St. Francis and the Franciscans in the British Museum

Extract

The part played by Englishmen in the first days of the Franciscan Order seems small, and is perhaps obscured by the fact that its earliest historians were Italians to whom the nationality of their brethren had no importance. One is glad to think that one of the earliest of the followers of St. Francis, ‘secundus in or dine,’ whatever that may imply, and ‘socius beati Francisci,’ was William the Englishman, and that we have before us his beautiful drawing of Our Lord among the candlesticks which was brought to England to be preserved by Matthew Paris. Chroniclers of the Order say almost nothing about him, and the one legend that has attached itself to his name speaks of his sanctity and humility. One wonders how a travelling Englishman, even in that international age when a dialect of French carried one from England to Rome, had settled down in a little Italian hill town, so completely as to leave no memory of his nationality, especially if he was that ‘quidam de Assisio’ ‘secundus in or dine’ between Bernard of Quintevalle and Brother Giles. Or was his anonymity due to a touch of almost jealous affection in Brother Leo and the Companions? When he died in 1232, five years after St. Francis, he was buried in the great church of San Francesco at Assisi, and at once miracles began to be wrought at his tomb with such frequency that the Minister General came to his grave and ordered him in virtue of holy obedience to work no more.