§ 70. ST. FRANCIS D' ASSIST. 401
had withheld himself from papal privileges. He had fa vored freedom of movement. The skilled hand of Ugolino substituted strict monastic obedience. Organization was to take the place of spontaneous devotion. Ugolino was, no doubt, Francis' real as well as professed friend. He laid the foundation of the cathedral in Assisi to his honor, and canonized him two years after his death. But Francis' spirit he did not appreciate. Francis was henceforth help less to carry out his original ideas,1 and yet, without making any outward sign of insubordination, he held tenaciously to them to the end.
These ideas are reaffirmed in Francis' famous will. This document is one of the most affecting pieces in Christian literature. Here Francis calls himself "little brother," f ra ter par vulus. All he had to leave the brothers was his bene diction, the memory of the early days of the brotherhood, and counsels to abide by the first Rule. This Rule he had received from no human teacher. The Almighty God him self had revealed it unto him, that he ought to live according to the mode of the Holy Gospel. He reminded them how the first members loved to live in poor and abandoned churches. He bade them not accept churches or houses, except as it might be in accordance with the rule of holy poverty they had professed. He forbade their receiving bulls from the papal court, even for their personal pro tection. At the same time, he pledged his obedience to the minister-general and expressed his purpose to go nowhere and do nothing against his will "for he is my lord." Through the whole of the document there runs a chord of anguish.2
Francis' heart was broken. Never strong, his last years were full of infirmities. Change of locality brought only temporary relief. The remedial measures of the physician,
1 Almost everything done in the order after 1221 was done either "with out Francis' knowledge or against his will and mind," are the words of Sabatier. 8. Francois, p. 316.
2 For the Latin text of this remarkable writing see Speculum, 309-313. Sabatier gives a French trans., in his S. Francois, 389 sqq.
402 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
such as the age knew, were employed. An iron, heated to white heat, was applied to Francis' forehead. Francis shrank at first, but submitted to the treatment, saying, " Brother Fire, you are beautiful above all creatures, be favorable to me in this hour." He jocosely called his body, Brother Ass.1 The devotion of the people went beyond all bounds. They fought for fragments of his clothing, hairs from his head, and even the parings of his nails.
Two years before his death Francis composed the Canticle to the Sun, which Renan has called the most perfect expres sion of modern religious feeling.2 It was written at a time when he was beset by temptations, and blindness had begun to set in. The hymn is a pious outburst of passionate love for nature. It soars above any other pastorals of the Middle Ages. Indeed Francis' love for nature is rare in the records of his age, and puts him into companionship with that large modern company who see poems in the clouds and hear sym phonies in flowers. He loved the trees, the stones, birds, and the plants of the field. Above all things he loved the sun, created to illuminate our eyes by day, and the fire which gives us light in the night time, for " God has illuminated our eyes by these two, our brothers."
Francis had a message for the brute creation and preached to the birds. " Brother birds," he said on one occasion, " you ought to love and praise your Creator very much. He has given you feathers for clothing, wings for flying, and all things that can be of use to you. You have neither to sow, nor to reap, and yet He takes care of you." And the birds curved their necks and looked at him as if to thank him. He would have had the emperor make a special law against killing or doing any injury to " our sisters, the birds." 3
1 This designation was not original with Francis. In the fourth century Hilarion called his body the ass which ought to have chaff and not bar ley. Schaff, Ch. Hist. III., 190.
2 Nouvelles Etudes d'hist. rcl, 2d ed., Paris, 1844, pp. 333-351. No reasonable doubt is possible that Francis was the author of the Canticle, now that the Speculum has been published (pp. 234 sqq., and Sabatier's remarks, 278-283).
3 Speculum, 223-226. See Longfellow's poem, The Sermon of St. Francis.