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

1240’s that the equilibrium between poverty and simplicity on the one hand, and
learning on the other, came to form the image of the ideal Franciscan. As
representative in some senses of both the zelanti and the Joachites, the Rule
commentary of Hugh of Digne, who was generally accepted as a forerunner of
the Spirituals, is discussed to see whether different wings of the order responded
differently to the rise of learning, and whether there really was any dissent within
the order concerning organized study. Following the dispute between the
mendicant and secular masters in Paris, Joachimism, while leaving its mark on
thought within the Order, was condemned as heretical, but under the minister
general, Bonaventura, a retouched image of the ideal Franciscan as learned, but
poor and humble, was, for the moment, maintained. Bonaventura’s influential
views on Franciscan involvement in the formal study of theology are examined.
The chronological story ends with an attempt to reconstruct the
educational organization at the time of the Narbonne constitutions of 1260,
concentrating particularly on the concept of lector. Thus, the topics dicussed in
the fourth chapter include the study of grammar and philosophy in the Order’s
curriculum, the definition of a Franciscan studium generale, the designation and
assignment of lectors, the requirements for becoming a master, the special
position of Paris and Oxford schools, and the advantages of being a friar-scholar.
The second part of the thesis, beginning with Chapter Five, and
concerning the period in which learning became a more “defining” feature of the
Order than poverty, does not follow a chronological order, but is concerned with
the analysis of institutionalized learning. The attack on mendicancy by the
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