Saint James of the Marches (died 1476)

Birth and vocation

Dominic Gangala was born on 1 September 1393 (the English notice gives about 1391-1392) at Monteprandone, in the March of Ancona, to a poor family. The religious name he received on entering religion was James (Jacobus).^[5][6]

Before entering religion, he pursued brilliant legal studies: the Catholic Encyclopedia calls him a doctor of civil law at the University of Perugia (the Franciscan collection of Fr. Habig adds canon law), then tutor in a noble Florentine family, where he also served as a judge. He first thought of joining the contemplative Carthusians, then chose the active life in the school of Saint Francis.^[7][8]

He was received into the Order of Friars Minor on 26 July 1416, in the chapel of the Portiuncula at Assisi. (Some sources give 1415; the date of 26 July 1416 is the most precise and the most commonly retained.) He made his novitiate at the convent of the Carceri, a Franciscan hermitage above Assisi.^[9]

Formation under Saint Bernardine of Siena

After the novitiate, he studied theology at Fiesole, under the direction of Saint Bernardine of Siena, together with Saint John of Capistrano. The two fellow students would become the three great voices of the Franciscan Observance in the fifteenth century.^[10][11]

James then practised a very rigorous asceticism: he fasted nine months a year and, according to Fr. Habig's Franciscan collection, slept no more than three hours, on the bare ground, wore a hairshirt, disciplined himself daily and kept seven forty-day Lents a year on bread and water. Bernardine of Siena asked him to "moderate his penances" to spare his strength. He was ordained priest on 13 June 1420 (some sources give 1422).^[12][13]

Fifty years of preaching

From his ordination, James devoted himself to preaching. For nearly fifty years, he travelled through Tuscany, the Marches and Umbria, preaching conversion, penance and devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus (the IHS monogram popularized by Bernardine of Siena).^[14][15]

His word was that of a popular preacher: he addressed Italian towns, fairs and public squares. Devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, which he shared with Bernardine, became one of the marks of Franciscan preaching of the time.

Legations in Central Europe

From 1427, he was sent on legation to the Germanic and Danubian lands to combat heresy and preach the crusade against the Ottomans. His activity extended to Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary and Bosnia.^[16] In 1427 and 1428, he preached notably at Vienna, Augsburg, Regensburg, Ulm, Limburg, Brandenburg and Leipzig, and the crowds were so great that the churches no longer sufficed: he preached in the public squares.^[17] There he also preached several crusades against the Turks.^[18]

Several episodes mark this period:

• Inquisitor in Bosnia (1432-1433), then vicar of Bosnia (1435-1439). He opposed King Tvrtko II and Queen Dorothy, whom he accused of attempted poisoning.^[19] In Bosnia, he was also commissary of the Friars Minor.^[20] Pope Martin V had appointed him inquisitor to root out the heretical sects growing in Italy.^[21]
• At Basel, he supported the attempt at union with the Hussites.
• At Ferrara-Florence, he took part in the movement for union with the Orthodox Church. In 1438, he attended the Council of Florence and worked for the reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches.^[22]
• He founded several monasteries in Bohemia, Hungary and Austria.^[23]
• In 1456, he succeeded John of Capistrano in Hungary, in the wake of the defence of Belgrade.
• In 1457, he met the King of Denmark, Christian I.^[24]
• In 1455, he served as arbiter between the Conventuals and the Observants of the Franciscan order.^[25]

The montes pietatis

James of the Marches founded several montes pietatis (montes pietatis), charitable lending institutions created by the Franciscans to protect the poor from usury, by lending to them on pawn at a modest rate. This social work is one of the marks of fifteenth-century Franciscan preaching.^[26][27] Santi e Beati recalls its driving force: an ardent orator against avarice and usury, James imagined houses where the poor would pledge their goods at a minimal interest, instead of the crushing rate demanded by private moneylenders.^[28]

Against the Fraticelli

James was sent as inquisitor against the Fraticelli, a radical spiritual movement condemned by the papacy. For this occasion he composed the Dialogus contra Fraticellos ("Dialogue against the Fraticelli"), later published in the collection of Baluze-Mansi.^[29][30]

His action against the Fraticelli belongs to the broader movement of condemnation of spiritual dissent in the fifteenth century, and to the will to bring back to the unity of the Church the groups that refused pontifical authority.

The Precious Blood controversy at Brescia (1462)

On Easter Monday 1462, preaching at Brescia, James relayed the opinion of theologians according to which the Precious Blood of Christ, shed during the Passion, was not united to the divinity of Christ during the three days spent in the tomb. A Dominican inquisitor, James of Brescia, had him summoned. James refused to appear and appealed to Rome.^[31]

The case was heard at Christmas 1462 before Pope Pius II and the cardinals. No decision was ever rendered. The episode shows the liveliness of medieval theological debates on the Precious Blood and the mysteries of the dead Christ.^[32]

