Entre a ordem menorita e o papado de Avinhão: as dimensões políticas da pobreza franciscana no Estado e Pranto da Igreja de Frei Álvaro Pais (Séc. XIV)

Abstract

The State and Lament of the Church (Estado e Pranto da Igreja, 1330–1335), written by the Galician Franciscan Álvaro Pais (1270–1349) during his stay in Avignon as apostolic confessor under the pontificate of John XXII, constitutes one of the most significant works of fourteenth-century canonistic literature. Produced within a context marked by disputes involving the papacy, the Empire, and the Franciscan Order, the work expresses not only a moral reflection on Christendom, but also a political and juridical elaboration concerning the relations between poverty, power, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Late Middle Ages.Drawing upon Aristotelian and Neoplatonic-Augustinian foundations, Álvaro Pais conceives Christendom as an organic body divided between the Ordo Clericorum and the Ordo Laicorum, whose harmony depended upon the submission of all social groups to the spiritual order represented by the Church. In this sense, the author advocates the need for a moral reform of the Ecclesia, especially within the mendicant orders, proposing as an ideal the evangelical poverty exemplified by Christ and the apostles, while nevertheless maintaining obedience to the Apostolic See. The question of Franciscan poverty occupies a central place in the work and must be understood within the context of intense internal dissensions within the Order of Friars Minor, particularly between the Spirituals and the Conventuals, as well as within the conflicts established between the Franciscans and the Avignon papacy during the pontificate of John XXII. Since its foundation in the early thirteenth century, the Franciscan Order had been structured around the ideal of absolute poverty; however, its gradual institutionalization, together with the increasing political and intellectual participation of friars in urban centers and universities, generated tensions concerning the interpretation of the Rule and the notions of use, dominion, and property.These disputes transcended the conventual sphere and acquired a broader political and ecclesiastical dimension, especially during the controversies involving John XXII and the defenders of the absolute poverty of Christ and the apostles. Within this context, Álvaro Pais, initially sympathetic to ideas associated with the usus pauper, later aligned himself with the papacy, becoming one of the principal defenders of pontifical hierocracy and of the superiority of spiritual authority over temporal power.Accordingly, this research seeks to analyze the ways in which the concept of poverty was articulated with notions of power and jurisdiction in Álvaro Pais’s work. Based on an approach linked to the New Political History and grounded in theoretical and methodological perspectives focused on political representations and discursive constructions, this study aims to understand how Franciscan poverty was transformed into a political problem during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as to investigate the political and theological uses of this category within the disputes involving the papacy, the Empire, and the Franciscan Order.