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Saints Life of a Saint

Saint Francis of Assisi

Feast 4 October · Born 1181 AD, Assisi, Duchy of Spoleto (Umbria, Italy) · Died 1226 AD, St Mary of the Angels at the Porziuncola, below Assisi (Umbria, Italy)

The cloth merchant's son who gave back his clothes, begged his bread, and came down a Tuscan mountain marked with the stigmata.

Begin the life
A half-length fresco portrait of a bearded friar in a hooded brown habit tied with a knotted cord, facing forward with one hand raised to his chest, against a dark background bearing the painted inscription of his name.
Frater Franciscus — bust detail of the portrait of St. Francis in the Sacro Speco, Anonymous, attributed to a Benedictine of Subiaco, c. 1224–1229 AD (the Catholic Encyclopedia associates it with the saint's visit of about 1218 AD)

In brief

Saint Francis of Assisi was born about 1181 AD at Assisi, son of Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy cloth merchant. He gave his father back the money and the clothes he had of him, and lived afterwards by begging. The bull Mira circa nos set his feast on October 4, the day it names as his entry into the kingdom of heaven.

  1. 1181–1203 AD

    A merchant's son at Assisi

    He learned the cloth trade, led the young men of the city, and came home from a Perugian prison after more than a year.

    His mother, Pica, had him baptised John. His father was away in France on business and renamed the boy Francesco on his return. Grown, St. Francis practised his father's trade and spent his profits on banquets and songs.

    Perugia beat Assisi in the plain in 1202 AD, and St. Francis was taken prisoner. He was held more than a year and caught a low fever there. He alone kept company with a knight the other prisoners shunned.

    “What think ye of me? I shall be worshipped by the whole world.”
    St. Francis of Assisi

  2. 1204–1205 AD

    Turned back at Spoleto

    A knight's outfit, a voice on the road south, and a leper met in the plain below the town.

    After a long sickness St. Francis found that neither the fields nor the vineyards could delight him. He fitted himself out in the costliest stuffs he could get to be made a knight in Apulia. He got as far as Spoleto, fell ill, and heard a voice ask why he left the lord for the servant.

    He turned home, and riding near Assisi he met a leper. He dismounted, gave the man money and kissed his hand. A few days later he went to the lepers' hospital and kissed every hand there.

    “The Lord gave to me, Brother Francis, thus to begin to do penance; for when I was in sin it seemed to me very bitter to see lepers, and the Lord Himself led me amongst them and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, that which had seemed to me bitter was changed for me into sweetness of body and soul.”
    St. Francis of Assisi, 1226 AD

  3. 1205–1206 AD

    He gives back the clothes

    A crucifix in a ruinous church, a father who locked him up, and a mother who let him go.

    St. Francis stands stripped in the bishop's court at Assisi with his hands joined, Bishop Guido drawing his own mantle round him, while Pietro Bernardone is held back on the left with the folded clothes over his arm.
    Legend of St. Francis, scene 5: Renunciation of Worldly Goods, Giotto di Bondone, 1297–1300 AD Giotto di Bondone, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi

    Praying before the crucifix at San Damiano, St. Francis was told to repair the house he saw falling into ruin. He took cloth from his father's stock, sold it with his horse at Foligno, and carried the money to the priest. Pietro Bernardone dragged him home and shut him for many days in a dark place.

    His mother broke his bonds and let him go while her husband was away. Before Bishop Guido he took off everything and laid the clothes with the money on the floor. The bishop put his arms round him and covered him with his own pall.

    “Hear all ye, and understand:—until now have I called Peter Bernardone my father, but, for that I purpose to serve the Lord, I give back unto him the money, over which he was vexed, and all the clothes that I have had of him, desiring to say only, "Our Father, Which art in Heaven," not "my father, Peter Bernardone."”
    St. Francis of Assisi, 1206 AD

  4. 1207–1211 AD

    A rule in few words

    Stones carried through Assisi, a Gospel heard at Mass, and eleven men on the road to Rome.

    St. Francis begged stones through the streets and rebuilt San Damiano on his own shoulders. At Mass at the Porziuncola he heard Christ send out the disciples without money, shoes or staff. He put off his shoes and made a tunic of the roughest stuff in the shape of a cross.

    Bernard of Quintavalle sold everything he had and gave it among the poor of the city. With eleven brethren St. Francis went to Rome, and Pope Innocent III approved his rule by word and told them to preach repentance. Back in Umbria the brothers lived on begged turnips in a forsaken hovel at Rivo Torto.

    “This is that which I am fain with all my might to fulfil.”
    St. Francis of Assisi, 1208 AD

  5. 1212–1219 AD

    St. Clare, the birds and the sultan

    A young heiress at the Porziuncola by torchlight, a flock near Bevagna, and a crossing into the enemy camp.

