So when Saint Francis happened to come to the place where the novice was, the novice said:  “Father, it would be a great comfort to me to have a psalter, but though my general should grant it, still I would rather have it, father, with your knowledge too.”  Saint Francis answered:  “The Emperor Charlemagne, Roland and Oliver, and all the palatines and strong men who were potent in battle, pursuing the infidels with much toil and sweat even to death, triumphed over them memorably [without writing it?], and at last these holy martyrs died in the contest for the faith of Christ.  But now there are many who, merely by telling of what those men did, want to receive honour and human praise.  So, too, among us are many who, merely by reciting and preaching the works which the saints have done, want to receive honour and praise; ...  After you have got the psalter, you will covet and want a breviary; and after getting the breviary, you will sit on your throne like a bishop, and will say to your brother:  ‘Bring me the breviary!’”

While saying this, Saint Francis with great vehemence took up a handful of ashes and spread it over his bead; and moving his hand about his head in a circle as though washing it, said:  “I, breviary!  I, breviary!” and so kept on, repeatedly moving his hand about his head; and stupefied and ashamed was that novice. ...  But several months afterwards when Saint Francis happened to be near Sta Maria de Portiuncula, by the cell behind the house on the road, the same brother again spoke to him about the psalter.  Saint Francis replied:  “Go and do about it as your director says.”  On this the brother turned back, but Saint Francis, standing in the road, began to reflect on what he had said, and suddenly called after him:  “Wait for me, brother! wait!” and going after him, said:  “Return with me, brother, and show me the place where I told you to do as your director should say, about the psalter.”  When they had come back to it, Saint Francis bent before the brother, and said:  “Mea culpa, brother, mea culpa! because whoever wishes to be a Minorite must have nothing but a tunic, as the rule permits, and the cord, and the loincloth, and what covering is manifestly necessary for the limbs.”

So vivid a picture of an actual mediaeval saint stands out upon this simple background as is hardly to be found elsewhere in all the records of centuries, but if the brother himself did not understand it and was so shamed and stupefied by Francis’s vehemence, the world could understand it no better; the Order itself was ashamed of Saint Francis because they understood him too well.  They hastened to suppress this teaching against science, although it was the life of Francis’s doctrine.  He taught that the science of the schools led to perdition because it was puffed up with emptiness and pride.  Humility, simplicity, poverty were alone true science.  They alone led to heaven.  Before the tribunal of Christ, the schoolmen would be condemned, “and, with their dark logic (opinionibus tenebrosis) shall be plunged into outer darkness with the spirits of the darkness.”  They were devilish, and would perish with the devils.