FRANCIS OF ASSISI
(Giovanni Bernardone)

(1181-1226)

Francis: An Overview

His Life and Works

His Legacy

His Writings

Francis was a man who in so many ways gave humankind a most visible characterization of the very nature of Jesus Christ ... deeply caring for others, especially the ones most likely to be rejected by society:  the poor, the outcasts (notably lepers), the most common of commoners.  But by the same spirit, he could bring the very wealthiest, most socially noble, to join him in the same work with the poor and outcast. He could identify with both worlds, high and low, because he was born into considerable wealth as a son of a very properous Italian cloth merchant.  Yet as a young soldier he fell into the lowest condition in life as a year-long prisoner in a horrible prison ... where finally the payment of a huge ransom brought him out of captivity ... but as a very sick person. But he early on found himself receiving words from God ... most mysteriously at first – and then by ever-deeper spiritual discipline (hours in prayer) as he developed. In 1206 or 1207, he received a totally life-changing call from God to "rebuild my church" – which he did (morally and spiritually), at first with some of his father's money.  This got him in deep trouble with his father (who expected his son simply to take up the family business) and local authorities.  And, to the shock of all, when brought before a town gathering presided over by the local bishop, and forced to make a choice of which road he was to take in life, he determined to shed himself of all earthly connections (including even the clothes he was wearing at the time!) in order to be able to pursue this religious calling    He at first supposed this call to "rebuild" was in reference to an abandoned and decaying chapel in the region, and proceeded to rebuild it himself, stone by stone.  This attracted onlookers, whom he engaged in discussions about God, Christ, salvation, etc.  Soon a crowd joined him in his work. Then he began to see his call in larger terms:  to devote himself to serving the hungry souls around him, especially those among the poor and socially marginal (something he had been doing for years, although originally only as a side line).  He had no plan, no long range goal except to live and serve as Christ had done, rebuilding Christian communities and aiding the poor, the sick and the outcast.  Soon joining him in his work was a whole community of fellow workers ... future Christian evangelists. Thankfully, he succeeded where the Waldensians failed – ultimately gaining papal authorization for his work in 1210, though he had come close to being declared one of the heretics bothering the institutional church in those days.  However, he was willing (though slow to actually do so) to put himself and his group under papal supervision.  Thus in 1210, his movement was recognized as the Friars Minor (lesser brothers) by Pope Innocent III.   But the Franciscans became fully organized under the subsequent pope Honorius III (1216-1227) as a newly-recognized monastic society ... through the considerable help of cardinal Ugolino.  Francis himself retreated more and more from the responsibilities of leadership, having little heart in seeing his movement institutionalized.  When he died in 1226, he died as a very simple monk within his own monastic order! But two years later, with Ugolina as the new pope Gregory IX (1227-1241), Francis was declared officially to be a Christian saint ... an unprededented speed by which this process occurred – so great had been the impact of Francis on his times (and even since then!).