    Saint Clare of Assisi, an heiress of eighteen, left her father's house by night for the Porziuncola. St. Francis cut off her hair and clothed her in the Minorite habit. He afterwards settled her, her sister Agnes and the other maidens at San Damiano.

    Near Bevagna he found a great number of birds and begged them to hear the word of God. In 1219 AD he sailed from Ancona for Saint-Jean d'Acre, and a few days after landing he set out for Egypt, where the crusaders were concentrated before Damietta. The sultan's men seized and beat him, and Malik al-Kamil then heard him very willingly.

    “My brother birds, much ought ye to praise your Creator, and ever to love Him who has given you feathers for clothing, wings for flight, and all that ye had need of. God has made you noble among His creatures, for He has given you a habitation in the purity of the air, and, whereas ye neither sow nor reap, He Himself doth still protect and govern you without any care of your own.”
    St. Francis of Assisi

  6. 1220–1223 AD

    He gives up the order

    He came home to fasts he had never asked for, handed the government to another man, and made a manger at Greccio.

    St. Francis kneels in a friar's habit in the sanctuary at Greccio holding a child above the manger, with the ox and the ass behind him, clergy singing at a lectern and the townspeople pressed at the screen.
    Legend of St. Francis, scene 13: Institution of the Crib at Greccio, Giotto di Bondone and workshop, 1296–1298 AD Giotto di Bondone and workshop, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi

    News reached St. Francis in the East that his vicars had imposed fasts the rule never required. At the Michaelmas chapter of 1220 AD he handed the direction of the order to Peter of Cattaneo. The friars could not restrain their tears.

    Pope Honorius III sealed the Rule of the Friars Minor on November 29, 1223 AD. That Christmas he had a manger, hay, an ox and an ass made ready at Greccio. Being a deacon, he chanted the Gospel over the manger and preached on the birth of the poor King.

    “If thou wilt that we celebrate the present festival of the Lord at Greccio, make haste to go before and diligently prepare what I tell thee. For I would make memorial of that Child who was born in Bethlehem, and in some sort behold with bodily eyes His infant hardships; how He lay in a manger on the hay, with the ox and the ass standing by.”
    St. Francis of Assisi, December 1223 AD

  7. 1224–1225 AD

    The seraph on La Verna

    He came down the mountain with the wounds of the Crucified, and made a song of praise when he could no longer see.

    St. Francis kneels on the bare rock of La Verna with his head lifted as a six-winged crucified seraph appears above him and rays strike his hands, feet and side, while Brother Leo sits reading below.
    Legend of St. Francis, scene 19: Stigmatization of St. Francis, Giotto di Bondone, 1297–1300 AD Giotto di Bondone, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi

    Praying on Mount La Verna in September 1224 AD, St. Francis saw a six-winged seraph bearing the figure of a man crucified. The stigmata opened in his hands, in his feet and in his right side. He hid the marks, and told the vision only when Brother Illuminato pressed him.

    His sight failed, and doctors at Rieti cauterised his head from ear to eyebrow to no purpose. Almost blind, in a hut of reeds in the garden at San Damiano, he made the Canticle of the Creatures.

    “Praise be to Thee, my Lord, with all Thy creatures, / Especially to my worshipful brother sun, / The which lights up the day, and through him dost Thou brightness give; / And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great; / Of Thee, most High, signification gives.”
    St. Francis of Assisi, 1225 AD

  8. 1226–1228 AD

    Naked on the ground

    Carried home under guard, he ended where he had begun, and Rome enrolled him among the saints within two years.

    At the bishop's palace in Assisi, John Good, a leech of Arezzo, told him his dropsy was incurable and named the month of his death. He added to the Canticle the verses on the death of the body. In July 1226 AD he was carried home to Assisi by a roundabout road, away from Perugia.

    He had himself borne down to the Porziuncola, where the order had begun. He took off his habit, lay down naked on the bare ground, and died on the evening of October 3, 1226 AD. Pope Gregory IX numbered him among the saints at Assisi on July 16, 1228 AD.

    “I have done my duty, may Christ teach you yours.”
    St. Francis of Assisi, October 3, 1226 AD

Pray with the Church

Prayer to Obtain Divine Love

A prayer of St. Francis whose authenticity rests on St. Bernardine of Siena and Ubertino da Casale and is accepted by the Quaracchi editors; translated by Paschal Robinson OFM, 1906 AD.

I beseech Thee, O Lord, that the fiery and sweet strength of Thy lovemay absorb my soul from all things that are under heaven,that I may die for love of Thy loveas Thou didst deign to die for love of my love.

