, Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis Saeculis XIII et XIV, 568.63 On the incredible diversity of these legends in France alone, see DesBonneTs, La

diffusion du culte de saint François en France d’apres les bréviaires manuscrits étran-gers à l’Ordre, 153-215.

64 DAlArun, Vers un resolution de la question franciscaine, 232, n. 651.