Francis or The Second Memorandum

Franziskus or The Second Memorandum is a historical novel by the German author Peter Berling , published in 1990 by the Bastei Lübbe publishing house . The work describes the life and work of St. Francis from "the secret notes of Guido II, Bishop of Assisi ".

Narrative style

The entire novel is kept in the form of a fictional diary of Bishop Guido II, which means that the plot is told from his first-person perspective .

action

Francis gives his father his clothes. Bishop Guido II covers the saint's nakedness with his stole . Fresco by Giotto in the Basilica of San Francesco .

In the comparatively insignificant diocese of Assisi , Bishop Guido II has led a rather contemplative, idle life since his inauguration in 1205, apart from occasional quarrels with the insubordinate priors of the Cathedral of San Rufino and between the bourgeois majores and minors . The calm in Assisi came to an end when, in 1207, the wealthy cloth merchant Pietro Bernardone accused his son Francesco of embezzling the family assets because, following a supposedly divine inspiration, he had chosen a life of the strictest poverty and asceticism and the money of the Used as alms. Although Bishop Guido himself is a devout Catholic, but anything but pious and celibate, he recognizes in the self-mortification of Francesco that unconditional turn to the original way of life of Christ , which the Church, long ago corrupted by worldly striving for power and greed, so urgently for a spiritual one Needs renewal.

Guido willingly takes on the role of protector of the brotherhood of minorities, which is rapidly growing around Francesco, and promotes his desire for official recognition of his pure sermon "sine glossa" (without empty phrases) by the Pope. But with that he goes into the depths of the power-political intrigues of the curia, in particular of the unscrupulous power man Ugolino di Segni , who wants to make the "Franciscans" theologically and organizationally compliant as an order of the hierarchy of the church, before their ideal of poverty seriously implies the clergy's right to exist Can ask a question.

Convinced that the trial between Father Bernardone and his son before his judgment seat marked the beginning of significant historical upheavals for his diocese and Church in general, the Bishop decided to keep a diary (Diarium Diaboli Advocati) in which he wrote his personal I want to document impressions and all events related to the poverty movement that was developing around Francesco. The diary should remain secret and not be published, as it could be used against the author in intrigues within the church. The bishop only instructs his secretarius and friend John Turnbull in this and lets him make his own entries in the interests of objectivity, since John takes a rather skeptical position with regard to the Franciscan movement due to his heretical-critical attitude towards the Roman Church. In the course of the plot, John leaves the bishop's service, but remains in correspondence with him. This correspondence, as well as that with his cousin Jacoba di Septemsoliis, the Bishop of Acre, Jacques de Vitry , and his subsequent secretaries, Roald of Wendower and Caesar von Speyer , was added to the diary by Guido without their knowledge.

Two weeks after the canonization of Francis (July 16, 1228), the bishop ends his diary with the intention of renouncing his office to begin a new life in the Holy Land at the side of his half-sister and his friend. To do this, he walled up the diary in a fireplace in the crypt of his parish church Santa Maria Maggiore . As a locking stone, he uses a memorial plaque specially commissioned by him, which he inserts into the masonry with the inscription facing inwards.

The epitaph bears the text:

Cum bene in caelum nituit claro lumine solis nitui;
cum extinto iam ego pereo obscura.
Caeca reddita ad culminem motus perventa
nunc atra iaceo in ultimum ignem.

Franciscus sanctus
episcopus suum in Gehennam .

MCCXXVIII.
GUIDO II EPISC.

0

After the sun has
gone out, the moon also goes blind in its course,
which drew its shine from it,
from full light to deepest darkness.

Francesco was canonized,
his bishop went to hell.

1228.
Guido II bishop.

Some time later, after the bishop's death became known, his diary with part of the memorial stone was recovered from hiding by John and taken to the German order castle Starkenberg in the Holy Land, where he found it there with other documents in 1244 “for interested posterity “Walled up again. It is said to have been discovered here by Peter Berling more than 700 years later.

background

Franziskus or The Second Memorandum is the first work in the literary oeuvre of Peter Berling, who had been working as a film producer and actor until then. According to the preface, he was motivated to do this during the 1988 production in Italy of Liliana Cavani's Francesco , in which he himself took on the role of Bishop of Assisi. For this purpose, the author fabulated a more extensive background story to the creation of the novel, with his adventurous research into unknown source material, which led him to the discovery of the "Starkenberg roles".

