Prologue

Clement V, Supreme Pontiff, Servant of the Servants of God.

“When I went forth from Paradise, I said: I will water the garden of plantings,” said that heavenly Farmer, who being the true fount of wisdom, the Word of God, flowing from the Father into the Father, begotten from eternity, in these last days (by being formed by the Holy Spirit) made flesh in the womb of the Virgin, went forth as a man to accomplish the arduous work of the redemption of the human race: by giving Himself as exemplar of heavenly life, proffering to men His very own Self.

But because man was very frequently pressed by the solicitudes of mortal life, he was turning aside the sight of his mind from the intuition of this kind of exemplar: our true Solomon made upon the throne of the Church Militant a certain garden of delight among others, distanced from the stormy waves of the world, in which one might more quietly and securely be freed from beholding and observing labors of this kind, He himself as an exemplar entered into this world, to water it by the fecund waters of grace and doctrine.

This garden is indeed the holy Religion of the Friars Minor, which firmly enclosed by the wall of regular observance, contented within herself with God alone is adorned abundantly by new seedlings of sons. The beloved Son of God coming upon this reaps the myrrh of mortifying penitence with aromatics, which with a marvelous sweetness sprinkle about in all places an odor of attracting holiness. This is that heavenly form of life, and rule, which that excellent Confessor of Christ Saint Francis wrote down; and taught equally by word and example to be observed by his sons.

Because the professors and devout emulators of the said holy rule were truly striving, as both pupils and true sons of such a Father, just as even they fervently do strive, to observe firmly, without mitigation, and entirely the aforementioned rule: attending to certain things which might produce a doubtful sense contained in the text of the very rule, for the sake of having a clarification of these very same things they had recourse prudently at one time to the peak of Apostolic dignity, that certified through Her, at whose feet even by the rule itself they are subject, they might attend to the Lord (all doubts having been driven away) with full clarity of conscience.

Likewise Our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs directing their ears and souls to their pious and just supplications clarified one after another (as was right) those things which seemed to be doubtful: they added some things and conceded others, as seemed to disentangle the consciences of the Friars, and the status of this unmitigated observance. Truly and very frequently where there is no fault, befrighted consciences, which fear greatly any deviation in the way to God, are accustomed to fear it. From the said clarifications the consciences of all of the said Friars have not been entirely quieted, nay rather there are born and arise waves concerning those things pertaining to the rule and to the condition of those doubting in these matters, as have been brought to our ears many times, both from many public and private consistories.

Wherefore through these Friars We have been humbly supplicated, in order that from the benignity of the Apostolic See We might care to employ opportune remedies to the aforesaid doubts, which have occurred, and which can occur in the future.

Therefore We, whose soul from a tender age by pious devotion was inflamed by the professors of this kind of rule, and by the whole Order itself: now however from the common pastoral care of governing, which We, unworthy, bear, We have been summoned as much more ardently to those things which We have more sweetly cherished and by gracious favors more attentively pursued, as more frequently with intent mind We have opened the rich fruit, which We continually discern to come forth from their exemplary life, and salutary doctrine for the entire universal Church, moved as We are by so pious an intention of the supplicants, to accomplish diligently to what is sought, We have considered those things which have been directed to our examination: and We have caused those very doubts to be diligently examined by many Archbishops, and Bishops, and Masters in Theology, and other cautious and discrete, lettered men.