Dear List-members,
Etienne de Bourbon tells an exemplum about St Francis preaching to a group
of prelates. They summoned him to appear before them after they heard that
he is preaching to men and birds. One of them, fearing the holy and simple
man will be confused, secretly gives him a sermon he himself composed. But
when the big day comes, St. Francis forgets all that he memorised. Not
knowing what to do, he opens his Psalter, sees the verse, "Tota die
confusio faciei mee cooperuit me", and then preaches of his cuff about the
arrogance of the prelates and the shame their insolence incurs upon the
Church.
The episode appears, in quite a different version (and with bishop
Ugolino identified as the co-operative bishop), already in the First Life
of Thomas of Celano, and in the Major Life of Bonaventura.
My query is: has anyone of you ever read this exemplum/story in a sermon
or in other exempla-collections (Tubach gives only Etienne de Bourbon)?
Even a similar narrative, without the mentioning of St. Francis, would
help me very much.
Thank you,
Yaron Toren
St. Johns College, Oxford
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