Life of St. Francis of Assisi

The last days of Francis's life are of radiant beauty. He went to meet death, singing,[1] says Thomas of Celano, summing up the impression of those who saw him then.

It was doubtless toward the spring of 1211 that the Brothers quitted Rivo-Torto. They were engaged in prayer one day, when a peasant appeared with an ass, which he noisily drove...

What did Ugolini think when they told him that Francis was planning to send his friars, transformed into _Joculatores Domini_, to sing up and down the country the Canticle of Br...

St. Francis was inspired as much as any man may be, but it would be a palpable error to study him apart from his age and from the conditions in which he lived.

In the renascence of history which is in a manner the characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and erudition. We...

Art and poetry have done well in inseparably associating St. Dominic and St. Francis; the glory of the first is only a reflection of that of the second, and it is in placing the...

Clara[1] was born at Assisi in 1194, and was consequently about twelve years younger than Francis. She belonged to the noble family of the Sciffi. At the age when a little girl'...

The winter of 1220-1221 was spent by Francis chiefly in fixing his thought by writing. Until now he had been too much the man of action to have been able to give much thought to...

After Whitsunday of 1217 chronological notes of Francis's life are numerous enough to make error almost impossible. Unhappily, this is not the case for the eighteen months which...

The very next morning Francis went up to Assisi and began to preach. His words were simple, but they came so straight from the heart that all who heard him were touched.

The biographies of St. Francis have preserved to us an incident which shows how great was the religious ferment even in the little city of Assisi. A stranger was seen to go up a...

The creation of the ministers was an enormous step in this direction; by the very pressure of things the latter came to establish a residence; those who command must have their...

The Penitents of Assisi were overflowing with joy. After so many mortally long days spent in that Rome, so different from the other cities that they knew, exposed to the ill-dis...

This resolution was not lightly taken. It would be a mistake in fact to take Francis for one of those inspired ones who rush into action upon the strength of unexpected revelati...

The early Brothers Minor had too much need of the encouragement and example of Francis not to have very early agreed with him upon certain fixed periods when they would be sure...

The missionary journey, undertaken under the encouragement of St. Clara and so poetically inaugurated by the sermon to the birds of Bevagna, appears to have been a continual tri...

On his arrival in Venice Francis informed himself yet more exactly concerning all that had happened, and convoked the chapter-general at Portiuncula for Michaelmas (September 29...

On his return to Assisi Francis at once resumed his former mode of life; perhaps he even tried in some degree to make up for lost time. Fêtes, games, festivals, and dissipations...

Assisi is to-day very much what it was six or seven hundred years ago. The feudal castle is in ruins, but the aspect of the city is just the same. Its long-deserted streets, bor...

The morning after St. Michael's Day (September 30, 1224) Francis quitted Verna and went to Portiuncula. He was too much exhausted to think of making the journey on foot, and Cou...

The upper valley of the Arno forms in the very centre of Italy a country apart, the Casentino, which through centuries had its own life, somewhat like an island in the midst of...

is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of the _nobility of the Gallic dialect_. _Ann._ 1224 _apud...

In the original text, 'obediunt' was NOT italicized in the following quotation: "Videmus primus ordinis fundatorem magestrum cui tanquam summo Priori suo omnes alii obediunt." (...