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Friday, Hal James

History

2008

MA

Of the 540 thirteenth-century sermons on the topic of St. Francis of Assisi catalogued by noted Franciscan historian Jacques-Guy Bougerol, thirty-one begin with the Biblical quotation "I saw another angel, ascending from the rising of the sun, bearing the seal of the living God" (Apocalypse 7:2). Guibert of Tournai, a Franciscan master of theology at the University of Paris in the 1250s and a colleague of St. Bonaventure, wrote one of the first sermons to develop this theme. Bonaventure later used this imagery in his papally sanctioned hagiographical work on St. Francis, the Legenda Maior. This thesis will argue that Guibert's sermon is indicative of, and likely influential in creating, the official interpretation of St. Francis in the theological center of thirteenth-century Christendom.