Francis & Dominic: The Rise of the Mendicant Orders

Week 9: Francis and Dominic - Poverty and City Life: Tutorial Discussion Post
By: Joanna, Janice, Rebecca, Ella and John

Jo's thoughts,

Q.4 - From Celano's stories, how do you understand Francis' relationship with the natural world? 

- Celano puts a lot of emphasis on Francis' relationship with animals and nature. He states that it was these

relationships that Francis created which led to Pope John Paul II naming Francis the patron saint of Ecologists in 1983. So, Francis' work with nature and animals in the Middle Ages still relates to modern times because every April 22nd some choose to celebrate 'Earth Day' where people celebrate God's creation of all living things and caring for creation, just like Francis did. 

- Celano uses stories that are highly descriptive and praising about Francis. Celano references the 'brother birds' of Spoleto, the 'Sister Swallows' from Alviano, and the 'Brother hare' from Greccio. Celano showcases Francis' great sympathy and patience with the natural world. None of Celano's stories show Francis dismissing any animals, he is always inclusive. As Francis was obedient to God, in return, God gave him the gift of having creatures obey him.

St Francis preaching to the birds
by Giotto

This is why Francis is radical - he recognised the importance of the natural world and therefore included natural life into his teachings. (According to Celano, it was as simple as calling birds "brothers and sisters") when others did not. (i.e. Merchants in new towns creating new roads, city life, not caring about the environment they were trampling over).

St Francis

What I find interesting (as a side note), is that Francis' relationship with the natural world led to the birth of Italian Art. Again, as we know from the lectures art in the Middle Ages was very gothic - showing Christ in pain, helpless - a complete contrast to Roman Art. 

However St. Francis is almost always depicted with a happy expression, with birds flying around him as he sings songs. He is always located in forests or in meadows to symbolise his relationship with the natural world. Even a little later with the Baroque artists, while Christ is still depicted as pale and skinny, Francis appears healthier with 'dreamlike' expressions on his faces.

St Francis preaching to the animals

Rebecca's thoughts,

3. In Celano’s account of Francis’ life, with what values does he imbue the figure of Francis? Discuss with examples from the text.

·      At the beginning of his life, Francis is a ‘winsome’ and ‘feckless young man’ enjoying the social pursuits of the city and participating in various military projects.
·      Embarks on a gradual conversion at the age of 23, after a ‘spirit led him to enter the church and pray’, leading him to reject his former life and his father’s wealth.
·      Surrenders himself completely to God’s will, he is compassionate and loyal, preparing to ‘follow the blessed impulse of his soul, progressing to higher things and trampling worldly interests underfoot.’
·      Described as a ‘new solider of Christ’, he completely moves away from ‘living riotously among his relations and acquaintances’ to being one who is ‘contemptuous of money, treating it as if it were dust’. His only wish is to possess wisdom.
·      He ‘burns with a devotion toward the mother of all good’, living with lepers and rebuilding the church and is completely concerned with preaching the kingdom of God, penance and the gospels which he ‘diligently’ attempted to ‘fulfill to the letter’.
·      Deeply humble, and ‘impelled by a higher desire’, devoutly wished for something else, not satisfied to just to live the life of a hermit or monk, as felt God held a different task for him.
·      Francis is depicted as ‘that most blessed servant of God, a man of great fervor’ and sympathy toward the lower, irrational creatures’ (animals) which he loved with ‘maternal affection’. Through this ‘striking rapport with animals’, the Pope proclaimed Francis the patron saint of the ecological movement.
·      Very concerned with purging himself of temptations from the devil, dressing in a rough tunic in order to crucify the vices and sins of the flesh.
·      Francis and his followers practiced mortification of the flesh- not because they considered the body to be evil, it too is a creation of God, but in a ‘fallen world’ it could distract one from higher pursuits.
·      Held a great emphasis on humility and a desire to imitate Christ with completely obedience.
·      Described as ‘scattering the seeds of his blessing everywhere’, with people filled with so much love, belief and devotion for him that they trampled one another to see and hear him.
·      In the presence of Francis, ‘heretical depravity was confounded, the faith of the Church was extolled’, and while the ‘faithful engaged in jubilation, heretics went into hiding’.  For so many ‘signs of sanctity appeared in him’ that no one dared to oppose his words.
·      However, although he received great attention, he felt great affection for priests and every ecclesiastical order. Performs several miracles, curing of various diseases and turning water into wine.
·      His highest intention, greatest desire and supreme purpose was to observe the holy gospel in and through all things. He wanted to follow the doctrine and walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and to do so ‘perfectly, with all vigilance, all zeal complete desire of the mind complete fervor of the heart’ until his death.
·      One needs to keep in mind that this work was of course commissioned by a pope, Gregory IX, and written in the period after his death and canonization by an early member of the Franciscan order and later additions of other brothers. 


