800 years ago, the Pope confirmed the Franciscan order (2024)

"At this time, when the world had grown old, the Church brought forth two orders; and these, like eagles, gave her back her youth." Burchard von Ursberg (died around 1230) poetically praises a phenomenon of his time: the reform of the Catholic Church from below, driven by the newly founded movements of the Friars Preachers and the Friars Minor. Subsequently better known as the Dominicans and Franciscans.

It was by no means foreseeable that the reform movements of Dominic of Caleruega (1170-1221) and Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) would be recognised by the Pope. Looking back, it is nothing short of a miracle that Francis was canonised two years after his death - and did not end up at the stake or in oblivion. Three developments could have quickly nipped the movement of the man from Assisi in the bud.

Firstly, there were the crusades in south-west Europe against reform movements such as the Cathars, Albigenses and Waldensians. Secondly, just ten years after Francis' death, his long-time patron and supporter, Pope Gregory IX, had established the Inquisition. After all, the Pope and the Curia had achieved a level of power rarely seen in 2,000 years of the Christian West. A radical preacher of poverty and humility was just what they needed: Francis could just as easily have been declared a heretic as a saint.

Without a supply bag and money

When the spoilt Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, known as Francesco, threw off his father's rich merchant's son's robes in the spring of 1208 and gathered like-minded people around him in sackcloth and rope, he was following the ideal of the Vita apostolica that was popular at the time. This way of life is based on the scene in the New Testament in which Jesus sends out his disciples: They were to set off without a supply bag, money, a change of clothes and only sandals. They were not to stay anywhere for long.

Lay people and clerics from Assisi and the surrounding area quickly joined him, forming the first small travelling community. In 1209, Francis wrote a kind of programmatic manifesto - a compilation of biblical quotations. He had it presented to the Pope in Rome.

Innocent III verbally approved the project. However, before he signed anything, he wanted to wait and see how the experiment developed. This is because it is comparable in many respects to the endeavours of the Waldensians. However, this reform movement of the southern French merchant Petrus Valdes had been condemned as heretical in 1184.

In the meantime, the Francis movement is developing real momentum. It called itself the Minorites - Friars Minor in the sense of modest and humble. By 1220, the movement had more than 3,000 members, but was threatening to get out of hand. Francis ensures order, but wants to hand over the leadership of the order. In addition, Cardinal Ugolino, the official patron of the movement, demanded that the confraternity be transformed into an ecclesiastical order, including a proper religious rule.

On the instructions of the Roman Curia and with Ugolino's support, Francis wrote a third version of a rule in 1223. After the general chapter of the order had approved it, Pope Honorius III confirmed it on 29 November 1223 with the papal bull "Solet annuere".

In order to rein in the socially critical "way of life of the Friars Minor", Chapter 1 clarifies not only the life "without property and in chastity", but above all hierarchies of obedience: Francis to the Pope, Friars Minor to Francis, and accordingly all successors. Those who enter should sell their property and give it to the poor - not to the order.

Ideas of Francis of Assisi still alive

Why does the powerful Pope sign the statutes of a movement obsessed with poverty? Did he realise that Francis was closer to the life of Jesus than the Curia? After all, his predecessor Innocent III had already warned that anyone who interferes in the affairs of this world will not emerge unsullied.

The Friars Minor and other Franciscan orders of men owe their continued success not only to their modesty. Like the Dominicans, they were soon used to persecute heresies. The mandate and authority of popes, bishops and secular princes put additional pressure on the movement and its worldwide spread.

The choice of name and programme of a certain Jorge Bergoglio, who became Pope 790 years later - and called himself Francis - show that the original idea of the pious dropout from Assisi was still alive.