Cardinal Ugolino in its composition, and Francis was
always uncomfortable with some of the compromises
it contained.
Early on, Francis had wanted to do missionary work
outside the regions where Christianity was dominant;
and in 1219 he went to the Holy Land and preached to
the sultan, after having seen the army of the fi fth crusade
and predicted its failure. Apparently Francis impressed
the sultan, though without converting him to Christian-
ity. Francis’s journey established missionary activities
as a part of the work of the order; for several centuries,
Francis’s followers would be missionaries in Africa,
Asia, and the Americas. (The city of Los Angeles, for
example, is named for Saint Mary of the Angels—the
Portiuncola—because Franciscan friars established a
mission of that name there in the eighteenth century.)
As Francis became ill, and increasingly discouraged
about the development of an order that already looked
very different from the one he had founded, he spent
more time in prayer and contemplation. But he never
lost his zeal for bringing people to closer to Christ. For
instance, for a special Christmas mass at Greccio, he
placed a manger with an ox and an ass in the church.
Francis wanted people not just to commemorate the
birth of Christ but in some real way to experience it.
As his fi rst biographer said, “Out of Greccio he made
a new Bethlehem.”
In 1224, while he was on an extended retreat at La
Verna, a mountain in southern Tuscany, Francis had a
vision and received the stigmata, the fi ve wounds of
Christ. During the last two years of his life, he tried,
with some success, to keep these wounds hidden, but
news of them spread quickly after his death. People
interpreted this “new and unheard-of miracle” in vari-
ous ways. First, it was taken as evidence that Francis
was a mystic, one who experienced union with God in
some signifi cant, albeit temporary, way while on earth.
Second, God’s “seal”—the stigmata—were said to
signify that Francis’s way of life, and by extension the
life of the friars, was authentic and worthy of respect
and imitation. Third, the stigmata were said to mean that
Francis was more than just another holy man: he was a
saint among saints and uniquely Christlike.
A little more than two years after receiving the stig-
mata, Francis died at the Portiuncula. He was buried in
his former parish church, San Giorgio (which was later
incorporated into Santa Chiara); and immediately people
began to report that miracles of healing were taking
place at his tomb. In July 1228, his old friend Cardinal
Ugolino, now Pope Gregory IX, came to Assisi for the
offi cial proclamation of Francis’s sainthood. Gregory
also laid the cornerstone for a new burial church; by
1230, this new church was complete enough for the
translation of Francis’s body to it. From then to the
present, millions of pilgrims have come there to vener-
ate Saint Francis.
Francis was the founder of a new order and a man
whose personal life became widely known. For many
people, his spirituality, although rooted in tradition,
nevertheless revolutionized the practice of Christianity.
Francis focused on the humanity of Christ, teaching
that to know Christ one must be with him both at the
incarnation in Bethlehem (Greccio) and at the atone-
ment on Calvary (La Verna). Whereas much of Christian
practice in Francis’s day had its origins in monasteries
and the feudal aristocracy, Francis and his followers
were active in cities, seeking to explain and practice the
great truths of the faith in ways that would make sense
to urban people. Francis, who started by rebuilding
churches around Assisi, ultimately rebuilt the Roman
Catholic church itself.
Francis wrote several works, the most famous being
Canticle of the Creatures (or Canticle of Brother Sun).
The most recent edition in English of Francis’s writings
is Francis of Assisi: The Saint (1999), the fi rst volume
of Francis of Assisi: Early Documents; as of 2002, two
more volumes were projected, to include virtually all the
thirteenth-century sources for the life of Francis. Until
this work is completed, readers will still need to consult
Saint Francis of Assisi: Writings (1973).
See also Bonaventure, Saint; Clare, Saint;
Dante Alighieri, Innocent III, PopeFurther ReadingWritings by Francis
Francis of Assisi: The Saint, ed. Regis Armstrong, A. Wayne
Hellmann, and William Short. New York: New City, 1999.
(Vol. 1 of Francis of Assisi: Early Documents.)
Saint Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies—Eng-
lish Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of Saint Francis, ed.
Marion Habig. Chicago, Ill.: Franciscan Herald, 1973. (Later
Quincy, Ill.: Franciscan Press.)
Biographies
Bonaventure. Writings, ed. and trans. Ewert Cousins. Classics
of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist, 1978. (Includes
a translation of Bonaventure’s life of Saint Francis, Legenda
maior.)
Chesterton, G. K. Saint Francis of Assisi. Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1957. (Originally published 1924.)
Cook, William R. Francis of Assisi: The Way of Poverty and
Humility. Vol. 8 of The Way of the Christian Mystics. Wilm-
ington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1989. (Later Collegeville,
Minn.: Liturgical Press.)
Englebert, Omer. Saint Francis of Assisi: A Biography, trans. Eva
Marie Cooper. Chicago, Ill.: Franciscan Herald, 1965. (Later
Quincy, Ill.: Franciscan Press.)
Fortini, Arnaldo. Francis of Assisi, trans. Helen Moak. New York:
Crossroad, 1981. (Edited translation of Fortini’s 2,000-page
biography of Francis; includes information about Assisi.)FRANCIS OF ASSISI, SAINT