All 12 reports on Saint Francis of Assisi

A medieval fresco of the Madonna enthroned with the Child in a gilded throne, flanked by four angels, with St. Francis standing barefoot in a brown habit at the right against a blue background.

Today is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, eight hundred years after his death in 1226 AD, and it falls in a special Year of St. Francis. Until January 10, 2027 AD, pilgrims to Franciscan churches and to churches named for him can receive a plenary indulgence. It remits all the punishment still owed for sins already forgiven, and the sick can receive it at home.

Edition of · 5 min read

A painting in a medieval style shows a thin, tonsured friar with bandaged feet lying on sackcloth outside a thatched hut, surrounded by kneeling, praying friars in grey-brown habits, one reading from a book, with a veiled woman kneeling at the left, a small stone chapel at the right and a row of small brown birds on the roof.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of buon fresco of the Assisi cycle, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 19: Stigmatization of St. Francis (Giotto di Bondone, 1297–1300 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

column · THE PORZIUNCOLA, Assisi, October 3, 1226 AD

St. Francis dies in a borrowed habit, after lying naked on the earth

Saint Francis of Assisi died at nightfall on October 3, 1226 AD, in a hut beside the chapel of the Porziuncola below Assisi. In his last hours he had the brothers take off his habit and lay him naked on the ground, so that he would die owning nothing. The brother he had promised to obey then lent him a habit to wear.

Edition of · 4 min read

A painted standing figure of St. Clare of Assisi in a brown habit and dark veil, with a gold halo and a white lily in her left hand, framed by a pointed Gothic arch against a blue ground.
place · SAN DAMIANO, below Assisi, October 4, 1226 AD

St. Clare's sisters kiss St. Francis's wounded hands at their choir window

The morning after Saint Francis died at the Porziuncola, the people and clergy of Assisi carried his body up toward the town and stopped at San Damiano, where Saint Clare and her sisters live enclosed. The friars held him at the small window between the church and the sisters' choir, keeping a promise he had sent St. Clare in his last week. The sisters wept and kissed his wounded hands before the procession went on to the church of St. George.

Edition of · 3 min read

A painting in an early Italian style: a tonsured, bearded friar in a patched grey-brown habit kneels on a stony path with his hands joined, looking back at a rocky peak crowned by small stone buildings, while a friar holding a saddled brown horse and five other barefoot friars stand behind him.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of the Assisi frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 19: Stigmatization of St. Francis (Giotto di Bondone, 1297–1300 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

event · MOUNT LA VERNA, Tuscany, September 30, 1224 AD

St. Francis kneels on the mountain path to say goodbye to La Verna

Saint Francis of Assisi left Mount La Verna on September 30, 1224 AD, at the end of a forty days' fast, too weak to walk. He came down with the wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side, and he hid them from almost everyone. Where the path last showed the mountain, he knelt and told it they would never see each other again.

Edition of · 4 min read

A painting in muted earth tones of barefoot, tonsured friars in patched grey-brown habits gathered before a small stone chapel and straw huts below a hill town, some weeping and kneeling, while one small friar lies face down with arms outstretched at the feet of another who stands looking down at him.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of buon fresco of the Assisi cycle, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 13: Institution of the Crib at Greccio (Giotto di Bondone and workshop, 1296–1298 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

event · ASSISI, Umbria, September 29, 1220 AD

St. Francis lies at a friar's feet and promises to obey him

Saint Francis of Assisi gave up the leadership of the Friars Minor at the order's Michaelmas chapter at the Porziuncola, a week after Pope Honorius III ordered a year's trial for every new recruit. He lay face down before Brother Peter of Cattaneo, promised to obey him, and in prayer handed the brothers over to God and to the order's ministers.

Edition of · 4 min read

Five barefoot friars in patched grey-brown habits tied with knotted ropes stand and crouch around a small table in a bare white room, reading an opened sheet of parchment with a round lead seal hanging from it, an arched opening on the right showing a hill town and green country.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of buon fresco at Assisi, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 13: Institution of the Crib at Greccio (Giotto di Bondone and workshop, 1296–1298 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

writings · VITERBO, Papal States, September 22, 1220 AD

Pope Honorius III sets a year's wait on joining St. Francis's friars

A letter of Pope Honorius III, sealed at Viterbo on September 22, orders the Friars Minor to admit no one to vows until he has spent a year on trial. It forbids any friar who has taken vows to leave, and any man in their habit to travel without permission. Until now a man joined by telling Saint Francis of Assisi he wanted to live the Gospel with him and giving away everything he owned.

