CHAPTER 6
CUMMINGS DEVICES
HISTORY
In the year of our Lord 1219, and the thirteenth year of his conversion, Brother Francis held a general chapter at Santa Maria della Porziuncola, and sent brethren to France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, and those provinces of Italy which the brethern had not yet reached.... The German mission was led by Brother John of Parma with some sixty or more brethren. When they were come into Germany, not knowing the language, and when men asked whether they desired lodging or meat or any such thing, they answered Ja, and thus received kindly welcome from some folk. Seeing therefore that this word procured them humane treatment, they resolved to answer Ja to all questions whatsoever. Wherefore, being once asked whether they were heretics, come now to infect Germany after the same fashion wherewith they had already perverted Lombardy, they answered Ja so that some were cast into prison, and others were stripped of their raiment and led to the common dancing-place where they were held up for a laughing-stock to the inhabitants. The brethren therefore, seeing that they could make no fruit in Germany, came home again; and this deed gave the brethren so cruel a report of Germany, that none dared return thither but such as aspired to martydom....
Jordan of Giano (in Ross, 1949)
Thomas Cummings taught languages of India to missionaries in the early part of this century, some seven hundred years after the Franciscans' disagreeable experiences
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