Spirituals
Spirituals (from Latin spiritualis = spiritual) is a generic term for various groups in the medieval Franciscan order. These were by their strict observance of the original Franciscan religious rule in the course of the 13th century right up to the first half of the 14th century in opposition to the majority in the Franciscan Order . The dispute between the two parties is referred to as a poverty dispute and was sometimes very bitter on both sides.
In 1317 the spiritual doctrine was established by Pope John XXII. generally declared heresy. The spirituals then integrated themselves into the order as a reform party or formed their own splits (e.g. fratizelles ) outside the order who, as heretics , were subjected to persecution by the Inquisition .
Concept and origin
The term spiritual is used more frequently in the sources from the 13th century. This term originally goes back to texts from the time of the early Church in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 2:14; Galatians 6: 1). According to this, deeply religious and ascetic men were considered spiritual. Among the Franciscans, the term appears for the first time in one place in the Franciscan rule of 1223. It says: "Wherever there are brothers who knew and recognized that they could not spiritually keep the rule, they should and can take refuge in their ministers."
At the beginning of the 13th century, many new heresies arose which appealed to a spiritual understanding of the Holy Scriptures and placed “spiritual poverty” at the center. The doctrine of the Trinity of Joachim von Fiore should be emphasized here, which was condemned as heresy with other writings at the Lateran Council of 1215 . The teaching of Joachim had a profound influence on the Franciscan spirituals. Some authors go so far as to say that the spiritual fanaticism of poverty was only a cover for the Joachimite enthusiasm of the spirituals.
The spiritual was for the most part reverently referred to as such by the common people and the lay people of the Third Order Rule. A self-testimony of the Franciscan Spirituals from the year 1316 shows that the brothers did not want to be referred to as spirituals, but rather as "Friars Minor" (Latin: fratres minores), the term used by Francis himself.
The origin of the spiritual cannot be precisely dated. But it is causally related to the dispute over the ideal of poverty left by St. Francis. Saint Francis wanted an order based on the model of the message of the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 10). He sought to renounce both personal and community property . His followers should combine hard poverty with pastoral care. But this was in contradiction to the requirements for a monastic order with urban convents and university studies. The papacy supported the Franciscans from the beginning and tried to promote the development of the rapidly growing order with privileges and interpretations of the order's rule. Especially in central Italy, however, there were brothers who opposed this development and who followed the original rule of the order and the testament of St. Francis wanted to obey strictly. These brothers withdrew from opposition to their own hermitages and passed on the actual ideals of the founder of the order in the form of oral tradition. Later spiritual leaders like Angelus Clarenus and Ubertino di Casale were also inspired by these brothers .
The spiritual in the Franciscan order
What all spirituals in the Franciscan order had in common was the strict observance of the original rule of the order and the testament of St. Francis, especially in relation to the Franciscan ideal of poverty. The Franciscan rule of the order had the same status for the spiritual as the Gospels. Therefore they resisted any interpretation of the order rule by the papacy, which had the purpose of softening the original form.
The spirituals were also strongly influenced by the doctrine of the Trinity of Joachim von Fiore. This was based on the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Joachim described the Age of the Father as the Age of the Old Testament and the Synagogue , which was replaced by the Age of the Son of Jesus and the Church . In this age Joachim prophesied an age of the Holy Spirit , which should be shaped by monks. The prelude to this age should be a new kind of monastic order. It stands to reason that for many Franciscans it was a tempting idea to recognize their own order in this. The Franciscan Gherardo von Borgo San Donnimo in 1254 summarized the main writings of Joachim roughly as "Evangelium aeternum" and provided them with an introduction, according to which the spirit age should begin in 1260. This writing led to a general hostility to the teachings of Joachim and was in turn a trigger for the mendicant dispute , in which the mendicant orders were attacked by the parish clergy in their right to exist.
The work of the spiritual in the Franciscan order
According to Herbert Grundmann, it remains conspicuous and requires explanation that Franciscan poverty radicalism almost only aroused the Romance countries, Italy, Provence and Spain, although the order also spread early in Germany and England. The question of why the countries north of the Alps remained strangely inaccessible to the zeal for poverty is not readily understandable, even because of national differences.