The parish church of Santa Maria Maggiore with the adjoining Palazzo del Vescovado.

Starkenberg Castle (Montfort) in Israel.

According to this, years before the film was made, he discovered medieval parchments in a “ Koran school on the edge of the Sahara ”, one of which contained the draft text for an epitaph dedicated to Bishop Guido, which according to the text had gone “to hell”. This draft was addressed by an episcopal secretary named "Caesarius" to a "Johannes du Mont" who can be found at Starkenberg Castle (Montfort) in the Holy Land . As a result of the filming and his assumed role, Berling was reminded that during the breaks in filming, Berling had undertaken private research, since, in his opinion, the epitaph of the bishop must actually have existed. With the permission of the incumbent Bishop Sergio Goretti , he was allowed to inspect the ancient Roman crypt under the episcopal residence of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi and its garden. He actually found the fragment of a grave inscription that was used as a place for a geranium pot, which contained a text fragment corresponding to the handwritten draft found in the desert.

In order to fathom the connection of the epitaph from Assisi to Starkenberg, Berling finally undertook the trip to Israel to do research there in the ruins of the old Teutonic castle. There he finally discovered the larger fragment of the epitaph that was used as a filler material to close a loopholes. After the stone slab was pried out of the masonry, a cavity opened up behind it in which several parchment rolls were kept, which, among other things, contained a previously unknown diary of the bishop, his extensive correspondence with his secretary John Turnbull and various other people. Fearing that the valuable documents could be confiscated from him at the strictly guarded Ben Gurion Airport , Berling photographed them on the spot on Dia until he was interrupted by a guerrilla group at gunpoint, who couldn't be identified. With the admonition that he hadn't found anything and hadn't met anyone, they had confiscated all of his images. After all, after the shooting was over, Berling in Italy was asked by his contact from Israel to go to Poschiavo in the Graubünden Alps for “physical and mental stimulation” . There he found the photographs and documents from Starkenberg that had been confiscated from him in a secluded property, thanks to which he now had enough material to hand for his novel. To what extent the finished work as well as its background story arose from the author's imagination, remains open to the reader to answer. He was not allowed to keep the mysterious "Starkenberger roles", with their content withheld from the public, but there would be enough image material available to him to show him when the epitaph zu Starkenberg was "found".

Dramatis personae

Guido della Porta , OSB - born in Rome in 1176 as the son of Livia di Septemsoliis, alias "Lady d'Abrayville", a cousin of the Frangipane family . His father was probably Wilhelm "Spadalunga" of Montferrat , who wanted to marry the mother too, but was then urged by the Pope to marry the heiress of the Kingdom of Jerusalem . The young Guido grew up as a novice of the Benedictines in Monte Cassino and was allowed to study in Bologna . Finally he rose to the trust of Pope Innocent III. who promoted him and gave him the name of the noble family Della Porta . As an agent of the Pope, he took part in the fourth crusade (1202-1204) and influenced the election of the first Latin emperor of Constantinople . As a reward for these services, he was appointed Bishop of Assisi.

John Turnbull - as a knight “Odo Crean de Saint-Liargue” from Occitania (“Romania”). The bishop's first secretary with a heretical disposition, of extremely dubious origins and with different identities. At a young age, fell in love with the impoverished nobility, Alazais d'Estrombèzes, whom he also intended to marry. Their son becomes Raoul (* 1201), who is later called Crean . But deprived of his fortune, Alazais was married by her parents to the Lord of Bourivan (near Moissac ), whereupon John went as Secretarius in the service of Marshal Villehardouin , from whom he received his English alias . Accompanied the marshal on the fourth crusade and warned him in vain against doing business with the Republic of Venice . However, wrote down the dictated history of the conquest of Constantinople (Histoire de la conquête de Constantinople) . After the end of the crusade he was given a fiefdom in the Peloponnese as “Chevalier du Mont Sion” , but left the service with Villehardouin in order to place himself in the position of the new bishop of Assisi. Regardless of his sympathies for the Cathar faith and his connection to the ominous secret society of the Prieuré de Sion , he and the Catholic bishop share a mutual understanding and friendly understanding.

