HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

LATER MEDIEVAL INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY 297the more systematic approach to history among the Dominicans.This is revealed in some of the surviving chronicles from the IrishFranciscan province that we will encounter later on in more detail,such as the ‘Kilkenny chronicle’ and the Annals of friar John Clynn.Although not order chronicles in the strict sense of the word, theyprovide information on the establishment of Franciscan convents, thesuccession of provincial ministers and other dignitaries. The sameholds true for the famous chronicle of Salimbene, which is one ofthe most important thirteenth-century sources of information forFranciscan settlements, individual friars and institutional developmentsin the Italian and French provinces, and yet is not an orderchronicle in the strict sense of the word.Compared with the quick emergence of provincial chronicles, theproduction of general order histories came relatively late. The firstFranciscan general order chronicle might have been the Historia ordinisminorum (ca. 1290) of the Italian friar Philip of Perugia, provincialminister of Tuscany and bishop of Fiesole. Wadding and Sbaraleamake mention of this work in their catalogues of Franciscan authors,but thus far this chronicle has not been rediscovered. 67 From theend of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century,other short order histories survive, or rather concise catalogues ofgeneral ministers. Cases in point are the so-called Catalogus generaliumministrorum (ca. 1304–18, with later continuations), which used to beascribed to Bernard of Bessa († ca. 1304), formerly the secretary ofBonaventure, 68 as well as to Peter of Todi. This catalogue not onlylists fourteen successive general ministers and their deeds, but alsogives an outline of Franciscan history from the death and thebeatification of Francis to the early fourteenth century, complete withinformation about papal privileges, regulations and statutes concerningstudy, preaching activities, the celebration of the Divine Office,Franciscan missionary activities and the relationship with the secularclergy. From roughly the same period are some surviving fragments67Wadding (1906), 196; Sbaralea (1908–36), 2:383.68Catalogus generalium ministrorum ordinis fratrum minorum, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGHScriptores 32 (Hannover, 1908), 652–74; Chronicon Generalium; Catalogus MinistrorumGeneralium (OFM), in Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 7 (1883), 322–52; AnalectaFranciscana 3, (1898), 693–707; and Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 2 (1909), 431–40;6 (1913), 785; 15 (1922), 333–48. Oswald Holder-Egger showed that the work waswritten after Bernard’s death. Maybe the author of this extant catalogue used anow-lost comparable work of Bernard.