Janice's thoughts,

THE DOMINICANS

The Dominican Order, also called the Order of Preachers, was initially founded by a Spanish priest, Dominic de Guzman, to try and control the Cathar heresy. They were itinerant preachers of the Gospel, walking everywhere to try and engage the Cathar leaders in debate. In 1215 Dominic went to Rome to ask the Pope for permission to set up a new order, but the Fourth Lateran Council, in session at the time, refused as they thought there were too many religious groups running around and should adopt an existing rule, so Dominic chose the Rule of Augustine (created in the fifth century by St Augustine of Hippo) since he was already affiliated with that Order. The Augustinian monks adhered to a pattern of discipline and spiritual life, served in churches and cathedrals and were involved in the social needs of their local town.

Dominic was university educated and from the beginning the Dominicans focussed more on learning and education. Ultimately his best recruits came from the finest intellectual institutions in Europe. Manual labour was discarded to allow for more study and preaching, meanwhile living a life of poverty. Dominic was very devout and said to be always preaching or talking or arguing about God. He was very skilled in administration and organisation and was responsible for the first set of statutes governing internal matters in 1228 which became their new constitution modelled on monastic traditions and daily choral recitations.

Like Francis he also attracted women and the sisters were known as the Poor Clares who became an associate order of the Dominicans.

Things to think about –

• What were the differences between the Franciscans and the Dominicans and why?
• Why were the Dominicans so popular with the masses?

Good luck with the readings everyone.

St Dominic

*** Lecture Recording Problems ***

Hi everyone

There have been some problems with the lecture recordings for Week 7. Please note the following message from Clare. If anyone is writing their essay topic on Week 7 and missed the lecture please let me know asap as I may be able to meet with you to go over the material.

'Unfortunately the audio of the week 7 lectures have not been recorded. The slides are available, however, on both MULO and Blackboard. I am very sorry for the inconvenience, but sometimes technology does fail. I know that some of you have clashes and need to rely on the recordings. I would urge, however, those of you who can attend the lectures to do so, because that is the only absolutely guaranteed way that you have of hearing the material'


Any questions or concerns at all please just let me know.

All the best,

Diana

Early Crusading

Week 8: Early Crusading - Tutorial Discussion Post


Hi everyone!

Remember that this week we will not be having lectures or tutorials due to the ANZAC day public holiday. However, you are all expected to comment on this blog post and your comments this week will form your participation mark for the week.

A couple of quick notes before I get into the topic for this week.

1) You may have noticed that I have set up a poll on the right-hand bar of the blog on the library tutorial. I would be extremely grateful if you could take a second to vote on how useful (or not) you found the library tutorial I ran in Week 6. This will help me improve my lesson in future years and will also provide myself and Clare with valuable feedback on the usefulness of the library tutorial in general.

2) Week 9 presenters - remember that your blog post is due (emailed to me) by 12pm, Thursday April 26th
.........

Right! On to the Crusades!

I know that we have already had a lecture on the First Crusade but we have yet to have an opportunity to discuss it. Now is the time! Our readings for this week, you'll have noticed, consist of a number of accounts of Pope Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in which he put out the call for the First Crusade. Our secondary source is an article by Christopher Tyerman on the development of the Crusading ideal and how it was intertwined with European society at the time. Christopher Tyerman is a leading historian of the Crusades and later this term we will be introduced to the work of another expert, Jonathan Riley-Smith.

I'd like everyone to focus this week on the tutorial discussion questions in the reader when considering their comments as I think the questions are quite comprehensive. I've added a couple of questions about the primary source to also help get folks thinking about the complex issue of crusading.

Christians and Muslims in battle during the Crusades

Questions:

1) Discuss the accounts of Urban's speech. In what ways do they differ?
2) What reasons can you give for these variations?
3) According to Urban, who are the enemies of Christendom? How are they characterized? (ie. by ethnicity, religion, etc.) Does Urban seem to have any understanding of Islam?
4) Why should Christians go on crusade? What benefits will they receive according to Urban?
5) What goal does Urban set for the crusaders? What is their mission to the Holy Land meant to achieve?
6) Where is the Holy Land?

