Rule of Saint Francis

The Rule of Saint Francis, the governing code of the Franciscan Order, is a central, contested document in the world of The Name of the Rose. Its interpretation, especially concerning the absolute poverty of Christ and the apostles, is not a matter of quiet monastic observance but a political and theological weapon that drives the novel's central conflict. The Rule's meaning is fought over by the papacy, the Franciscan order itself, and the Holy Roman Emperor, and this struggle provides the ideological context for the murders at the abbey.

Origins and the Ideal of Poverty

The Rule was established by Francis of Assisi to guide his followers in a life of apostolic poverty. The novel explains that Francis had appeared, "spreading a love of poverty that did not contradict the precepts of the church." However, as the Franciscan order grew to over thirty thousand members, it became "too powerful, too bound to earthly matters," leading many Franciscans to seek a return to the Rule's original purity. These reformers, known as the Spirituals, believed the order had betrayed Francis's aims. They rediscovered the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore, which seemed to foretell the Franciscan order's role in a new age of the spirit. The core of the dispute, as articulated by the Spirituals and later by the chapter of Perugia, was that Christ and the apostles owned nothing, either individually or in common, and that this renunciation of ownership was a matter of Catholic faith and doctrine.

The Papal Condemnation and Political Alliance

Pope John XXII, a Frenchman devoted to the King of France, saw the Franciscan position on poverty as a direct threat to papal authority. The novel recounts that in 1323, John condemned the Franciscan propositions with the decretal Cum inter nonnullos. This condemnation was not purely theological; it was a political move. By affirming the poverty of Christ, the Franciscans were strengthening the ideas of imperial theologians like Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, who argued for a separation of temporal and spiritual power. Consequently, Emperor Louis the Bavarian, who had been excommunicated by John, saw the Franciscans as his potential allies. The Rule of Saint Francis thus became entangled in the power struggle between the Pope and the Emperor, with the Franciscans siding with the empire against the papacy.

The Rule as a Source of Conflict and Heresy

The debate over the Rule is not confined to high politics; it permeates the life of the abbey. The character of Ubertino of Casale, a former Spiritual leader, embodies the passionate, often violent, conflict over the Rule's meaning. He had fought for the institution of a separate order based on maximum strictness and was later pursued as a heretic. The abbot of the abbey, Abo, reveals his fear that the Pope's envoy, the inquisitor Bernard Gui, will use the crimes at the abbey to argue that the theses of the Perugia chapter are the same as those of heretical groups like the Fraticelli or the Pseudo Apostles of Fra Dolcino. The abbot warns that the Avignonese consider the Minorites "very dangerous persons, close to the Fraticelli." This fear is realized during the trial of the cellarer, Remigio of Varagine, where Bernard Gui explicitly links the heretical past of the accused (a former Dolcinian) to the ideas of the Franciscans, declaring that "a cingulum diaboli binds Dolcino's perverse sectarians to the honored masters of the chapter of Perugia." The Rule of Saint Francis, in its most radical interpretation, is thus presented as a direct precursor to violent heresy in the eyes of the established church.

The Rule and the Simple People

William of Baskerville offers a more nuanced view of the Rule's role in the world. He explains to Adso that the movements of renewal, like the Franciscans, grew by gathering "simple people" who were "the outcasts." The Rule, in its ideal form, was a way to bring these people back into the fold of the church. However, William argues that this effort failed. To recover the outcasts, Francis had to act within the church, which led to the creation of an order that, in turn, recomposed the image of a circle with the outcasts remaining on the margin. This failure, William suggests, is why bands of Fraticelli and Joachimites continue to gather the outcasts around themselves, often leading to more radical and violent movements. The Rule of Saint Francis, intended to reform the church, inadvertently created the conditions for the very heresies it sought to combat, as the simple people it inspired could not always distinguish between the orthodox preaching of poverty and the revolutionary call to arms of figures like Fra Dolcino.