What a great list this is! Thanks to Bonnie, Patrick, John, and Jim for
their prompt and very helpful answers last week to the question that had my
student and me stumped.
Sherry
that At 09:20 PM 3/31/1999 +0100, you wrote:
>Here's another explanation for St Francis rolling around in the
>filth, from _Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History_, trans. J.
>A. Giles (London, 1849), ii. 494 (under 1227). (Sorry, I only
>happen to have the English translation to hand.)
>
>It concerns Francis's attempt to get Pope Innocent III to approve
>his Order in 1209:
>
> The pope gazed fixedly on the ill-favoured mien of the
> aforesaid brother, his mournful countenance, lengthened beard,
> his untrimmed hair, and his dirty, overhanging brow, and when
> he heard his petition read which it was so difficult and
> impracticable to carry out, despised him, and said, `Go,
> brother, go to the pigs, to whom you are are more fit to be
> compared than to men, and roll with them, and to them preach
> the rules you have so ably set forth.' Francis, on hearing this
> bowed his head and went away, and having found some pigs he
> rolled with them in the mud till he had covered his body and
> clothes with dirt from head to foot; he then, returning to the
> consistory, showed himself to the pope, and said, `My lord, I
> have done as you ordered me; grant me now, I beseech you, my
> petition.' The pope was astonished when he saw what he had
> done, and felt sorry for having treated him with contempt, at
> the same time giving orders that he should wash himself and
> come back to him again; he therefore cleansed himself from his
> dirt, and returned directly to the pope. The pope, being much
> moved, then granted his petition, and, after confirming his
> office of preaching as well as the order he applied for, by a
> privilege from the church of Rome, he dismissed him with a
> blessing.
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>Bonnie Blackburn
>67 St Bernard's Road
>Oxford OX2 6EJ
>tel. 01865 552808 fax 01865 512237
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
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