As a single example of spiritual work in Germany, Franz von Lautern should be mentioned here, who appeared around 1320 with charges against his conventual confreres. He pinned these in the form of letters on the cathedral door in his home town of Speyer . He accused his confreres that they were minorites only in name and not in deed. He complained that they were enemies of the true Minorites and that the order was by and large secular. Franz von Lutra was obviously supported by the Speyr bishop, who at the time was in dispute with the local Franciscans over their papal privileges. What is interesting here is the possible influence of this dispute on the later conflict between Ludwig the Bavarian and the papacy, as described by Wilhelm Preger.
Apart from the individual example described above, the work of the spirituals can be geographically limited to three landscapes. The Italian market of Ancona , Provence in the south of France and Tuscany in Italy .
The spirituals around Angelus Clarenus
In the Italian market of Ancona there was a group of hermits around Peter "Liberatus" from Macerata. The story of these brothers was passed on by the chronicler Angelus Clarenus in his works "Historia septem Tribulationem" and "Epistola excusatoria". The brothers had arguments with their conventual confreres. These disputes can be traced back to the time of the General Council of Lyon in 1247. In general, from this time onwards, a more relaxed attitude regarding the observance of the Franciscan order rule spread. The reason for the dispute was the general refusal of the hermits to take part in the daily tours to collect alms , which had become the custom at that time. The hermits persisted in their stance that the rule of St. Francis was to be equated with the Gospels and deduced from this that one need not submit to unjust orders. In the course of time, this attitude led to open hostility, which ultimately resulted in heresy proceedings and sentenced to life imprisonment. This judgment even had to be read out weekly in all convents as a deterrent .
In 1289, the general of the order Raimund Gaufredi became aware of the prisoners in the Ancona region during a visitation trip after taking office. He sharply reprimanded their punishment and set the prisoners free again. As a precaution, the brothers themselves were sent on a missionary trip to Armenia . There they succeeded in persuading King Hayton II to join the Franciscan order. But here, too, the hermits were exposed to hostility from their confreres. As a result, they returned to Italy in 1293, where they were received harshly and negatively. In 1294, Pope Cölestin allowed the brothers to resign from the Franciscan order in order to observe their own rule.
However, when Pope Boniface VIII took office, tensions intensified. Boniface VIII withdrew all the privileges his predecessor had given. Including the special position for the brothers around Peter von Macareta. The spirituals in the order openly attacked Pope Boniface VIII during this time. To what extent the group around Peter “Liberatus” from Macareta was involved in this cannot be clearly established. According to the description of Angelus Clarenus , the hermits only lived as hermits according to the papal privilege. Due to the ongoing hostility from their former confreres, the brothers later withdrew to a lonely island near the Greek coast near Achaja . But in 1299 they were charged and excommunicated by the Patriarch of Constantinople at the instigation of the Pope. Several brothers then tried to get to the Pope in order to obtain the solution from the excommunication from him . This plan was ultimately thwarted by the death of the Pope in 1303. The group was subsequently summoned to appear before the Inquisition and subjected to severe torture. After the death of Peter von Macerata, Angelus Clarenus was chosen to lead the group. The group itself eventually founded its own congregation and placed itself under the protection of Cardinal Napoleon von Orsini . However, the hermits continued to be harassed. At the Council of Vienne under Pope Clement V , the dispute in the Franciscan order was decided in favor of the spiritual. But Clemens successor Johannes XXII. referred to the excommunication that had already been pronounced by Boniface VIII. As a result, Angelus fled to central Italy and founded a new, independent order there called the Clarenes or Fraticelles .
The southern French spirituals
Another spiritual movement arose in Provence in the south of France. Here the editor Petrus Johannis Olivi drew attention to himself with his strong commitment to holy poverty. Olivi blamed the conventuals for their laxity in the obedience of property laws. He denied the papacy any right to dispense or absolution from the rule of the order and also any right to order anything that contradicts the rule of the order. Olivi generally called for a "usus pauper" (poor use) of the goods, which should also be observed by the bishops from the order. Through his erudition and his zeal for holy poverty, a large following gathered around him, some of which revered him like a saint. Olivi belonged to the monastery of Béziers , which became the center of the spirituality of southern France.
