Klöster im Hochmittelalter

Franciscans at Work | 299
people who practiced charity through them (and hoped they were not being taken
in by scoundrels who did not want to work). They encountered as well people
who rejected them, simply or harshly, some even turning them away as shirkers.
With time that wore on the young men who had joined the brotherhood with such
enthusiasm.
The brothers had an answer for those who turned them aside, simply or menacingly.
They did their best to instruct them about social justice. They tried to bring
the needy together with the wealthy. They succeeded to a degree. At least they improved
the lot of the needy, who clutched the hands of the good young men come
to their aid. The brothers might even have given the rich a few thoughts to ponder
in their own interest.
The brothers also had an answer for the disagreeable knocks to their self-esteem.
We can take their interface with men and women of means as a serious challenge
to their identity, a challenge they had to face if they were going to continue
bringing more bread to the poor and more justice to the rich. Whereas Early Rule
9, 3 –9 brought the teachings of the Decretists into play, chapter 9, 1–2 identified
the brothers as the valiant companions of the Lord, who had gone down a similar
gauntlet in his day. The brothers had to learn to understand and embrace the humility
and the poverty known by the Lord, for that belonged to leaving the world
and journeying at his side. And the passage saw fit to emphasize that it was not a
question of economics, for they most assuredly had the food and clothing they
needed. The poverty of Early Rule 9, 1 and the poverty of Rule 6 is the social and
material consequence of doing what is right in a society that suits a minority. Such
a society cannot bear men who spread “true peace” (Early Rule 17, 16) as did the
Son of God when he came among us. The injustice is not merely social, for such a
society has room for devils who get their hands on money.
Poverty figures in other passages of the early writings and nowhere more tellingly
than in The Hymn to Obedience. ²⁰ Here poverty is a positive force. It is not
an individual’s practice of material reduction. Rather it challenges the cares of the
world. Work as service does not latch onto social place and superfluous possessions,
and in its poverty sees to the needs of others while it brings the light of true peace
into their lives. The poverty has nothing to do with the pride of social place briefly
described in Admonition 14. (Body in the Admonition stands for social presence. ²¹
The truly poor brother does not want to figure in the world.)
20 Usually called Salutatio virtutum. Francisci Assisiensis Scripta (note 3 above), pp. 46 – 49.
21 I have tried to explain the term body in early Franciscan writings in So What Is a Franciscan, in: Franciscan
Studies 63, 2005, pp. 35 – 47.