I saw the movie. It was terrible, those monks behaving so bad, they behaved like the devil, not like Christian monks should behave. What happened to Christ's love, love your neighbor? They did not have Godly love as brothers in Christ. There was the cruelty and sadism of the inquisition, the monks taxed the poor peasants like the pagan selfish Roman empire would tax the poor.
That is medieval history. And Eco brings commentary on it through his narrative. I just read this littel peiece last evening. A different take on the story of St Francis preaching to birds.
Have you been told about his preaching to the birds?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard that beautiful story, and I admired the saint who enjoyed the company of those tender creatures of God,” I said with great fervor.
“Well, what they told you was mistaken, or, rather, it’s a story the order has revised today. When Francis spoke to the people of the city and its magistrates and saw they didn’t understand him, he went out to the cemetery and began preaching to ravens and magpies, to hawks, to raptors feeding on corpses.”
“What a horrible thing!” I said. “Then they were not good birds!”
“They were birds of prey, outcast birds, like the lepers. Francis was surely thinking of that verse of the Apocalypse that says: ‘I saw an angel standing in the sun; and -he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together at the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great!’ ”