His passionate opposition to laxity in the order led to investigations of his writings from 1282 onwards. In 1284 some sentences of his writings were condemned. Olivi only complained that he had not been heard on this himself. Meanwhile a radical following grew, which secretly linked his teaching with its own apocalyptic , Joachimitic orientations. These supporters drew attention to themselves with riots and riots, for which Olivi was then made responsible. Several researches have been carried out on Olivi's teachings. But Olivi always managed to convince the accusers of his orthodoxy. After his death in 1298, Olivi's grave became a pilgrimage site for his followers. After his death, Olivi's opponents in the Order ordered all of his writings to be surrendered. This commandment was carried out with great severity, and brothers who refused were severely punished. The combination of the teachings of Olivi and Joachim of Fiore found particular approval among members of the third order rule and stray poverty fanatics, which for example led to the condemnations of the Beguines and Beghards at the beginning of the 14th century . But the spiritualists found strong advocates who put the poverty struggle in the Franciscan order on the agenda of the Council of Vienne . Pope Clement V passed a judgment there in favor of the spirituals in order to preserve the order in its entirety. But the differences between the parties were too strong and renewed clashes broke out, with the southern French spiritualists using armed force to defend themselves against harassment from the conventional majority. It was up to Pope John XXII. and the Franciscan General Michael of Cesena to end this dispute. The Pope summoned the spirituals to Avignon in 1317 . The spirituals from Provence were imprisoned and the Pope made a decision with the constitution "Quorandum exigit" in which the clarification of the disputed questions was left to the superiors of the order. As a result, the incarcerated spirituals were turned over to the Inquisition , four of whom were burned at the stake in 1318.
The spiritual group around Ubertino di Casale
Another group originated in Tuscany, Italy . Under Pope Boniface VIII there was a general radicalization of the spiritual. A group in Tuscany around the spokesman Ubertino di Casale was particularly noticeable here. Ubertino di Casale was a student of Petrus Johannes Olivi. The Tuscan spirituals defended themselves against Pope Boniface VIII with the argument that the abdication of the spiritual-friendly Pope Celestine V was void. They also attacked Popes Gregory IX. and Nicholas III. and called them heretics because they had presumed to follow the rule of St. Interpret Francis. The Tuscan spirituals reacted under the pressure of persecution by the conventuals with rebellion and violence, which earned them names such as rebellious brothers and apostates . But they were eventually forced by the conventual majority to leave their convents. Whereupon they gathered under the protection of sympathetic nobles in Sicily and here formed the core of the local fraticels . The nobles, who granted protection to the spiritual, had an increasing impact on Pope Clement V from 1309 onwards. He then had an investigation carried out at the Council of Vienne. It was mainly about the orthodoxy of Olivi's writings. As the main representative of the spiritual, Ubertino di Casale appeared here in the form of a prosecutor against the majority of the conventual orders. After Clemens V's judgment, the conventuals had to make significant concessions. Ubertino was later joined with the other spirituals in 1317 by Pope John XXII. summoned to Avignon. Since he enjoyed the sympathy of the Pope, who wanted to induce him to join the Benedictine order, he remained unmolested. Later he joined the Michaelists and probably followed Ludwig the Bavarian on his Italian expedition. From 1328 onwards, its trace is completely lost, which leaves room for speculation. These were used, for example, by Umberto Eco in his novel The Name of the Rose .
literature
- Balthasar, Karl: History of the poverty dispute in the Franciscan order up to the Council of Vienne. (Diss.) Freiburg 1910 *
- Bihl, Michael: Fraticelli , in: Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII. New York 1910
- Golubovich, Hieron: Ubertino of Casale , in: Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII. New York 1910
- Grundmann, Herbert : Religious Movements in the Middle Ages - Investigations into the historical connections between heresy and the religious women's movement in the 12th and 13th centuries and the historical foundations of German mysticism , Hildesheim 1961
- Iserloh, Erwin : The Spiritual Movement and the Poverty Controversy . in: Jedin, Hubert (ed.): Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte, Freiburg 1986
- Lea, Henry Charles: History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages . Vol. 3, Frankfurt / M. 1997
- Oliger, Livarius: Spirituals , in: Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII. New York 1910
- Preger, Wilhelm : About the beginnings of the church political struggle under Ludwig dem Baier , Munich 1882