An important 1918 edition of the medieval biography of Giles of Assisi, one of the original disciples of Saint Francis.

THERE existed in the Franciscan Order from an early date a school of asceticism, remarkable no less for great elevation of thought than for singular vivacity and picturesqueness of expression. This two-fold characteristic is perhaps nowhere more happily blended than in Aurea of Blessed Giles of Assisi, a work which the Bollandists do Dot hesitate to rank at the head of its class and which is here presented to the reader in an English dress. No one at all conversant with things Franciscan need be told that Blessed Giles was of that stalwart little band who "were with the Blessed Francis from the time he began to have companions." "The Knight of our Round Table," St. Francis called him, and Giles remains the ideal type of the Franciscan Friar. It may not then be amiss to preface our study of his "Golden Sayings" with some account, however brief, of the long, strange life and the surroundings of their author. Nearly a century ago the great Conventual critic Papini sighed for an adequate biography of Blessed Giles. Some eight years since, a learned member of the same Order essayed to produce one, but his volume falls short of the mark; and the same is true of Mgr. Briganti's monograph published about the same time. Neither of these books should be read with too critical an eye. On the other hand, the recent work of Father Gisbert Menge - a seasoned scholar in all that concerns the subject - goes far toward meeting all modern requirements. But the finally acceptable biography of Giles still remains to be written. Happily, however, we are able to go behind Giles's more recent biographers to some of the early documents from which our knowledge of him is derived.

Excerpt from Blessed Giles of Assisi "Tell the Perugians that the bells shall never ring for my canonisation, nor for any great miracles wrought by me." And yet, after the lapse of more than six centuries, it appears probable that these, the last recorded words of the humble Giles of Assisi, may be disproved, and he may be the first of the original disciples of Saint Francis of Assisi to receive the full honours of canonisation. From among the little group of simple-minded, single-hearted men who at the dawn of the thirteenth century were the first to receive the message of evangelical perfection and to cluster around St. Francis, it is almost invidious to point to any one as the most fascinating and attractive of those Knights of his Round Table, as the Saint himself called them. The Little Flowers of St. Francis, now fortunately so well known to modern readers, has endeared them one and all to us: and each of them, Leo, Bernard, Juniper, Giles, has his own place in our affections. But Blessed Giles of Assisi might, if he had not been the humblest and most retiring of men, have claimed a place second to none among the apostolic founders of the movement, which stirred the dry bones of Western Christendom in the thirteenth century. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The history of the Order of Friars Minor during the first one and a half centuries of its existence is maybe the most studied period of the 800 years of Franciscan presence in the Church. The publication of the Sources for the lives of Saint Francis and Saint Clare of Assisi in all the main European languages has been of considerable help to spread the historical knowledge regarding Francis of Assisi and his movement and make it available to the average reader. Among these Sources, the Chronica XXIV Ministrorum Generalium Ordinis fratrum Minorum by Arnald of Sarrant merits particular attention. It tells the story of the Franciscan Order from the time of Saint Francis till the beginning of the Western Schism in 1378, and therefore contains valuable information regarding the initial period of Franciscan history. Unfortunately it is not easily available in translation because of its voluminous nature. In fact, it covers a total of 712 pages of the third volume of Analecta Franciscana, published by the Franciscan editors of Quaracchi in 1897. Our aim has been that of embarking on the arduous task of translating this voluminous work of history into English from the original Latin. This translation is the fruit of three years of work, and we are now happy to present it to the general public. Because of its voluminous nature we intend to divide it into 5 sections, four of which cover the 575 pages of text and one the appendixes. The whole 575 page Chronicle is here available in 4 sections covering respectively the following historical periods: (1) Saint Francis and the early Franciscan fraternity; (2) The Generals from brother Elias as vicar (1227) to Saint Bonaventure (1274); (3) The Generals from Jerome of Ascoli (1274) to Michael of Cesena (1328); (4) The Generals from Gerard Eudes (1329) to Leonard of Giffoni (1378). A last section will be the translation of the appendixes. The translation is enriched by footnotes and explanations on the various historical events narrated and on the personages of the Chronicle. Our aim has been simply that of providing a readable translation, without pretending to be scholars of mediaeval Latin. We hope that the service we are offering at such an enormous cost of time and personal effort will be of benefit both to students of Franciscan history as well as to those who are qualified to correct its inaccuracies, and who we gratefully thank for their eventual advice and corrections