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

moderate assertions of his neutrality, or of his adaptation to changing times, to
the other extreme—Francis as the active advocate of study. 1
This last position was vigorously defended by Hilarin Felder, the first
scholar to look thoroughly into the intellectual activities of the order in his Die
Geschichte der wissenschaftliche Studien im Franziskanerorden, published in
1904. In this, together with his Die Ideale des hl. Franziskus published in 1924,
Felder asserted the argument that Francis himself could be considered as a
learned person, since he had a basic knowledge of Latin and French, and knew
something of the poetry and rhetoric of his time. Felder also argued that idiota—a
word which Francis applied to himself—meant only a layman, not an illiterate
person or a fool, and that Francis considered books indispensable. 2
How did Felder come to this conclusion? The key lies in his
understanding and evaluation of the primary sources of Francis’s life and works.
In the bibliography of Die Ideale des hl. Franziskus, the list of thirteenth-century
biographies includes the Vita Prima and the Vita Secunda of Thomas Celano, the
Legenda Trium Sociorum, Julian of Speyer’s Vita S. Francisci, Bonaventura’s
Legenda Maior, Bernard of Bessa’s Liber de Laudibus Beati Francisci and the
anonymous Legenda S. Francisci of Perugia. However, he made a note that the
Legenda Trium Sociorum, although it originated between 1244 and 1246, was not
the work of Brothers Leo, Angelo and Rufino, except in fragments. Furthermore,
1
A brief discussion of the various positions are given in P. Maranesi, “San Francesco e Gli Studi:
Analisi del “Nescientes Litteras” del X Capitolo della Regola Bollata”, CF, 69 (1999) p. 15.
2
Celano II, p. 156; Hilarin Felder, Die Ideale des hl. Franziskus (Paderborn, 1924), pp. 357-8,
376-7.
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