The stigmatization of St Francis in the vernacular codices

After this general survey of those Latin accounts of the stigmatization that can be in one way or another associated with the narratives translated to the Hungarian vernacular, let us turn now to the Jókai, the Virginia and the Lázár Zelma codices that narrate what happened on the Mount La Verna.⁶⁴¹ In addition to the three vernacular narratives, the stigmata of Francis (but not his stigmatization) turn up also in the Érdy Codex, which I will treat in connection with those of Catherine of Siena in V.3.4.⁶⁴² The chapter ―Aluerna hegye megleleserewl‖ [On finding the Mount Alverna] of the Jókai Codex gives a rather faithful translation Actus that narrates how his stigmatization took place with the exception that apart from two shepherds, no further witnesses are mentioned,⁶⁴³ although its Latin parallel, the Actus makes a strong claim on authenticity.⁶⁴⁴ The stigmata are mentioned again in the chapter about the levitatio of Francis, (Actus 39) witnessed by Brother Leo, who is described as the only person who could touch the wounds and regularly change the bandages on them. In the next chapter of Jókai Codex, entitled

―Zent sebekrewl ualo czuda‖ [Miracle about the holy wounds] (Actus 40=65²), a Dominican friar denies the authenticity of Francis‘ stigmata and tries –unsuccessfully- to destroy the fresco in the refectory that represents the saint with the wounds. ⁶⁴⁵

Whereas in the Jókai Codex the episode of the stigmatization is clearly the translation of the laconic account of the Actus without any additional details on the part of the translator, a few decades later a much longer Latin text about the same event was translated to the Hungarian

641 See also Korondi, Amisztika a késő középkori magyar nyelvű kolostori kódexirodalomban, 181, 185.

642 I have analysed these four sources together in a study ―The Oldest Legend of Francis of Assisi and his Stigmatization in Old Hungarian Codex Literature (ca.1440-1530)‖, in: Les saints et leur culte en Europe centrale au Moyen Ȃge (xi^e-debut du XVI^e siècle, ed. Marie-Madeleine de Cevins and Olivier Martin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 173-194.

643 Jókai-kódex 119.

644 ―Quare vero apparuerunt stigmata s. Francisci, nondum per omnia notuit; sed, sicut ipse sociis revelavit, hoc prefertur magnum misterium in futurum. Hanc ystoriam habuit fr. Iacobus de Massa ab ore fr. Leonis; et fr.

Hugolinus de Monte S. Mariae ab ore dicti fr. Iacobi; et ego qui scribe ab ore fr. Hugolini, viri fide digni et boni.‖

Fontes Franciscani, 2109.

645 Jókai-kódex, 66.

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vernacular: it survived in two independent translations in the Virginia⁶⁴⁶ and Lázár Zelma codices, probably because this account was considered suitable, using the words of Pelbartus de Themeswar, ―pro devotione simplicium‖. The two translations go back to the same Latin text which appeared in print both as the part of the Speculum vitae beati Francisci et sociorum eius (1504) as well as in Sermo 75 of the Pomerium de Sanctis: pars aestivalis of Pelbartus (1499).

We can read both in works that the stigmata narrative comes from a certain Vita sociorum sancti Francisci but such printed book is known today with this title. For chronological reasons, the Speculum vitae could not be the source of the Observant Franciscan preacher since the Pomerium sermonum de sanctis volume was published earlier, first in 1499 and then in 1502.

Piusz Berhidai, who found three references to Vita sociorum beati Francisci in the altogether six sermons of Pelbartus on St Francis,⁶⁴⁷ speculated that it can be either a source known today with a different title or a completely unknown one that may have been lost, but most probably it was one of the many legendae antiquae.⁶⁴⁸ Would it have been possible that this was a Latin compilation circulating in Hungary in a manuscript form under the title Vita sociorum beati/sancti Francisci and thus an indirect proof for the Hungarian origin of the Speculum vitae? There is a manuscript that seems to disprove this assumption: MS Douai 858 dated to the fifteenth century that has Benedictine provenance from the Abbey of Hasnon (France) that on the basis of its incipit reports the same stigmatization narrative: ‗Legitur in Vita sociorum sancti Francisci quod cum beatus Franciscus in latere montis Alverni quadragesima beati Michaelis ieiunaret...‘.⁶⁴⁹ This manuscript –that I did not yet have the chance to consult to check whether it can be really dated to the fifteenth century and thus was in fact earlier than Pelbartus‘s sermo 74 on Francis and the printed edition of the Speculum vitae- indicates that in the fifteenth century the same book with the same title was known not only in Hungary but also in France.

In any case, the account of the Vita sociorum beati Francisci gives a much more elaborated version of the stigmatization since much of the information coming from the Instrumentum – although probably through intermediary works- was incorporated in the account that can be

646 Virginia-kódex, 105-111.

647 Pelbartus de Themeswar, Pomerium de sanctis I, Pars aestivalis, Sermones LXX-LXXV.

648Berhidai, ‗Temesvári Pelbárt helye a ferences irodalmi hagyományban‘ available at:

http://sermones.elte.hu/?az=341tan_plaus_piusz (last accessed: 20/09/2015).

649 Douai, Bibliothèque Municipale de Douai, MS 858 fol. 85^r-88^v. This textual parallel to the Speculum vitae was found by Sabatier, ―Description du Speculum vitae (éd. de 1504),‖ 355, note 2.