Edition of · 4 min read

A small, gaunt friar in a hooded undyed tunic tied with a knotted rope kneels barefoot on a grey mountain ledge, hands drawn to his chest and face lifted toward an empty sky, with four small birds on the rock beside him and a stone chapel and hut behind him above a wooded valley.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of medieval Italian fresco painting of the Assisi cycle, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 19: Stigmatization of St. Francis (Giotto di Bondone, 1297–1300 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

event · MOUNT LA VERNA, the Casentino, September 14, 1224 AD

On La Verna, the wounds of Christ open in St. Francis's flesh

St. Francis of Assisi came out of prayer on the side of Mount La Verna today with the wounds of the crucified Christ in his hands, his feet and his side. He had come up in August with three of his brothers to keep a forty days' fast and to find out what God wanted of him. He hid the marks, and it took Brother Illuminato to argue him into saying they were there.

Edition of · 4 min read

A medieval Italian wall painting of a barrel-vaulted stone prison room where nine men in red, rose and blue medieval dress sit slumped against the walls or lie on the straw floor, while a young man in a red belted gown stands at the centre speaking to them with his hands open and a chain at his wrist, and two small brown birds perch on the sill of a barred window high in the far wall.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of buon fresco on lime plaster of the Assisi cycle, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 1: Homage of a Simple Man (Giotto di Bondone, 1296–1298 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

feature · PERUGIA, Umbria, November 1203 AD

Saint Francis of Assisi goes home after a year in Perugia's prison

Assisi went to war with Perugia last year and was beaten in the plain between the two cities. Saint Francis of Assisi, then about twenty, was taken prisoner with the other townsmen and held at Perugia for more than a year. He stayed cheerful, told the men who mocked him that the whole world would honour him, and now that arbitrators have settled the quarrel he is walking home ill.

Edition of · 3 min read

A medieval wall painting of a stone prison room in which a young man with dark hair and a thin beard sits talking to a heavier, grey-haired man in a red tunic, both chained, with a helm, mail and shield on the straw-strewn floor, four men sitting with their backs turned along the far wall, and a small bird on the ledge of a barred window.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of buon fresco of the Assisi cycle, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 1: Homage of a Simple Man (Giotto di Bondone, 1296–1298 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

Junior Report · PERUGIA, Umbria, 1202 AD

Saint Francis sold cloth. Perugia locked him in with knights.

Assisi lost a battle to the city of Perugia in 1202 AD, and Saint Francis of Assisi was taken prisoner. Perugia held the captured knights apart from the townsmen, and put St. Francis in with the knights. He was a cloth merchant's son, and three men who knew him say his manner is what got him there.

Edition of · 3 min read

A medieval Italian painting of a barefoot friar in a patched grey-brown tunic and knotted rope girdle sitting on straw inside a low round hut of reeds in a walled garden, with two tonsured companions on the grass beside him, one of them writing on a sheet of parchment, a small stone church and an Umbrian hill town behind, and brown birds standing on the ground nearby.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of buon fresco of the Assisi cycle, from the paper's reference portrait based on Legend of St. Francis, scene 19: Stigmatization of St. Francis (Giotto di Bondone, 1297–1300 AD, Upper Church, Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi) View source artwork.

writings · SAN DAMIANO, below Assisi, September 1225 AD

Blind at San Damiano, St. Francis makes the Praises of the Creatures

Saint Francis of Assisi has composed the Praises of the Creatures, the poem now called the Canticle of the Sun, in a hut of reeds in the monastery garden at San Damiano below Assisi. He is almost completely blind from a disease of the eyes and has been at San Damiano since the end of July. The poem praises God through brother sun, sister moon, brother wind, sister water, brother fire and our sister mother earth, and he has taught his companions to sing it.

Edition of · 4 min read

A medieval Italian wall painting of a crusader camp on a riverbank: three barefoot friars in patched brown tunics with rope girdles stand at the left, one turned toward the camp, while soldiers in rose tunics carry wounded men on a cloth among canvas tents, with the closed mud-brick walls and towers of Damietta across the water behind.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of buon fresco of the Assisi cycle, from the paper's reference portrait based on Frater Franciscus — bust detail of the portrait of St. Francis in the Sacro Speco (Anonymous, attributed to a Benedictine of Subiaco, c. 1224–1229 AD, Monastero del Sacro Speco, Subiaco) View source artwork.

event · BEFORE DAMIETTA, Egypt, 29 August 1219 AD

Crusaders beaten before Damietta with St. Francis in the camp

The crusading army attacked before Damietta today and was beaten, with Saint Francis of Assisi in the camp when it happened. Thomas of Celano writes that St. Francis warned the soldiers not to fight and was laughed at, and puts the losses at 6,000 killed and captured.

Edition of