Early life Francis of Assisi was born , one of the children of an Italian father, Pietro di Bernardone dei Moriconi, a prosperous silk merchant, and a French mother, Pica di Bourlemont, about whom little is known except that she was a noblewoman originally from
Provence. Indulged by his parents, Francis lived a high-spirited life, typical of a wealthy young man. As a youth, he became a devotee of
troubadours and was fascinated with all things
Transalpine. Around 1202, Francis joined a military expedition against
Perugia and was taken as a prisoner at Collestrada. He spent a year as a captive, during which an illness caused Francis to re-evaluate his life. However, upon his return to Assisi in 1203, Francis returned to his carefree life. Two years later, Francis left for
Apulia to enlist in the army of
Walter III, Count of Brienne. A strange vision made him return to Assisi and lose interest in worldly life. When the priest refused to accept the ill-gotten gains, an indignant Francis threw the coins on the floor. For the next couple of months, Francis wandered as a beggar in the hills behind Assisi. He spent some time at a neighbouring monastery working as a
scullion. Francis then went to
Gubbio, where a friend gave him alms, the cloak, girdle and
staff of a pilgrim. Returning to Assisi, Francis traversed the city, begging stones for the restoration of St. Damiano. These he carried to the old chapel, set in place himself, and rebuilt it over time. Over the course of two years, Francis embraced the life of a
penitent, during which he restored several ruined chapels in the countryside around Assisi, among them San Pietro in
Spina (in the area of San Petrignano in the valley about a kilometre from modern
Rivotorto, on private property and once again in ruin); and the
Porziuncola, the little chapel of
St. Mary of the Angels in the plain just below the town. Upon entry to Rome, the brothers encountered Bishop Guido of Assisi, who had in his company
Giovanni di San Paolo, the
Cardinal Bishop of Sabina. The Cardinal, who was the confessor of Pope Innocent III, was immediately sympathetic to Francis and agreed to represent Francis to the Pope. After several days, the Pope agreed to admit the group informally, adding that when God increased the group in grace and number, they could return for an official audience. The group was
tonsured. This was important in part because it recognized Church authority and prevented his following from accusations of heresy, as had happened to the
Waldensians decades earlier. Though a number of the pope's counsellors considered the mode of life proposed by Francis to be unsafe and impractical, following a dream in which he saw Francis holding up the
Lateran Basilica, he decided to endorse Francis's order. Per tradition, this occurred on 16 April 1210 and constituted the official founding of the
Franciscan Order. The group, then the "Lesser Brothers" (
Order of Friars Minor also known as the
Franciscan Order or the
Seraphic Order), were centred in the Porziuncola and preached first in Umbria, before expanding throughout Italy. Francis was later ordained a deacon, but not a priest. He gave Clare a
religious habit, a garment similar to his own, before lodging her, her younger sister Caterina, and other young women in a nearby monastery of
Benedictine nuns until Francis could provide a suitable monastery. Later, he transferred them to San Damiano, to a few small huts or cells. This became the first monastery of the Second Franciscan Order, currently known as
Poor Clares.
Travels Determined to bring the Gospel to all peoples and let God convert them, Francis sought on several occasions to take his message out of Italy. In approximately 1211, a
captain of the
Medrano family held the lordship of the castle and town of
Agoncillo, situated near the city of
Logroño, in the region of
La Rioja, Spain. Medrano's son was suffering from a mysterious and untreatable ailment. In 1211, Saint Francis of Assisi roamed those very paths of Agoncillo. In a saintly manner, he visited Medrano's
Agoncillo castle, placed his mystical hands upon the ailing boy and
miraculously healed him, securing the Medrano lineage in Agoncillo. The mountain would become one of his favourite retreats for prayer. During the
Fifth Crusade in 1219, Francis went to Egypt where a Crusader army had been encamped for over a year
besieging the walled city of Damietta. He was accompanied by Friar
Illuminatus of Arce and hoped to convert the
Sultan of Egypt or be martyred in the attempt. The Sultan,
Al-Kamil, a nephew of
Saladin, had succeeded his father as Sultan of Egypt in 1218 and was encamped upstream of Damietta. A bloody and futile attack on the city was launched by the Christians on 29 August 1219, following which both sides agreed to a ceasefire that lasted four weeks. Probably during this interlude, Francis and his companion crossed the Muslims' lines and were brought before the Sultan, remaining in his camp for a few days. Reports give no information about what transpired during the encounter beyond noting that the Sultan received Francis graciously and that Francis preached to the Muslims. He returned unharmed. No known Arab sources mention the visit. According to some late sources, the Sultan gave Francis permission to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land and even to preach there. All that can safely be asserted is that Francis and his companion left the Crusader camp for
Acre, from where they embarked for Italy in the latter half of 1220. Drawing on a 1267 sermon by
Bonaventure, later sources report that the Sultan secretly converted or accepted a death-bed baptism as a result of meeting Francis. Whatever transpired as a result of Francis’ and al-Kamil’s meeting the Franciscans have maintained a presence in the
Holy Land almost uninterrupted since 1217 and remain there (see
Custody of the Holy Land). They received concessions from the
Mameluke Sultan in 1333 with regard to certain Holy Places in
Jerusalem and
Bethlehem and (so far as concerns the Catholic Church) jurisdictional privileges from
Pope Clement VI in 1342.
