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Sacerdos et Predicator: Franciscan ‘Experience’ and the Cronica of Salimbene de Adam A Thesis Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History Anna Milne Department of History University of Canterbury 2010 2 Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 4 Ego Frater Salimbene: Salimbene and his Cronica 5 Historiographical Context 9 Methodological Considerations 18 I. Communitas diligenda: History and Community 22 Universal History: Form and Meaning 24 The Cronica as Universal History 32 Narrative ‘Voices’ 43 II. Modum praedicandi antiquorum predicatorum: Preaching and Charismatic Authority 49 The Franciscan Preaching Culture 53 Charismatic Authority 59 Embodied Auctoritas 67 III. gratiosus in confessionibus audiendis: Confession and Society 77 Confession in the Thirteenth Century 79 Confession in Late-Medieval Writing 84 Confessional Dialogue as Narrative Strategy 90 Function and Audience 99 IV.

‘dispono credere nisi que videro:’ Priesthood, Prophecy and Agency 107 Agency and Joachite Prophecy 110 Italian Political Prophecy 117 Mediating between the Spiritual and the Material 125 Salimbene and the City 128 Frater Salimbene de ordine fratrum Minorum 137 Bibliography 143 3 Abstract The Chronicle of the thirteenth-century Franciscan friar Salimbene de Adam is filled with an abundance of self-referential passages. At almost every step of his narrative we are made extremely aware of Salimbene’s presence, as an author, a compiler of texts and anecdotes, a commentator and as an eye-witness to his age. Due to his ubiquitous ‘I’, Salimbene’s Cronica is often thought to be a subjective, biased and an ahistorical manifestation of traditional medieval universal histories. His supposed inappropriate self-interest has caused modern historians to mark both writer and text as a curiosity which defies any sort of logical definition.

This mind-set has served not only to disconnect Salimbene and his Cronica from the historiographical, religious and social influences which pervaded his age, but importantly from the integral context provided by his work as a Franciscan friar. This thesis departs from treating Salimbene’s Cronica as a document to be mined for information about his world, an approach that largely eschews traditional methodologies associated with the study of chronicles. This thesis establishes the terms and boundaries of Salimbene’s authorship and contextualises them thoroughly with the performances associated with his duties as a Franciscan in the spiritual and social world of thirteenth- century Italy. Salimbene was primarily priest and preacher as he so often tells us.

Viewing Salimbene’s authorial presence through the lens of his performances as an historian, preacher, confessor and priest reveals that his Franciscan ‘Experience’ informed and shaped noticeable narrative strategies which are associated with his efforts to establish and exercise authority both in his text and the world in which he lived. Rather than being a curious exception, Salimbene’s strong authorial persona was connected intricately to the changes in the social and spiritual milieus that irrevocably impacted upon the writing of history during the thirteenth century. 4 Acknowledgements Although, like Salimbene, my ‘I’ is somewhat ubiquitous in the text, this thesis could not have been written or completed without the help and support of some important people. Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the History department.

In particular, the enduring leadership and support of Professor Geoff Rice, who, in spite of the difficulties and uncertainties of the past eighteen months as we witnessed the reduction of our proud School into a ‘programme’, fought continuously, and often in poor health, to protect the postgraduate community and the research culture we had all worked so hard to build. Equal thanks must go to Mrs Judy Robertson, without whom we all would have crumbled in the face of the capricious bureaucracy. I am grateful to Dr Chris Jones, who first introduced me to Salimbene as a potential source for my honours thesis on Frederick II. I think he is just as surprised as I am that this somewhat random introduction culminated in what has been almost three years of exclusive scholarship on the Friar.

For his dedicated and thorough supervision, support and encouragement, I thank him. I would like to thank Dr. Enrica Sciarrino of the Classics Department, who not only provided greatly appreciated language and methodology support but often knew before I did what I was actually trying to say. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Janice, Sue and the staff of Canterbury University Library’s interloan service; being a medievalist in New Zealand would be impossible if it were not for their hard work.

Thank you to Hannah Benbow for proof reading and commenting on chapter drafts and to Halie McCaffrey, Robyn Curtis and the rest of my fellow postgrads, whose support, helpful advice and friendship helped me to stay focussed as Salimbene often attempted to take over my life. For providing welcome distractions, wine and laughter (if only at their bemused expressions), I would like to thank my family and friends. My grandmother Dorothy Smolenski, who first ignited my interest in history and provided continual encouragement, and Paul Van der Klei, who has always been and will remain forever my champion and inspiration – I miss them both – this thesis is dedicated to them. 5 Ego Frater Salimbene: Salimbene and his Cronica I, Brother Salimbene, was the third son, and when I had completed a decade and a half of my life and had arrived at the turning point of the proverbial Pythagorean Y, I entered the Order of the Friars Minor.

And I have been in this Order for many years as priest and 1 preacher: I have lived in many provinces, seen many things, and learned much. The Franciscan friar Salimbene de Adam, at the end of what was a long career in the Order, decided to write down the many things he saw and learned during his life in what is known as the Cronica.2 This stands as the culmination of his life’s work. Enmeshed in what is an informative, interesting and highly developed historical narrative, is also the recitation of numerous personal experiences that Salimbene had throughout his career as a Franciscan. These range from encounters with some of the more famous personages of his century such as St.

