THE FOUNDING OF a new monastery in the early fifteenth century in the north of the Kingdom of Valencia enables us to review poverty as an ideology aimed to renew the Christianity that dominated late-medieval society. The monastery of the Sant Esperit (“Holy Spirit”) was one of the first of the observant type in the Crown of Aragon. The Observant movement arose from an ideal of poverty propounded by the same Franciscan friars who, at the same time, were combining economics with urban activities in a Christian market society and working to influence the ruling elites, beginning with the monarchy. It was a new approach to Christianity, but examining it enables us to appreciate how the notion of poverty changed rapidly at the start of the fifteenth century, fully affecting the ideological basis with which Christianity influenced society.

Introduction: Monastic Income according to the New Poverty

Ten kilometres from Sagunto and thirty-five from València, on the border of Gilet, lies the friary of Sant Esperit del Mont. While the Franciscan friary, still open today, retains very little of its medieval grandeur, one fundamental characteristic remains: its remote location. Surrounded by mountains and woods, it is not difficult to understand why, even centuries later, at the beginning of the fifteenth century it was built in this location for a group of Franciscans who advocated strict observance of the Franciscan Rule, constituting one of the first observant communities in the Crown of Aragon. If the isolated character of the friary encouraged adherence to the ideal of poverty, at the same time it was incapable of sustaining itself by practising alms. In fact, in addition to being far from Christian populations, the friars were surrounded by Muslims and the largest Jewish community in the Kingdom of Valencia, in Sagunto. To provide for the needs of the friars, Queen Maria de Luna, patroness of the friary, gave them a total of seven thousand shillings in the form of a perpetual income (i.e., censals) over lands from her family inheritance and populated mostly by Muslims.

At that time, censals were not considered contrary to the Franciscan Rule, but rather they were at the base of what the thinker and friar Francesc Eiximenis, involved in the new foundation from its inception, described theoretically in his works.