Sarbak Gábor (szerk.): Der Paulinerorden. Geschichte - Geist - Kultur - Művelődértörténeti műhely 4/2. (Budapest, 2010)
Geschichte
Relations between the franciscan observants and the order of saint Paul... Ill We then come to the 1480s, when the Observants took over the hermitages at Tálod (1480) and at Kőkút (1487) from the Paulines. The other seven new houses were all located in towns.36 Over the fifty years that we have considered, therefore, thirty-six houses were either and, of these, twenty-nine were situated in towns, and seven were located in villages or were hermitages. That twenty-five percent of these houses were in the second category is perhaps in itself not a bad proportion. What spoils the picture, however, is that, in the same period, the Observants took over almost all the largest and most prestigious houses from the Provincia Hungáriáé. It is understandable that not every member of the Hungarian Observant vicariate saw this step into the perilous domains of the world as a positive development. While it had what seemed at the time to be very appealing aspects, it took the Observants a good distance away both from their original aims and from their original ideal of Franciscan life. I would like to use two examples to illustrate just how much this was so. We read in the Observant chronicle that János Vajai (whom was mentioned earlier) asked the brothers to postpone the date of the forthcoming chapter so that he could act as peacemaker between the kings of Hungary and Bosnia: “He had said all this, and on account of their desire to preserve order and simplicity an enormous outcry broke out amongst the brothers at the meeting, during which some of them said that they had not become brothers in order to carry back-and-forth the anxieties of kings and the cautiously-worded messages of rulers. (This is Observancy in Hungary, And its roots, and the enormous tree into which it has grown!)”.37 The brothers clearly feared that János Vajai’s involvement in the affairs of the secular rulers threatened their Franciscan vocation and way of life. They felt that political entanglements such as these were incompatible with the Franciscan ideal and, worse, undermined it. But it was not only the various services undertaken on behalf of the rulers but also the occupation of houses that troubled the consciences of some of the brothers. The experiences of Blessed László Magyar (occasionally also called ‘Lancelaus’ or ‘Lazilaus’), who died in Scarliano in Tuscany around 20 September, 1445, bear this out. In La Franceschina, his contemporary, Giacomo Oddi, recalls how László, who was a scion of the royal family, visited all the houses in the province in search of a home that radiated true Franciscan poverty but could not find one. He finally settled abroad in the house in Milan, where he became guardian, and where he devoted much of his time to caring for victims of the plague. He lived a saintly life and came to be regarded as one of the exemplary Franciscans of the house. What puzzled Blessed Francis of Pavia, however, was that the material magnificence of this friary stood in deep contrast to the kind of spiritual home which László had earlier sought. This provoked him to ask: “Father, how can you find peace of conscience in such a place as this? You visited so many houses in our Order in search of a life of poverty and did 36 Szeged (1480), Nyírbátor (1480-83), Szántó (before 1481), Sóvár [Solivar] (before 1482), Fülek [Fil’akovo] (before 1484), Homonna [Humenné] (before 1488) and Pápa (after 1480). 37 "Haec dixit, et statim inter fratres ex desiderio religionis et eorum simplicitate magnus rumor ortus fuit in consistorio, dicentibus quibusdam, quod non ideo sancti [facti ] sumus fratres, ut regum euros et principum varia verba specialiter curiosa proferamus. (Ecce ubi Observantia Minorum de Hungária, ubi radicem habuit, et in tantam altissimam crevit arborem.)" Cronica Fratrum Minorum de Observantia Provinciae Boznae et Hungáriáé, 241.