Francis of Assisi and the Friars Minor

Near the end of his life Francis of Assisi described his own beginning. When he was “in sin” the sight of lepers was bitter to him; the Lord led him among them, he showed them mercy, and what had been bitter became sweet. Soon afterwards he “left the world” (Francis of Assisi, Testament). His first biographer, Thomas of Celano, writing within three years of his death, tells how he sold cloth and a horse, offered the money to the priest of the ruined church of San Damiano outside Assisi, and, when his father brought him before the bishop, stripped naked and handed back his clothes (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 8–9, 14–15).

He repaired San Damiano and, later, the chapel of Saint Mary at the Portiuncula. There, Celano says, he heard the Gospel in which Christ sends out his disciples without gold, wallet, shoes or a second tunic, and cried out that this was what he wanted. He put on one rough tunic with a cord (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 21–22). Others joined him. Francis writes that no one showed him what to do, but that the Most High revealed to him that he should live “according to the form of the holy Gospel”; he had it written down in a few words, and the pope confirmed it (Francis of Assisi, Testament). Celano adds the detail: Francis went to Rome with his brothers, and Innocent III granted their request, blessed them and sent them to preach repentance (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 32–33). Francis named them the Lesser Brothers, the Friars Minor (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 38).

At San Damiano a community of women began under Clare of Assisi, a noblewoman of Assisi whom Francis had turned to this life (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 18–20).

On 29 November 1223 Honorius III confirmed the brothers’ Rule (Rule of the Friars Minor (1223) bull of confirmation). It binds them to observe the Gospel in obedience, without property and in chastity, forbids them to accept money or to make any house or place their own, and promises obedience to the pope (Rule of the Friars Minor (1223) chs. 1, 4, 6).

Celano reports that two years before his death, at the hermitage of La Verna, Francis saw in a vision a man like a seraph fixed to a cross, and that the marks of nails then appeared in his hands and feet and a wound in his side (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 94–95). While ill at San Damiano he composed in Italian the praises of God for brother sun, sister moon and “our sister, the bodily death” (Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Sun). He died at the Portiuncula in October 1226 (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 88). Gregory IX canonized him at Assisi less than two years later (Thomas of Celano, First Life of Francis 126).

The Rule forbade the brothers to preach in any diocese against its bishop’s will, and had them ask the pope for a cardinal to be the order’s governor, protector and corrector (Rule of the Friars Minor (1223) chs. 9, 12). In his Testament Francis forbade the brothers to seek privileges from the Roman curia or to add glosses to the Rule (Francis of Assisi, Testament).