Klöster im Hochmittelalter

84 | Timothy J. Johnson
Francis of Assisi rejected the prevailing monastic practice of stabilitas loci as a
defining characteristic of religious life, but he clearly evinced a deep appreciation
for locus. Variations of the word appear fifty-two times in his writings but the term
for space, spatium, is absent. ³ Many of his references to locus are linked to hermitages
and other dwellings of the brothers, but it is striking that numerous texts also
concern the location and veneration of the Eucharist and Sacred Scripture. When
speaking of these touchstones of transcendence he notes, “For we have and see
nothing bodily of the Most High in this world except His Body and Blood, His
names and words through which we have been made and redeemed from death to
life.” ⁴ Francis encountered and embraced the in-breaking of the divine in the materiality
of bread, wine, and written words, which are grounded by the immanency
of specific places. In the presence of this divine condescension, Francis urged his
brothers to follow the footsteps of the poor Christ, who is revealed among them
as poor, and enflesh a humble stance of obedient service toward the entire material
world, animate and inanimate creatures alike. ⁵ Matter mattered for Francis, not
abstract, reified matter in space and time, but each, particular, material creature that
reflects the divine creator in a specific locus. His magnificent Canticum fratris solis
for example, boldly proclaims “Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day and through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; and bears a likeness of You,
Most High One.” ⁶
This essay will briefly explore how two thirteenth-century confreres of Francis,
Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Roger Bacon, approach the question of transcendence
that is foregrounded in differing interpretations of locus and the nuanced application
of what may be considered the “analogical imagination.” ⁷ Although Paris
is indeed far afield from Assisi, it is still possible to hear echoes of the Poverello’s
passion for God’s creation in these two Parisian masters, as well as perceive the
trajectory of his longing for the Most High in the writings of the Doctor Seraphicus
and the Doctor Mirabilis.
3 Opuscula sancti Francisci, Scripta sanctae Clarae, ed. Jean-François Godet/George Mailleux, in: Corpus
des Sources Franciscaines, vol. 5 (Informatique et étude de textes 6,5), Louvain 1975, pp. 147 f.
4 First Letter to the Clergy, in: Francis of Assisi, Early Documents, ed. Regis J. Armstrong/John A. Wayne
Hellmann/William J. Short, vol. 1: The Saint, New York/London/Manila 1999, p. 52.
5 Timothy J. Johnson, Francis and creation, in: The Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, ed. Michael
J. P. Robson, Cambridge 2012, pp. 144 –146.
6 The Canticle of the Creatures, in: Francis of Assisi, Early Documents, ed. Regis J. Armstrong/John A.
Wayne Hellmann/William J. Short, vol. 1: The Saint, New York/London/Manila 1999, p. 113.
7 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination. Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism, New York
1989, p. 429.