Reorganization of the Franciscan Order (by
Master of St. Francis) The growing order of friars was divided into
provinces; groups were sent to France, Germany, Hungary and Spain and to the East. Upon receiving a report of the martyrdom of five brothers in
Morocco, Francis returned to Italy via
Venice. Cardinal
Ugolino di Conti was then nominated by the pope as the protector of the order. Another reason for Francis' return to Italy was that the Franciscan Order had grown at an unprecedented rate compared to previous religious orders, but its organizational
sophistication had not kept up with this growth and had little more to govern it than Francis' example and simple rule. To address this problem, Francis prepared a new and more detailed Rule, the "First Rule" or "Rule Without a
Papal Bull" (
Regula prima,
Regula non bullata), which again asserted devotion to poverty and the apostolic life. However, it also introduced a greater institutional structure, though this was never officially endorsed by the pope. Brother Peter was succeeded by
Brother Elias as
Vicar of Francis. Two years later, Francis modified the "First Rule", creating the "Second Rule" or "Rule With a Bull", which was approved by Pope Honorius III on 29 November 1223. As the order's official rule, it called on the friars "to observe the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience without anything of our own and in chastity". In addition, it set regulations for discipline, preaching and entering the order. Once the rule was endorsed by the pope, Francis withdrew increasingly from external affairs. In 1221 and 1222, he crossed Italy, first as far south as
Catania in Sicily and afterwards as far north as
Bologna.
Stigmata, final days and sainthood part of the
Imitation of Christ. by
Cigoli, 1699 While Francis was praying on the mountain of Verna, during a 40-day fast in preparation for
Michaelmas (29 September), he is said to have had a vision on 17 September 1224, three days after the feast of the
Exaltation of the Cross, following which Francis displayed
stigmata resembling the wounds on the hands and feet of crucified Christ. Brother Leo, who had been with Francis at the time, left a clear and simple account of the event, the first definite account of the phenomenon of stigmata. "Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ." The apparent stigmata have been thought to be due to
purpura on the hands and feet, a known complication of the quartan malaria Francis is thought to have suffered from. In the end, he was brought back to a hut next to the Porziuncola. Here, Francis spent his last days dictating his
spiritual testament. Francis died on the evening of Saturday, 3 October 1226, singing
Psalm 141, "Voce mea ad Dominum". On 16 July 1228, Francis was declared a saint by Pope
Gregory IX (the former cardinal Ugolino di Conti, a friend of Francis and Cardinal Protector of the Order). The next day, the pope laid the foundation stone for the
Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. Francis was buried on 25 May 1230, under the Lower Basilica, but his tomb was soon hidden on orders of Brother Elias to protect it from
Saracen invaders. Francis' burial place remained unknown until it was rediscovered in 1818. Pasquale Belli then constructed a crypt for the remains in the Lower Basilica. It was refashioned between 1927 and 1930 into its present form by Ugo Tarchi. In 1978, the remains of Francis were examined and confirmed by a commission of scholars appointed by
Pope Paul VI and put into a glass urn in the ancient stone tomb. His skeleton was put on public display for the first time in 2026. In 1935, Edward Frederick Hartung concluded that Francis had probably contracted
trachoma while in Egypt, and had died, aged 45, of
quartan malaria. This interpretation was published in the
Annals of Medical History. ==Character and legacy==