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summed up as follows: while Francis is spending the Lent of St. Michael on the Mount La Verna, as he goes out one day to pray early in the morning he sees a Seraph descending with burning fire and the crucified Christ appears between the wings. Francis marvels greatly and rejoices but Christ warns him of secrecy and tells him to be prepared as he will perform a wonderful miracle to him. As Francis claims to be ready, Christ holds out his right hand and puts it above that of Francis, who immediately cries out his name and collapses. Christ urges him to get up again, and he performs the same act with Francis‘s left hand, then his feet. The climax of the stigmata account is the impression of the side wound when Francis asks who would be able to endure such pain, Christ responds to him

‗What would you have done then if you had suffered all the beatings, the crowning of thorns, the slaps, the spitting and other harsh torments that I suffered for the people?‘

Rising up Francis said: ‗I am ready for what you want.‘ And Jesus embraced him and placed his side to the side of Francis and immediately impressed the wound on his side.

So Francis cried out ‗O pious Jesus‘ and fell on the ground like a half-dead. And meanwhile Christ vanished.⁶⁵⁰

The account ends with the apparition of Brother Leo as in the Considerazioni sulle stigmate – not Conrad as in the Instrumentum– who finds the unconscious Francis about whom he thinks to have died due to his exaggerated abstinent lifestyle.

Like in the Instrumentum, there is no doubt in the Vita sociorum sancti Francisci that it was the crucified Christ who appeared to Francis under the form of a seraph, but neither the appearance of the stigmata is described, nor the nails are mentioned here. The pain of Francis caused by the stigmata is expressed in a different way: he cries out and collapses after each impression of a wound. The accentuation of the physical torment the saint had to suffer during the stigmatization and Christ‘s recalling of his own Passion in the Vita sociorum sancti Francisci fits quite well to the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century tradition of affective piety.⁶⁵¹

650 ―‗Quid fecisses tunc si verbera, et spinee corone punctiones, alapas, sputa et alias penas quos ego per hominibus suscepi, sustinuisses?‘ Surgens ergo Franciscus dixit: ‗Quod iubes paratus sum.‘ At Iesus amplexus illum iunxit latus lateri beati Francisci, et statim impressit plagam lateralem. Tunc Franciscus exclamans: ‗O pie Iesu!‘ Cecidit in terram quasi semi mortuus. Et Christus interim disparvit.‖ Speculum vitae, 232a.

651 On the Passion in the Hungarian devotional literature, see Korondi, Amisztika a késő középkori magyar nyelvű kolostori kódexirodalomban, 197-250.

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Despite their common Latin source, the significance of stigmata narratives is different in the two codices.⁶⁵² The Virginia Codex, which despite its Franciscan content was made for the Dominican nuns of the Island of the Rabbits before 1529. It is a of book of ‗Conformitas‘ since the greatest part of the codex treats the conformity of Francis to Christ. The stigmatization is only one of the several characteristics that made him similar to the Saviour, but in the codex equal importance is given to other aspects of the life of the saint: how God made Francis similar to the other saints, exempla that tell about not only his but also his companions‘ eminence in humility and obedience. The Virginia Codex reports the last few sentences of the account that can be found only in the printed Speculum vitae, namely that Brother Leo reminds Francis that the friars are waiting for him to eat together, which must have taken place at the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, since, in the words of the author/translator of the codex ―he [i.e.

Francis] used to go to the town only on feast days‖. The source of these lines can be either the printed Speculum vitae or perhaps a manuscript version of Pelbartus‘s sermo 74 of the Pomerium that contained the very end of the stigmatization account which in this case could be the source of the compiler of the Virginia Codex used. The latter, however, cannot be checked since there is no surviving manuscript of his sermons.⁶⁵³

In the Lázár Zelma Codex, a collection of prayers and devotional writings made in Transylvania for private use for a Clarissan nun around 1525, the same stigmatization episode functions as a

―very beautiful and devout‖ prayer.⁶⁵⁴ The direct source of the stigmata account of the Lázár Zelma Codex was Pelbartus de Themeswar whose exhortation to pray to the saint‘s intercession for eternal bliss for life after death at the end of his sermon was also translated.⁶⁵⁵

The descriptions of the Seraph in the Hungarian translations are also slightly different from the Latin: in the Lázár Zelma Codex between the wings of the Seraph there was an army of angels surrounding the crucified Christ, and the Virginia Codex gives a detailed account of the Seraph of six wings based on the traditional biblical description of Isaiah 6:2.⁶⁵⁶ Other remarkable scribal additions can be found in the Virginia Codex. Whereas in the Latin text the crucified

652 See the collation of the texts in the Appendix.

653 I am grateful to Nigel Palmer for calling my attention to this possibility.

654 Lázár Zelma-kódex, 141-150.

655 Lázár Zelma-kódex, 150.

656 Lázár Zelma-kódex, 172 ; Virginia-kódex, 33.

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Christ asks Francis to prepare himself (―Para te, Francisce!‖) for receiving the wounds, in the Virginia Codex, Christ urges him to ―‗Prepare yourself for peace!‘ (zerezd magad bekesegre), then to ‗Prepare yourself for suffering!‘ (zerezd magad zenuedesre), and then ‗Prepare yourself to get closer to Him!‘ (zerezd hazza magad enelfeleiben), the first referring to the mission of Francis, the second to his imitation of Christ, and the third to his strive to elevate his soul to God.‖ ⁶⁵⁷