Francis was born in Assissi, Italy, (supposedly) in early 1181, as Giovannie di Pietro de Bernardone.  His father was a successful cloth merchant and his mother a Province-born French noblewoman, Pica di Bourlemont.  In his infancy, his father – who loved doing business in France – gave him the nickname "Francesco" ("Frenchman") ... a name this his friends would know him by. In his youth, he was a typical in his behavior as one born to wealth and high social social status ... plus possessing a very adventuresome spirit – which made him something of a leader among his friends.  But he also had an inexplicable sympathy for the poor ... and outraged his father (and got mocked by his friends) when once he one went out of his way to give a beggar the money he had on him at the time. His life would change deeply when in 1202 as a young man he was captured in a battle waged between Assisi and Perugia.  The Assisi troops lost the battle ... and the slaughter of Francis's fellow soldiers was terrible to behold.  Francis was spared his life only because he was recognized to be of aristocratic status and thus valuable as a source of ransom money.  But he was imprisoned for a year under the most miserable of conditions ... awaiting his father's ransom payment.  In the process  he became quite ill.  But he also began to receive his first visions from God.  Upon his return finally to Assisi, he was still a very sick young man ... but was eventually able to take up once again his former high-spirited life.  But in 1205, deciding to enlist in the army of Gualtiero de Brienne, but along the way to Puglia he both fell ill and had a vision aolong the way, calling him to serve to God ... not man.  This turned him around and headed him back to Assisi ... a very changed person.  He found himself deeply committed to discover what the hand of God was doing in his life. One day he encountered a leper along the road, but instead of turning aside, Francis embraced him as a brother ... and the leper recovered from the shock to lead Francis to his community of fellow lepers.  From that point on, Francis would work to bring food and clothing to these social rejects ... and nurse them personally – as Christ would. This then led him on a pilgrimage to Rome ... when he placed himself among the beggars and found himself in regular prayer.  The vision "go and repair my house."  Upon his return to Assisi, he then (1206 or 1207) had another vision while at prayer in the nearby chapel of San Damiano – Jesus calling on Francis to "go and repair my house ... which is falling into ruins."  Then once again Francis would infuriate his father, when Francis sold some of his father's cloth and his horse to give money to the priest of San Damiano's, the "house" he presumed that he was instructed to "repair."  The priest, understanding the source of the money, refused to accept the gift ... but Francis refused to take it back.  Then, to escape his father's wrath over this event, for the next month Francis hid himself in a cave.  Finally he returned to face his father's anger.  Final confrontation with his father.  At this point his father was prepared for a public showdown with his son and had him brought before the local bishop and members of the city council for a public hearing ... forcing Francis to choose between his inheritance (and expected resumption of his father's clothing business) or the continuation of his present shocking behavior.  Reportedly, Francis answered by declaring that he served only God ... and then presented to his father all the clothes he was wearing – and headed off naked as a free man to continue the work he felt God was calling him to take up. From that point on he took up the life of a beggar, begging for the funds – even just the needed stones – to rebuild San Damiano's.  Soon he found himself joined by others touched by his sense of charity ... and the spiritual freedom his lifestyle represented.  And he found himself speaking to others of his faith ... actually preaching to them  – a serious crime at the time, for he was not properly licensed to do such preaching (others that had violated this iron rule, such as Peter Waldo and his Waldensians, had been condemned and harshly punished by the Church authorities). The founding of the Franciscans.  By 1209, with eleven disciples, Francis knew it was time to "regularize" his work, setting up the rules that he expected his followers to abide by ... and then heading to Rome to get his work accepted by Pope Innocent III.  In this, Francis had the assistance of the pope's confessor, Cardinal Giavanni di San Paolo.  At this point the Pope reluctantly went partway in authorizing Francis's unusual work ... until a dream he had in April of 1210 in which he saw Francis holding up the Pope's Lateran Basilica.  This decided Pope Innocent to give full recognition to Francis's Order of Friars Minor ("Lesser Brothers") ... or simply the Franciscan Order.  From that point on, the Franciscan Order grew rapidly ... including drawing the support and participation by even a number of Italian noblemen – deeply impressed by the message and lifestyle that Francis preached and lived. In 2011, moved deeply by Francis's preaching, the young noblewoman Clare of Assisi wanted to join this spiritual movement and came to Francis ... and got his support – for her sister and other women as well.  Francis gave them the same pauper's outfit his men wore and found for them some small huts where they could live.  Thus the Second Franciscan Order, that of the "Poor Clares" was founded. From that he expanded the Franciscan ministry by creating a Third Franciscan Order ... for those who would not leave their regular daily lives – but would seek to live those daily lives in accordance with Franciscan principles.  Thus was born the Secular Franciscan Order. By 1217 Franciscan friars were being sent to France, Spain, Germany, Hungary ... and to the Holy Lands in the East. Francis seeks to spread this life in Christ abroad.  Indeed, Francis himself set out in early 1212 for Jerusalem ... only to be shipwrecked by a storm in the Adriatic Sea and having to return to Italy.  The following year he set out for Morocco ... but got no further than Spain before he fell ill and again had to return to Italy. It would not be until 1219 that Francis would try again – Francis joining the Fifth Crusade and heading to Egypt ... not to fight the Muslims, but to bring them to Christ.  He boldly approached the walls of Damietta, an Egyptian port city that the crusaders had been besieging for over a year ... and requested a visit with the sultan, the nephew of Saladin.  The visit proved to be friendly ... though no conversion of the sultan to Christianity took place.  But the Sultan gave Francis permission to visit the Holy Land ... and even conduct his preaching there.  This Francis did, and was able to establish a strong Franciscan community there.  Then sometime in the second half of 1220 he returned to Italy. On his return to Italy, he had some organizational work to deal with ... especially in the face of the huge growth of his Franciscan Order.  A couple of efforts were made to keep things on track as a poverty ministry ... yet have it operate under a higher degree of discipline.  In 1220, after having put together a new Rule, he then turned the governance of the Order over to a fellow monk ... and took up the role as a simple monk . Nonetheless, his counsel was still needed ... and he was assigned the task of coming up with yet a new Rule ... which he drew up in 1223 and had Pope Honorius III endorse it as the Order's official rule.  Then Francis once again withdrew from much of the organizational activity of the Order – with Cardinal Ugolino di Conti nominated by the pope to be the Order's "protector." Then in 1224, when he was again in deep prayer, Francis received another vision ... and the "stigmata," wounds or scars on the hands and feet similar to where Jesus was nailed to the cross.  These wounds, plus the binding disease trachoma hit Francis hard ... and he would find himself struggling with his health from that point forward  until his death in October of 1226.

Very unprecedented in church history because of the speed by which it happened, two years after his death, Francis was declared a saint in July of 1228 by Pope Gregory IX (the former Cardinal Ugolino) in his first year in the papal office. Stories of the greatness of Francis would inspire so many in the years to come ... even down to today. Stories were told about how he loved wildlife as much as he loved human life ... and would actually preach to the birds ... who loved him.  This same love was also demonstrated in an encounter he had with a wolf that had been attacking farm animals an style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 120%; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif;">– and even occasionally people.  He approached the wolf with a deal:  the wolf was to stop his attacks ... on the promise that the locals would feed him.  The wolf submitted ... and followed Francis into town – a deeply changed wolfl! He was also credited with being the first to develop a crèche at Christmas, not only with Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, but also a straw-filled manger, complete with sheep, an ox and a donkey ... to give a simple but powerful representation of the nativity event – right there at the altar during the celebration of Christ's Mass (Christmas). The spread of Francis's vision – and growth in the numbers of people joining his new order – was/is unprecedented.  Within ten years after his death, the number of Franciscan friaries located across Europe and abroad was somewhere in the hundreds, by 1250 the number of Franciscan monks numbering around 30,000, and within fifty years after his death around a thousand friaries were in full operation. And yes, there was never any serious debate about how quickly he was sanctified!

Francis's major works or writings: Canticle of the Sun - 1224 Oratio ante Crucifixum (Prayer before the Crucifix) 1205 Admonitions - 1205-1209 Regula non bullata (the Earlier or First Rule) - 1221 Regula bullata (the Later or Second Rule) - 1223 Testament - 1226

Go to the history section: The High Middle Ages:  Cultural-Intellectual Stirrings (1100 to Late 1300s)

  Miles H. Hodges