Introduction by
Noel Muscat ofm
On the occasion of the feast of St. Francis we are also posting a complete English translation of Heribert Holzapfel’s Handbuch der Geschichte des Franziskanerordens, published in 1909, exactly 101 years ago. This classic of Franciscan History provides a manual for study that is still a milestone in historical research on the Franciscan Order, even though contemporary monographic studies on the theme have certainly come a long way from the traditional model of manuals covering entire centuries. Our aim is that of offering an English translation of the manual, which is the work of two Franciscan friars, Antoine Tibesar and Gervase Brinkmann, in a typed manuscript dated 1942. Holzapfel’s work was published also in Latin with the title Manuale Historiae Ordinis Fratrum Minorum in the same year 1909.
We are grateful for the kindness of Fr. Maximilian Wagner OFM, who in 2009 was still Minister Provincial of the Franciscan OFM Province of Bavaria, now incorporated with the other German provinces into the one OFM Province of St. Elizabeth, Germany, and who gave us permission to post this English translation on our website.
THIS TRANSLATION IS COPYRIGHT OF ANTONINE TIBESAR AND GERVASE BRINKMANN & NOEL MUSCAT 2009.
Free download here (History of the Franciscan Order by Heribert Holzapfel OFM – pdf)
Franciscan Studies 