Doctor of the Church, Cardinal-Bishop of
Albano, Minister General of the Friars Minor, born at Bagnorea in the
vicinity of Viterbo in 1221; died at Lyons, 16 July, 1274.
Nothing is known of Bonaventure's parents save their names: Giovanni di
Fidanza and Maria Ritella. How his baptismal name of John came to be
changed to that of Bonaventure is not clear. An attempt has been made
to trace the latter name to the exclamation of St. Francis, O buona
ventura, when Bonaventure was brought as an infant to him to be
cured of a dangerous illness. This derivation is highly improbable; it
seems based on a late fifteenth. century legend. Bonaventure himself
tells us (Legenda S. Francisci Prolog.) that while yet a child he was
preserved from death through the intercession of St. Francis, but there
is no evidence that this cure took place during the lifetime of St.
Francis or that the name Bonaventuro originated in any prophetical
words of St. Francis. It was certainly borne by others before the
Seraphic Doctor. No details of Bonaventure's youth have been preserved.
He entered the Order of Friars Minor in 1238 or 1243; the exact year is
uncertain. Wadding and the Bollandists bold for the later date, but the
earlier one is supported by Sbaradea, Bonelli, Panfilo da Magliano, and
Jeiler, and appears more probable. It is certain that Bonaventure was
sent from the Roman Province, to which he belonged, to complete his
studies at the University of Paris under Alexander of Hales, the great
founder of the Franciscan School. The latter died in 1246, according to
the opinion generally received, though not yet definitely established,
and Bonaventure seems to have become his pupil about 1242. Be this as
it may, Bonaventure received in 1248 the "licentiate" which gave him
the right to teach publicly as Magister regens, and he continued
to lecture at the university with great success until 1256, when he was
compelled to discontinue, owing to the then violent outburst of
opposition to the Mendicant orders on the part of the secular
professors at the university. The latter, jealous, as it seems, of the
academic successes of the Dominicans and Franciscans, sought to exclude
them from teaching publicly. The smouldering elements of discord had
been fanned into a flame in 1265, when Guillamne do Saint-Amour
published a work entitled "The Perils of the Last Times", in which he
attacked the Friars with great bitterness. It was in connexion with
this dispute that Bonaventure wrote his treatise, "De paupertate
Christi". It was not, however, Bonaventure, as some have erroneously
stated, but Blessed John of Parma, who appeared before Alexander IV at
Anagni to defend the Franciscans against their adversary. The Holy See
having, as is well known, re-established the Mendicants in all their
privileges, and Saint-Amour's book having been formally condemned, the
degree of Doctor was solemnly bestowed on St. Bonaventure and St.
Thomas Aquinas at the university, 23 October, 1267.
In the meantime Bonaventure, though not yet thirty-six years old, had
on 2 February, 1257, been elected Minister General of the Friars Minor
-- an office of peculiar difficulty, owing to the fact that the order
was distracted by internal dissensions between the two factions among
the Friars designated respectively the Spirituales and the
Relaxti. The former insisted upon the literal observance of the
original Rule, especially in regard to poverty, while the latter
wished to introduce innovations and mitigations. This lamentable
controversy had moreover been aggravated by the enthusiasm withwhich
many of the "Spiritual" Friars had adopted the doctrines connected
with the name of Abbot Joachim of Floris and set forth in the so-called
"Evangelium aeternum". The introduction to this pernicious book,
which proclaimed the approaching dispensation of the Spirit that was
to replace the Law of Christ, was falsely attributed to Bl. John of
Parma, who in 1267 had retired from the government of the order in
favour of Bonaventure. The new general lost no time in striking
vigorously at both extreme within the order. On the one hand, he
proceeded against several of the Joachimite "Spirituals" as heretics
before an ecclesiastical tribunal at Cittâ-della-Pieve; two of
their leaders were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and John of
Parma was only saved from a like fate through the personal intervention
of Cardinal Ottoboni, afterwards Adrian V. On the other hand,
Bonaventure had, in an encyclical letter issued immediately after his
election, outlined a programme for the reformation of the
Re1axti. These reforms he sought to enforce three years later at
the General Chapter of Narbonne when the constitutions of the order
which he had revised were promulgated anew. These so-called
"Constitutiones Narbonenses" are distributed under twelve heads,
corresonding to the twelve chapters of the Rule, of which they form an
enlightened and prudent exposition, and are of capital importance in
the history of Franciscan legislation. The chapter which issued this
code of laws requested Bonaventure to write a "legend" or life of St.
Francis which should supersede those then in circulation. This was in
1260. Three years later Bonaventure, having in the meantime visited a
great part of the order, and having assisted at the dedication of the
chapel on La Verna and at the translation of the remains of St Clare and of St. Anthony, convoked a general chapter of the order
of Pisa at which his newly composed life of St. Francis was officially
approved as the standard biography of the saint to the exclusion of all
others. At this chapter of 1263, Bonaventure fixed the limits of the
different provinces of the order and, among other ordinances,
prescribed that at nightfall a bell should be rung in honour of the
Annunciation, a pious practice from which the Angelus seems to have
originated. There are no grounds, however, for the assertion that
Bonaventure in this chapter prescribed the celebration of the feast of
the Immaculate Conception in the order. In 1264, at the earnest request
of Cardinal Cajetan, Bonaventure consented to resume the direction of
the Poor Clares which the Chapter of Pisa had entirely renounced the
year before. He required the Clares, however, to acknowledge
occasionally in writing that the favours tendered them by the Friars
were voluntary acts of charity not arising from any obligation
whatsoever. It is said that Pope Urban IV acted at Bonaventure's
suggestion in attempting to establish uniformity of observance
throughout all the monastenes of Clares. About this time (1264)
Bonaventure founded at Rome the Society of the Gonfalone in honour of
the Blessed Virgin which, if not the first confraternity instituted in
the Church, as some have claimed, was certainly one of the earliest. In
1265 Clement IV, by a Bull dated 23 November, nominated Bonaventure to
the vacant Archbishopric of York, but the saint, in keeping with his
singular humility, steadfastly refused this honour and the popo
yielded.
In 1266 Bonaventure convened a general chapter in Paris at which,
besides other enactments, it was decreed that all the "legends" of St.
Francis written before that of Bonaventure should be forthwith
destroyed, just as the Chapter of Narbonne had in 1260 ordered the
destruction of all constitutions before those then enacted. This decree
has excited much hostile enticism. Some would fain see in it a
deliberate attempt on Bonaventure's part to close the primitive sources
of Franciscan history, to suppress the real Francis, and substitute a
counterfeit in his stead. Otbers, however, regard the decree in
question as a purely liturgical ordinance intended to secure uniformity
in
