To my family for giving me life and love - Bilkent University

of constitutions including the 1239 Rome constitutions, which alone necessitated
a rewriting of the history, since scholars had attributed so far all the credit for the
changes in the Order to Bonaventura and the Narbonne constitutions of 1260. All
these new publications, which contain hitherto unknown information on the
educational organization and on the treatment of books in the Order, make a
rough reconstruction of the educational organization of the medieval Franciscan
order, as well as the delineation of its evolution possible.
With regard to the constitutions, a problematic approach which has so far
dominated the historiography of Franciscan education concerns the treatment of
the constitutions as historical evidence. Admittedly, there was, and in a way still
is, a scarcity of primary sources for a faithful reconstruction of the network and
operations of the Franciscan schools, and this has tempted historians to accept the
constitutions at face value too easily. However, a certain constitutional item on its
own cannot tell us if it was put into practice. Many decrees and decisions might
remain dead letters for various reasons. The constitutions themselves are the
proof of that.
Many prohibitions were repeated with different or increasing penalties,
which shows that they were repeatedly disobeyed. There was no strict
enforcement of the general constitutions, and there is considerable evidence that
the historical reality was sometimes in clear contradiction to the constitutional
decrees, as in the case of many under-age recruits even though the constitutions
1517) (Dubrovnik, 1942).
10