7) Tyerman locates the origin of the crusades in a particular 'symbiosis of interests and values'. What does he mean by this?
8) Tyerman argues that although crusading emerges out of a distinctive tradition in the Latin West, it also contained unique and novel features. What are these features?
9) What does Tyerman mean when he says that ' crusading was not a monolithic movement'?
10) Tyerman says that the effect of the crusades on Europe and Europeans tended to be of 3 sorts, what were they?

*** As always your posts can reflect on these questions or on any other aspects of the readings you found interesting or challenging ***

Pope Urban II calling the First Crusade

......

Finally I'd just like to draw everyone's attention here to a wonderful exhibit of medieval Persian manuscripts that is currently on at the State Library of Victoria. In our course we only briefly encounter the medieval Islamic world and for anyone interested in understanding more about the culture of the Middle East in this period I highly recommend going to this exhibit. It's absolutely beautiful!

http://exhibitions.slv.vic.gov.au/love-and-devotion

From the State Library Exhibit 'Love and Devotion'

From the State Library Exhibit 'Love and Devotion'

Eve, Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary - Medieval Women and Gender Roles

Week 7: Relics and Devotional Life / Medieval Men and Women - Tutorial Discussion Post
By: Lana and Samantha


Samantha's thoughts


This week’s reading covers the role of women in medieval society and the expectations that came with being a woman.

The views of women were heavily influenced by Christianity through tradition and, of course, the Bible which offers many female counterparts. Eve, Mary and Mary Magdalene are three of the more famous female figures of the Bible and are covered in the readings.

Eve is the first woman, she is the ‘mother of all living’ (Genesis 3:20) and is made from man. Even such an important figure, the FIRST WOMAN to exist, is still of lesser value than her male counterpart as she is made from him. From Genesis we can also see that Eve (woman) is weak as she was so easily influenced to eat the forbidden fruit. Her ‘betrayal’ led to not only her own demise but that of Adam (man). In short, it is her woman’s fault that man and woman were expelled from Eden.

Mary is probably the most famous female figure in Christianity. She is not only the mother of Jesus but also a virgin. She was the ultimate role model imposed on woman, a pure being who gave birth to the son of God.

Mary Magdalene became one of Jesus’ disciples after reforming from the sinful ways of her past. Jesus forgave her sins and soon she grew to love him. She formed a close relationship to the Lord, becoming one of the most important disciples of Jesus.

From the readings and your understanding of women depicted in Christian writing and traditions, consider these questions:

·       Were attitudes of women in medieval society a reflection of those held in Christian writings and tradition?

·          Did medieval society understand women to be intrinsically weak because of the weakness of the first woman?

·          Was Mary Magdalene a realistic role model for women of the Middle Ages?

At all socio-economic levels it seems married women were not at all equals to their male counterparts. Those on the lower end had a job to maintain a household and obey their husbands. Women of the upper crust would have been used to preserve and create alliances through their marriages. One constant requirement of all married women across all social and economic levels was to have children and, in turn, protect the family blood line.

·          It seems women at all socio-economic levels had very few options for life, did this change during the Middle Ages?

·         Was it better to be a virgin or to be married during this period?

Please feel free to answer the questions in your comments and discuss ANYTHING you thought was interesting from the readings. Also ask LOTS of questions so we’ve got something to talk about next week. Thanks!

Medieval lovers hunting

Lana's thoughts

Since its conception, society has taken to a literal interpretation of ‘Genesis’, in which God created man in his image; the flora and fauna were given to man by God, so that he may have dominion over them, and God created woman for man, to be his helper; to be subordinate to him. Even centuries before Genesis, society has held to the belief of the inherent evil nature of women, who are to be the downfall of mankind. Based on the readings for this week, determine whether society’s outlook on women changed during the Middle Ages.

1. Discuss the various roles of the institution of marriage as held by both the Church and secular society. How did the Church’s policy on exogamy affect marital bonds? Consider the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.

2. Discuss gender based relationships and female roles within the public and private spheres. What role did a woman play in a marriage between two families? What duties were expected of her? How did this vary among socio-economic groups?

3. Women were to be married ‘before an age of perversion’, what does this tell us about society’s view of women? How did this affect fertility and mortality rates?

4. Physical pleasure derived from sex is a constant theme. Discuss the objections by the Church. Why was it considered immoral?

5. Throughout the Middle Ages, women were given more autonomy than in succeeding centuries, exemplified in the formation of female religious institutions, with traditional male roles being assigned to women. What does this say about the evolution of society, if anything? Consider Scholastica and Clare.

If you have any questions guys, please let us know. Happy reading!

Christine de Pisan