The Catholic Encyclopedia notice devoted to James of Brescia clarifies the framework of the debate: shortly before, Pius II had declared, by a bull written at Tivoli, that it was not contrary to the faith to hold that Christ had not taken back a portion of the blood shed during the Passion. The solemn disputation of Christmas 1462 set three Dominican theologians against the Minorite champions, including Francis della Rovere, the future Pope Sixtus IV. After three days of debate and consultation of the pope and cardinals, no definitive decision was pronounced; on 1 August 1464, two weeks before his death, Pius II forbade any further dispute on the subject.^[33]

The refused archbishopric of Milan

In 1460, the pope offered James of the Marches the see of Archbishop of Milan. He refused, faithful to his vocation as an itinerant preacher and to Franciscan poverty. This refusal is one of the traits of his traditional portrait: the man who flees honours.^[34][35] Fr. Habig's Franciscan collection reports the reply by which he declined:

"I have on earth no other desire than to do penance and to preach penance as a poor Franciscan."^[36]

The last three years of his life, James withdrew to Naples, where he died on 28 November 1476, at the age of eighty-three.^[37][38]

His body was first buried at Naples. In 2001, it was transferred to Monteprandone, his native town, where it is venerated today. Tradition reports that the body remained incorrupt.^[39] Fr. Habig's collection describes it preserved incorrupt in a crystal shrine, in the Franciscan church of Naples.^[40]

Santi e Beati reports his last words:

"Gesu, Maria. Benedetta la Passione di Gesu" ("Jesus, Mary. Blessed be the Passion of Jesus").^[41]

The Roman Martyrology enters him in these terms: "At Naples, the laying to rest of Saint James of the Marches, priest of the Order of Friars Minor, renowned for his preaching and the austerity of his life."^[42]

The writings of James of the Marches were never fully collected. Some of his autographs and his library are kept by the municipality of Monteprandone. Among the works attributed to him:^[43][44]

• Dialogus contra Fraticellos (printed in Baluze-Mansi)
• Unpublished sermons
• A treatise on the Miracles of the Name of Jesus
• An Itinerarium (travel notebook)
• Regula confitendi peccata ("Rule for confessing sins"), reprinted in Latin and Italian in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
• De Sanguine Christi effuse ("On the Shed Blood of Christ"), left in manuscript

The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia gives the precise state of this scattered work: the Dialogus is printed in the Baluze-Mansi collection, Miscellanea, volume II (Lucca, 1761); the many sermons remain unpublished, and some, with the treatise on the Miracles of the Name of Jesus, are recorded by Fr. Candido Mariotti (Fano, 1909); the travel notebook (Itinerarium) is described by Fr. Luigi Tasso in 1886; the library and autographs of Monteprandone are inventoried by Crivellucci (Livorno, 1889).^[45] The title page reproduced above belongs to the copy of La confessione digitized by the BEIC and distributed on Wikimedia Commons in the public domain.^[46]

Beatification and canonization

James of the Marches was beatified on 12 August 1624 by Pope Urban VIII, then canonized on 10 December 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII.^[47][48]

Feast

He is celebrated on 28 November, the date of his death (Franciscan order; Roman Martyrology).^[49][50] Santi e Beati enters him on 28 November, and the AnaStpaul chronicle carries him as saint of the day for 28 November.^[51][52]

Patronage and attributes

• Patron of Monteprandone and co-patron of Naples. Santi e Beati adds the patronage of the Marches, and AnaStpaul that of children.^[53][54]
• Invoked against gout.
• Iconographic attribute: a chalice from which a serpent emerges, an allusion to the attempted poisonings he is said to have suffered at the hands of heretics (tradition sometimes also sees in it a reference to the Precious Blood controversy, but this second reading is less certain).^[55]

Iconography

Iconography represents him:

• As a Franciscan, in the Observant habit, often with a book or a crucifix.
• With the chalice and the serpent, the attribute of his attempted poisonings.
• Sometimes preaching, or standing before a monte di pietà.

The painting by Francisco de Zurbaran ("Saint James of the Marches") preserves a significant representation of him.

The historical core is solid: an Italian Franciscan named James of the Marches (Dominic Gangala) lived between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, preached for half a century across Italy and Central Europe, combated the Fraticelli, founded montes pietatis, refused the archbishopric of Milan, and died at Naples in 1476. His beatification (1624) and canonization (1726) are dated and documented.^[56][57]

What cannot be affirmed with certainty:

1. The date of birth: 1 September 1393 (FR notice), about 1391-1392 (EN notice), 1394 (Santi e Beati) or 1 September 1391 (AnaStpaul).^[58][59]
2. The date of entry into the order: 1415 or 26 July 1416.
3. The date of ordination: 1420 (13 June) or 1422.
4. The state of the body: Fr. Habig's collection describes it incorrupt in its shrine at Naples, and AnaStpaul repeats this claim, while the FR notice reports the transfer of the body to Monteprandone in 2001.^[60][61][62]
5. The interpretation of the attribute of the chalice and the serpent (poisoning, or reference to the Precious Blood).

We have added no detail to the file: no invented speech, no miracle reported beyond what the cited sources state.

• Saint Bernardine of Siena: James's master at Fiesole, promoter of devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus.
• Saint John of Capistrano: James's fellow student, preacher of the Observance.