St Francis’ ideas about the organization of community of his followers

The main purpose of this paper consists in determining and analyzing of St Francis’ conception mode of life among his friars. It is should be taken into consideration that his ideas were developed and dramatically transformed, especially from the moment of first verbal approval of the Franciscan forma vivendi in 1209 in Rome. This important moment essentially differs from the future state of the Franciscan order, namely from the beginning of active papal turn to the clericalization of initially small flock of Francis’ devoted disciples. The general issue of this paper subsumes several related questions which are as follows. What was distinctive and extraordinary in the Franciscan view on monastic life? What did Francis mentioned about his private revelation and how further tradition described his calling and mission? What was paradigmatic for the Gospel life of brothers? To achieve the main goal a broad range of primary historical sources are used in this paper such as writings of St Francis, so-called Opuscula. These texts could not be separated from each other and from the witnesses of early hagiographical sources. The structure of the paper is based on the clear-cut distinction between three types of sources which are examined. However, each part of this research concerned with general hallmarks of early Franciscan identity which are used to be the initial points by the analysis of monastic ideals. Such as preaching, poverty and obedience. The paper concludes that ideas of St Francis were in a very strong contradiction with all existing in that time forms of monastic community. Moreover, Francis himself did not aim to present strict structure of life for his disciples.