Ermengarda - the bishop's housekeeper.
Anna, called Sylvia (* 1197) - her daughter, who goes on the Children's Crusade with Sigbert .
Roald of Wendower - a cousin of Rogers of Wendower , monk of St. Trinian's in England and from 1214 the bishop's second secretary.
Caesar von Speyer , OFM - third and last secretarius of the bishop.
Emilio - first majordomo of the bishop.
Ripke Wilbald auf Rötgenstein (* 1157, von Rothenstein) - first captain of the bishop's guard, then his majordomo.
Hartwolf vom Berghe (* 1194) - his successor.
Gunter von Öxfeld (* approx. 1181, from Oebisfelde ) - the episcopal courier.
Sigbert von Öxfeld (* 1195) - his younger brother, former Benedictine novice in Cologne , then a participant in the children's crusade.
Jacoba di Septemsoliis - a base of the bishop.
Laurence de Belgrave (* 1186) - the half-sister of the bishop, "Abbess" of the Carmelites of L'Immaculata del Bosco on Monte Sacro in Rome.
Innocent III. , called Inno .
Ugolino di Segni - Cardinal Bishop of Ostia.
Jacques de Vitry - Bishop of Acre.
Elia of Cortona - the organizer of the Franciscan Order.
Burkhard von Ursperg - a chronicler.
Clara d'Offreduccio .
Francesco , actually Giovanni Bernardone .

u. v. a.

literature

Luciano Canonici, Guido II d'Assisi: Il vescovo di San Francesco, in: Studi Francescani, Vol. 77 (1980), pp. 187-206.
Michael Robson, Assisi, Guido II and Saint Francis, in: Greyfriars Review, Vol. 12 (1998), pp. 225-287.

Remarks

↑ In fact, Bishop Guido II died exactly two weeks to the day after his canonization on July 30, 1228. This date of death was recorded in the Missal of the Church of San Nicola di Assisi, which is now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore . See Michele Faloci Pulignani, Il messale consultato da s. Francesco quando si converti, in: Miscellanea francescana di storia, di lettere, di arti, Vol. 15 (1914), pp. 33-43.
↑ Quoted from Franziskus or The Second Memorandum, 3rd Edition, 1996, pp. 32, 546. ISBN 3-404-11956-8 .
↑ The real Starkenberger Rolle (or Starkenberger Rotulus) was only compiled in the early 15th century and is located in the Tyrolean State Archives in Innsbruck (Urk. I 5761). It contains text documents from Mr. von Starkenberg from Tyrol .
↑ In the follow-up work The Children of the Grail (1991), the prelude to the novel series of the same name, Berling corrected the year of birth for Laurence de Belgrave by five years to 1191.
↑ Burkhard von Ursperg was in Rome in the spring of 1211 , where he met Pope Innocent III on February 13th. the letter of protection for the Schussenried monastery was issued. Cf. August Potthast , Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, vol. 1 (1874), no. 4179, p. 360. There is no guarantee that he would also have paid a visit to Assisi and his bishop on this occasion.

[1] In fact, Bishop Guido II died exactly two weeks to the day after his canonization on July 30, 1228. This date of death was recorded in the Missal of the Church of San Nicola di Assisi, which is now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore . See Michele Faloci Pulignani, Il messale consultato da s. Francesco quando si converti, in: Miscellanea francescana di storia, di lettere, di arti, Vol. 15 (1914), pp. 33-43.

[2] Quoted from Franziskus or The Second Memorandum, 3rd Edition, 1996, pp. 32, 546. ISBN 3-404-11956-8 .

[3] The real Starkenberger Rolle (or Starkenberger Rotulus) was only compiled in the early 15th century and is located in the Tyrolean State Archives in Innsbruck (Urk. I 5761). It contains text documents from Mr. von Starkenberg from Tyrol .

[4] In the follow-up work The Children of the Grail (1991), the prelude to the novel series of the same name, Berling corrected the year of birth for Laurence de Belgrave by five years to 1191.

[5] Burkhard von Ursperg was in Rome in the spring of 1211 , where he met Pope Innocent III on February 13th. the letter of protection for the Schussenried monastery was issued. Cf. August Potthast , Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, vol. 1 (1874), no. 4179, p. 360. There is no guarantee that he would also have paid a visit to Assisi and his bishop on this occasion.