Louis, Pope Innocent IV and the Emperor Frederick II to physical ordeals such as military sieges and moments of spiritual ecstasy. At almost every step of his narrative we are made extremely aware of Salimbene’s presence, as an author, interpreter and as a witness to his age. It is this presence, and the many ways in which it appears in the pages of his history, that is the concern of this thesis. The extent of Salimbene’s narrative involvement, evident in the large number of passages which yield a great deal of personal details and speak of the author’s vast experiences, is one of the more striking aspects of his Cronica.

Through ubiquitous self- references, Salimbene maintains a direct and wide-ranging presence in the Cronica. This in itself was not exceptional in medieval historiography. As Peter Damian-Grint observes, ‘strong narrator involvement’ is almost guaranteed in high to late-medieval historical writing.3 He continues, however, that the terms of narrator involvement have not been given enough attention by modern historians and this is certainly true for Salimbene’s 1 The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam, trans. Joseph Baird (Binghamton, NY; 1986) [hence Baird], pp.

All translations are by Baird unless otherwise indicated as my own. There are several editions of the manuscript (Vatican library, Vat. 7260); I have preferred the more accessible: Cronica Fratris Salimbene de Adam, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 32 (Hannover, 1905-13) [hence Salimbene], p.

The ‘Pythagorean Y’ refers to the crossroads of vice and virtue: Baird, p.43 2 For an overview of Salimbene’s life and his Cronica: Anna Milne, ‘Salimbene de Adam, Franciscan friar, chronicler, 1221 –ca. 1290’, in International Encyclopaedia for the Middle-Ages-Online. A Supplement to LexMA-Online (Turnhout; 2008), in Brepolis Medieval Encyclopaedias (http://www.86; this is evident in other thirteenth-century chronicles such as Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, Rolls Series (London; 1872-83) 6 Cronica.

The existence of several long-standing assumptions about Salimbene and his text demonstrates the importance of the exploration of Salimbene’s narrative involvement that will take place in this thesis. While the historiographical and methodological considerations that inform the thesis will follow, it is first necessary not only to outline these opinions in general terms but to establish the ways in which this thesis presents both a point of difference and a fundamental challenge. The presence of so many personal details and experiences in Salimbene’s Cronica has caused interpretative difficulties for scholars. Some historians have tried to find the origins of the modern autobiography in his writing4 and in doing so have tended to isolate the self-referencing narratives from the fabric of the Cronica as a whole; a method which downplays the fact that Salimbene set out to write history.5 Regardless, a strong argument can and has been made regarding Salimbene’s engagement with what can be termed autobiographical narrative.

Adnan Husain concedes, however, that Salimbene does not use narrative to isolate himself as an autobiographical, ‘unique’, subject as in modern autobiographies. 6 Despite this acknowledgement he continues that Salimbene’s ‘incessant preoccupation to assert and fashion his self-identity’ reveals his text as an ‘anxious attempt to locate himself.historically and socially.’7 It is my contention that this type of methodology and the convoluted language and concepts by which it is often constituted, serves to complicate our understanding of Salimbene’s narrative involvement. In this sense, modern autobiographical methodology presupposes an advanced and individualised sense of ‘Self’ on Salimbene’s behalf as evidenced by his ubiquitous use of the first-person pronoun.8 As I will show, Salimbene’s narrative involvement is explained more simply in the context of his attempts to 4 For example: Aaron Gurevich, The Origins of European Individualism (Oxford; 1995) ; Adnan Husain, Baptistry and Shrine: The locations of memory and personhood in Friar Salimbene’s “Chronicle” and “Asrar at-Tawhid fi Maqamat Abi Sa’id, (unpublished Phd Dissertation, University Of California, Berkley; 1999). Husain’s thesis was revised and published as ‘Writing Identity as Remembered History: Person, Place and Time in Friar Salimbene’s Autobiographical Prose Map’, Viator, 36 (2005), 265-92 5 Robert Brentano, however, states that ‘autobiographical form’ gives ‘structure and shape to the chronicle without destroying its function as a chronicle’: ‘The Chronicle of Francesco Venimbeni da Fabriano’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 48 (2003), 159-70 (165) 6 Husain, Baptistery and Shrine, p.7 7 Husain, ‘Writing Identity’, 267 8 For the primacy of group over individual identity: Caroline Walker Bynam, ‘Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?’, in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, CA; 1982), pp.82-109 7 construct and exercise his authority in history writing rather than ‘meditative self- awareness’, to borrow a phrase from Brian Stock.9 The narration of Salimbene’s personal experience in the Cronica has also led historians to react in a way that is encapsulated by one of his translators Placid Hermann who writes: Brother Salimbene degli Adami never received any dignity in the Franciscan Order.Yet, we are told more about him than about the most eminent personages of his Order, since he is an incorrigible busy-body, and besides, being rather vainglorious, he delights in giving us a multitude of details about himself and about his kindred.10 There are two main ideas embedded in Hermann’s comment that have direct relevance for the analysis of Salimbene’s authorial presence in this thesis.

Firstly, Hermann’s treatment of the personal narratives illustrates the extent to which these have been marginalised, if not trivialised, to the point that they are seen to play no serious role within the overall narrative. Additionally, the expansiveness of Salimbene’s narrator involvement is seen as being simply a self indulgent vanity or an aspect of autobiographical memorialising. The second issue to which Hermann calls attention, one that has been generally accepted by historians, is Salimbene’s supposed attitude towards the Franciscan Order.