13 - The ministers general

Summary

The friars belonged to a cosmopolitan community, whose head, the minister general, normally resided in Italy, generally in Rome, but sometimes at Assisi or, in the case of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, at Paris. From the middle of the thirteenth century the general chapter was convened triennially in Assisi or Rome and then alternately north and south of the Alps. The members elected the minister general, in accordance with the eighth chapter of the Regula bullata. Although Salimbene de Adam had been clothed as a friar by Elias, minister general, on the vigil of St Martha in 1238 at Parma, the chronicler felt free to record his critical views on the minister general and he wrote a catalogue of his faults, enumerating his thirteen defects in some detail; the only concession was his promotion of theological studies. Despite Elias’s friendship with St Francis and Gregory IX, he was ousted by the general chapter of 1239. Five pages of the critical edition of Eccleston deal with this episode, while the combined administrations of John Parenti, Albert of Pisa, Haymo of Faversham, Crescentius da Iesi and the much respected John of Parma muster a mere six pages between them. John of Parma, too, was removed by papal pressure in February 1257 on account of his damaging association with the ideas of the Calabrian abbot, Joachim of Fiore, but that is presented in some obfuscation.

The chroniclers’ accounts of Elias of Cortona’s faults and his deposition in 1239

Eccleston’s account of the ministers general commences with some preliminary comments and then launches into an account of Elias’s behaviour at the general chapter of 1230 and then passes briefly to his rehabilitation at the general chapter of Rieti. He undoubtedly regarded the proceedings in 1238/39 as the sequel to the visitation made by Wygerius and recounted in the eighth collatio. Thereafter his sole purpose was to narrate the defenestration of the minister general by the general chapter in Rome. Hitherto Elias was mentioned occasionally, such as the reaction to the list of candidates as potential successors to Agnellus of Pisa. While Eccleston moved the damaging visitation by Wygerius to the events of the general chapter of Rome, Salimbene de Adam fills out the picture with an account culled largely from the Italian provinces.