The Ninth General: Brother Jerome of Ascoli

71 The Successor of Saint Bonaventure 72 Nicholas III and the Franciscan Order 73 The General Promotes literary activity 74 He becomes Cardinal

(71) The ninth General was the Venerable Father Jerome from the city of Ascoli and the Province of the Marches. He was elected in the General Chapter convened on the feast of Pentecost in Lyon in France in the year of the Lord 1274. It was at the time of the General Council and Saint Bonaventure convoked this Chapter in the same year before the sacred Council had finished.

The glorious Saint Bonaventure passed away to the better life on 13th July when he was fifty-three. He was interred with great solemnity in the church of the Friars Minor in the city of Lyon. His Holiness and all the Cardinals solemnly celebrated the funeral rites for him.

(72) In the year of the Lord 1277, after the Holy Pontiff Gregory X had passed away to the better life in 1275 and Innocent V assumed the Papacy and then Adrian V in his place, and then Pope John XXi, and in his place Nicholas III. He was Protector of the Order and loved the Order of Minors so tenderly that he said as Pope, “I so love the Order of Minors that the Friars can offend me but I am unable take offence against the Friars.”

(73) At the command of this General a certain famous and learned Master did some useful things on the Master of the Sentences and composed a book on that evangelical perfection which was against the perfection of the mendicant Religious and which condemned and calumniated them. He also wrote the life of blessed Anthony of Padua and a book called the Mirror of discipline.

(74) When this General was the Legate of His Holiness in Paris, Pope Nicholas III made him Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina. And thus he absented himself from the Order.