Afterword

Abstract

This afterword explores the connection between Francis of Assisi's note to Brother Leo and Michel Foucault's course of 1977–1978, especially the lectures delivered between February 8 and March 1, 1978. At the heart of the vast panorama that Foucault sketches from antiquity to modernity is the way the central and decisive place of the Middle Ages is revealed. The afterword then offers three reflections, concerning three encounters. On the social level, there was an encounter between the Christian pastorate and the feudal system, where the latter played the role of catalyst for pastoral potential. On the governmental level, Francis of Assisi's note to Leo signals another hybridity, between pastorate and motherhood, between pastoral power and maternal government. However, the confrontation between Clare of Assisi's experience and Francis's experience suggests that the governing position implies, to a more or less explicit degree and in a more or less pronounced manner, a reversal of gender. Ultimately, the afterword argues that the lesson of the Middle Ages is that that there is no such thing as a single, ideal form of democracy.