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

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.