not understand Francis’s conversion in this way. Accord-
ing to Bonaventure, Francis remained as impetuous as
always, and other elements of his character were altered
rather than rooted out. Bonaventure describes Francis
after his conversion as a great merchant because, like
the merchant of the gospel, Francis had found the pearl
of great price and single-mindedly sold everything to
obtain it; and as a man seeking knighthood as a loyal
soldier in the army of the great king, Christ, Bonaventure
describes Francis’s stigmata as the coat of arms of his
new lord; in feudal terms, everyone could see, from the
stigmata, exactly whose man Francis was.
After breaking with his family, Francis lived for a
while as a hermit and continued to help rebuild churches.
One of these churches, the Portiuncula (or Saint Mary
of the Angels), later became his headquarters when he
was in Assisi; this church remained his favorite place,
and he insisted that he be allowed to return there to die.
It was during a mass at the Portiuncula that Francis had
the experience which changed the focus of his religious
vocation: he heard the Gospel in which Jesus tells the
apostles to take nothing with them on their journey. In
cities like Assisi, possessions were taking an ever larger
role in shaping people’s lives and values; and Francis
was struck by Jesus’s call to the apostles to do without
them—even to do without necessities. This deeper
poverty would become a cornerstone of Francis’s way
of life.
In Francis’s unlikely story, perhaps nothing is more
surprising than the fact that he was soon joined by other
young men from Assisi and its environs. Within about
three years after he broke with his father, Francis had
a new family of some dozen “brothers” who shared his
work, his prayer, and his poverty; went begging with
him; and with him exhorted all they met to repent.
Bishop Guido of Assisi, among others, was support-
ive of Francis and his brothers; but certain people were
suspicious about these young laymen, who seemed to
them very like the Cathars of Umbria and Tuscany—en-
emies of the Roman church. Therefore, probably at the
urging of the bishop, Francis and his brothers went to
Rome in 1209 or 1210 to seek the support of Pope In-
nocent III for their way of life. Another surprising part of
Francis’s story is that he was able to see the pope; even
more surprising, or shocking, is that Innocent agreed to
allow the brothers to live by a simple rule, consisting
largely of scriptural passages, and to preach. But Inno-
cent knew what he was doing. The Cathars and other
heretical groups were attractive partly because, unlike
most of the leaders of the Roman church, they tried to
live as Jesus and the apostles had lived. Francis and his
band were, then, a potential counterforce; Innocent no
doubt perceived that Francis combined a zeal for the
apostolic life with a passionate loyalty to the church.
Innocent must also have been affected by those qualities
in Francis that made it diffi cult to say no to him. For
example, Francis was incapable of duplicity; what he
said was what he meant, and how he looked refl ected
what he really was.
Thus the Franciscan order was established and was
given the task of preaching penance. In the next decade,
the order grew from a small group of Umbrians into an
international brother hood. Just as Francis had attracted
followers in and around Assisi, he now—personally or
by repute—brought thousands to embrace a hard life of
preaching, working, and begging. His words and his ex-
ample spoke to many who found themselves confl icted
and unfulfi lled in a world where trade and personal
wealth were growing alongside desperate poverty. With
Francis as their model and guide, the Franciscans be-
came a great new army of the church.
Not long after the meeting with Innocent III, an event
as extraordinary as Francis’s own conversion took place;
as a result, the Franciscan order came to have sisters as
well as brothers. A young aristocratic woman of Assisi
named Clare left her family and joined Francis and his
brothers at the Portiuncula, where Francis tonsured
her and welcomed her into the band of poor people for
Christ. It is worth noting that Clare was hardly a tabula
rasa on which Francis wrote. She had an extraordinary
mother who traveled as a pilgrim to Jerusalem, and the
household in which Clare had been raised was devoted
to prayer and apostolic work. Still, Francis gave Clare a
focus for her religious concerns and desires. Clare soon
went to San Damiano, one of the churches Francis had
repaired, where she lived in a cloistered environment
with other sisters; and she developed a spirituality and
a way of life that constitute one of the grandest state-
ments ever made about the Christian life. However, she
always remained devoted to Francis and always turned
to him for guidance and support.
When Francis fi rst returned from Rome, he had no
clear idea about exactly what he and his brothers would
do—whether they would be essentially a contemplative
order or would live “in the world.” They decided on an
active life supported by both prayer and work; later, if
not at this moment, they based their decision on the fact
that Jesus had lived in the world. Thus Christ and the
apostles were the models for the Franciscan order.
The Franciscan friars were poor not only as individu-
als but as an institution. In this regard, their order was
quite different from traditional monasticism, in which
the individual brothers owned nothing but the monas-
tery itself was often quite rich. Francis had originally
envisioned the friars as working for their food and
other necessities, perhaps as transient laborers or farm
workers. They would beg only if they were unable to
provide necessities for themselves by manual labor. In
no circumstances were they to accept money, because
Francis was aware of the problems associated with it.FRANCIS OF ASSISI, SAINT