About the Author

Virpi Makinen analyses the complex legal, moral and theological arguments for and against the Franciscan ideal of giving up all rights over property - an ideal that the Franciscans argued was in perfect imitation of Christ and the Apostles. Makinen pays particular attention to the concepts of rights, especially to the distinctions between dominion (dominium), right (ius) and factual use (usus facti). She discusses the arguments made by both the defenders of the Franciscan claim of apostolic poverty (Bonaventure and Bonagratia of Bergamo) and the attackers, most of whom were secular clerics (such as William of Saint-Amour, Gerard of Abbeville, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines). Makinen then analyses the support the Order received from the papacy and how this support was undermined by Pope John XXII's vehement attack on the Franciscans in the 1320's. The book shows how the debate concerning Franciscan poverty gave rise to a new language of rights, which paved the way to the idea of individual natural rights.