St. Francis of Assisi’s Admonitions In New Ecclesiastical And Secular Contexts

Abstract

In the last number of years scholars have discovered many new “parallels”2 to Francis of Assisi’s Admonitions.3 In this article I will provide more new parallels that I have uncovered not only in ecclesiastical contexts, but also in non-ecclesiastical ones.4 While almost all students of Francis’ Admonitions are acquainted with the general ecclesiastical contexts, most are unfamiliar with the non-ecclesiastical contexts evidenced by Cato’s Distichs, Daniel of Beccles’ Urbanus Magnus, Egbert of Liège’s The WellLaden Ship, the Facetus, and a fourteen-volume collection of medieval proverbs. From these parallels I will argue that the Admonitions of Francis of Assisi belong to the literary genre of Conduct Literature, that its closest formal parallel is found in Egbert of Liège’s The Well-Laden Ship which contains short and extensive “teachings,” and that Francis and the editors of his Admonitions took deep breaths from the traditions of ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical instances of “teachings for life.” First I provide a general introduction to both the ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical authors that supply the parallels. Second I use parallels from these works to provide insight on individual admonitions.