Bonaventure As Minister General Dominic V. Monti on 2 February

BONAVENTURE AS MINISTER GENERAL Dominic V. Monti On 2 February 1257, at a chapter of the Order of Friars Minor held in Rome, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio was unanimously elected its minister general. This was at the suggestion of his predecessor, John of Parma. Bonaven- ture would then not hand over the reins of government until June 1274, at a chapter held in conjunction with the Second Council of Lyons. In the interim, he had presided over five other general chapters, which had endorsed his leadership and renewed his mandate. His seventeen-year term of office was far longer than any of his predecessors or any of his successors for more than a century. It was not simply the sheer length of Bonaventure’s tenure, however, that made it significant: it was the fact that it occurred at a critical juncture in Franciscan history, as the Lesser Brothers were struggling to formulate a clear self-understanding of their role in church and society.1 As minister general, Bonaventure played a truly singular role in this process: his policies and writings did much to define an identity for his brotherhood that would stamp it decisively for generations.2 1 For a general introduction to and translation of Bonaventure’s writings as general minister, see Dominic V. Monti, Writings Concerning the Franciscan Order (Works of St Bonaventure) 5 (Saint Bonaventure: 1994), and Opuscoli Francescani, intro. Luigi Pel- legrini (Opere di San Bonaventura) 1 (Rome: 1993). Treatments in general histories of the Order include John Moorman, A History of The Franciscan Order: from its Origins to the Year 1517 (Oxford: 1968), 140–155; Grado Giovanni Merlo, In the Name of St Francis, trans. Raphael Bonnano (Saint Bonaventure: 2009), 200–220; Michael Robson, The Franciscans in the Middle Ages (Rochester, Eng.: 2006), 82–94; and the older but still valuable treatment of Gratien de Paris, Histoire de la fondation et de l’évolution de l’Ordre des frères mineurs au XIIIe siècle, reprint of 1928 edition with updated bibliography by Mariano D’Alatri and Servus Gieben (Rome: 1982), 249–320. Also see the studies by Rosalind Brooke, Early Fran- ciscan Government (Cambridge, Eng.: 1959), 247–285, and “St. Bonaventure as Minister General,” S. Bonaventura francescano (Convegni di Studi sulla spiritualità medievale) 14 (Todi: 1974), 77–105; Raoul Manselli, “St. Bonaventure and the Clericalization of the Friars Minor,” Greyfriars Review 4 (1990): 83–98; and Giovanni Odoardi, “L’evoluzione istitu- zionale dell’Ordine codificata e difesa da San Bonaventura,” Miscellanea Francescana 75 (1975): 137–185. 2 See the important study by Roberto Lambertini, Apologia e crescita dell’identità francescana (1255–1279) (Nuovi Studi Storici) 4 (Rome 1990). 544 dominic v. monti When Francis of Assisi and his first companions approached Pope Innocent III for approval of their way of life in 1209, they were a band of laymen from various social strata, who had been motivated to “do pen- ance” by rejecting the quest for status, wealth, and power that increas- ingly dominated the life of the rising communes of central Italy.3 Instead, they had renounced all their possessions, creating an alternate existence at the margins of society. Continuing to practice the trades they knew, but refusing to accept money as wages, they received only the necessi- ties of life—food, clothing, and shelter—which they shared among themselves and the poor. The brothers viewed their mission in society as calling their fellow Christians to lives of authentic conversion through the wit- ness of their own lives and informal penitential preaching. After 1217, as Francis’ Lesser Brothers spread throughout central Italy and to other parts of Western Europe, this continued at first to be the normal pattern of their life. However, this radical new way of living Gospel values soon began attracting a significant number of clerics, especially as the brothers spread out from their original social context into Northern Italy and over the Alps. The Minorites, like the new Order of Preachers, offered a very attrac- tive option for zealous clerics who desired to separate themselves from the careerism and corruption so rampant in their ranks, but who at the same time were reluctant to enter traditional forms of religious life— monks and canons regular—because most of these demanded that they relinquish an active pastoral ministry. Now, such idealistic young clerics had another option: the new mendicant orders, which offered both a way of life based on authentic Gospel values and at the same time provided a base from which to exercise a fruitful apostolic ministry. Their assessment dovetailed with that of a number of perceptive prel- ates who recognized that Francis’ brotherhood could be a potent force in advancing the church’s agenda of pastoral reform. At the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, the assembled bishops had belatedly recognized that the considerable appeal of contemporary heretical movements was largely the result of the church’s failure to address popular religious needs. 3 For a good concise summary of the history of the Franciscan movement before Bonaventure, see Grado Giovanni Merlo, “Storia di frate Francesco e dell’ Ordine dei Minori,” in Francesco d’Assisi e il primo secolo di storia francescana (Rome: 1997), 3–27, trans. by Edward Hagman, “The Story of Brother Francis and the Order of Friars Minor,” Greyfriars Review 15 (2001): 1–21. For a fuller treatment, see Merlo, In the Name of St. Francis, 25–200. .

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