ian, the Teuton, who had
been chapel-master at the court of the King of France, was commissioned
to put the finishing touches to the Office of St. Francis.[74]
Evidently such a work would contain nothing original, and its loss is
little felt.

IX. LEGEND OF ST. BONAVENTURA

Under the generalate of Giovanni di Parma (1247-1257) the Franciscan
parties underwent modifications, in consequence of which their
opposition became still more striking than before.

The Zelanti, with the minister-general at their head, enthusiastically
adopted the views of Gioacchino di Fiore. The predictions of the
Calabrian abbot corresponded too well with their inmost convictions for
any other course to be possible: they seemed to see Francis, as a new
Christ, inaugurating the third era of the world.

For a few years these dreams moved all Europe; the faith of the
Joachimites was so ardent that it made its way by its own force;
sceptics like Salimbeni told themselves that on the whole it was surely
wiser not to be taken unawares by the great catastrophe of 1260, and
hastened in crowds to the cell of Hyeres to be initiated by Hugues de
Digne in the mysteries of the new times: as to the people, they waited,
trembling, divided between hope and terror. Nevertheless their
adversaries did not consider themselves beaten, and the Liberal party
still remained the most numerous. Of an angelic purity, Giovanni di
Parma believed in the omnipotence of example: events showed how mistaken
he was; at the close of his term of office scandals were not less
flagrant than ten years earlier.[75]

Between these two extreme parties, against which he was to proceed with
equal rigor, stood that of the Moderates, to which belonged St.
Bonaventura.[76]

A mystic, but of a formal and orthodox mysticism, he saw the revolution
toward which the Church was hastening if the party of the eternal Gospel
was to triumph; its victory would not be that of this or that heresy in
detail, it would be, with brief delay, the ruin of the entire
ecclesiastical edifice; he was too perspicacious not to see that in the
last analysis the struggle then going on was that of the individual
conscience against authority. This explains, and up to a certain point
gains him pardon for, his severities against his opponents; he was
supported by the court of Rome and by all those who desired to make the
Order a school at once of piety and of learning.

No sooner was he elected general than, wit