Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order, is the absent saint whose legacy is the subject of the bitter theological and political struggle at the heart of the novel. His life of absolute poverty and his direct, emotional preaching to all creatures—including the outcast—established a model of Christian perfection that, by 1327, had become a weapon in the conflict between the Papacy and the Empire. The novel presents Francis not as a character, but as a contested symbol: his Rule is interpreted, betrayed, and fought over by the Spiritual Franciscans, the Conventuals, the Pope, and the Emperor, each claiming his true heir.
Life and Teachings
Francis of Assisi appeared in the early 13th century, spreading a love of poverty that did not contradict the precepts of the church. After his efforts, the church accepted the summons to severe behavior of older movements and purified them of disruptive elements. The novel emphasizes Francis's radical identification with the outcast. William of Baskerville recounts a story that has been revised by the order: when Francis preached to the people of the city and they did not understand him, he went out to the cemetery and began preaching to ravens, magpies, hawks, and raptors feeding on corpses—birds of prey, outcast birds, like the lepers. This act, William explains, was a sign: Francis wanted to call the outcast, ready to revolt, to be part of the people of God. The novel also notes the eccentricities attributed to Francis and his early followers, which the Benedictine Jorge of Burgos dismisses as "merriment, even the most inopportune sort." Jorge later condemns the Franciscan tradition of currying the crowd's favor with nonsense, recalling a story of a Minorite who, to confound gluttonous monks, disguised himself as a tramp, and another who pretended to drop a saint's relic in the dung-heap.
The Franciscan Order and the Conflict over Poverty
As the Franciscan order grew and attracted the finest men, it became too powerful and bound to earthly matters, leading many Franciscans to want to restore it to its early purity. The novel details the rise of the Spiritual Franciscans, who rediscovered the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore and opposed the reorganization of the order. The Spirituals, including Ubertino of Casale, preached a return to Francis's original ideal of absolute poverty. This movement was condemned by Pope John XXII, who in 1323 issued the decretal Cum inter nonnullos, declaring the idea that Christ and the apostles owned nothing to be heretical. The Pope's condemnation was a direct attack on the Franciscan order's identity, as the general chapter in Perugia had just affirmed this very doctrine. The conflict became entangled with the political struggle between Pope John XXII and Emperor Louis the Bavarian, who saw the Franciscans as potential allies against the Pope. The novel's central debate on the poverty of Christ is thus a debate over the true meaning of Francis's legacy.
Narrative Role and Thematic Significance
Francis of Assisi functions in the novel as the embodiment of a pure, original Christianity that has been lost and corrupted. His example is the standard against which all other characters are measured. Ubertino of Casale, the most ardent Spiritual, is a direct heir of Francis's fire, but his zeal borders on the fanaticism that led to the violence of Fra Dolcino. William of Baskerville, a Franciscan himself, represents a different inheritance: the intellectual, scientific tradition of Roger Bacon, which he sees as a way to fulfill Francis's mission of helping the simple through knowledge. The abbot of the wealthy Benedictine abbey, Abo, represents the institutional church that has accumulated the very riches Francis renounced. The novel's central tragedy—the destruction of the library to protect a book that might have made laughter a tool against fear—is a perversion of Francis's joyful, humble embrace of all creation. The saint who praised God in His creatures, flowers, grass, water, and air is ultimately betrayed by the grim, fearful piety of Jorge of Burgos, who sees laughter as a threat to the divine order. Francis's legacy is thus the central, unresolved question of the novel: can the spirit of radical love and poverty survive within a powerful institution, or must it always be betrayed or become heretical?
