A biography of Saint Francis of Assisi
This information is taken from the online article on Saint
Francis of Assisi by Catholic Encyclopedia online.
You can read a similar biography of Saint Clare by selecting it from the menu above.
Francis'
father, Pietro Bernardone, was a wealthy Assisian cloth merchant. Of
his mother, Pica, little is known, but she is said to have belonged to
a noble family of Provence. Francis was one of several
children. At baptism the saint received the name of Giovanni,
which his father afterwards altered to Francesco, through fondness it
would seem for France, whither business had led him at the time of his
son's birth. In any case, since the child was renamed in infancy, the
change can hardly have had anything to do with his aptitude for
learning French, as some have thought.
Francis received some
elementary instruction from the priests of St. George's at Assisi,
though he learned more perhaps in the school of the Troubadours, who
were just then making for refinement in Italy. However this may be, he
was not very studious, and his literary education remained incomplete.
Although associated with his father in trade, he showed little liking
for a merchant's career, and his parents seemed to have indulged his
every whim. No one loved pleasure more than Francis; he had a
ready wit, sang merrily, delighted in fine clothes and showy display.
Handsome, gay, gallant, and courteous, he soon became the prime
favourite among the young nobles of Assisi, the foremost in every feat
of arms, the leader of the civil revels, the very king of frolic. But
even at this time Francis showed a
n instinctive sympathy with the poor,
and though he spent money lavishly, it still flowed in such channels as
to attest a princely magnanimity of spirit.
When about twenty,
Francis went out with the townsmen to fight the Perugians in one of the
petty skirmishes so frequent at that time between the rival cities. The
Assisians were defeated on this occasion, and Francis, being among
those taken prisoners, was held captive for more than a year in
Perugia. A low fever which he there contracted appears to have turned
his thoughts to the things of eternity; at least the emptiness of the
life he had been leading came to him during that long illness. With
returning health, however, Francis's eagerness after glory reawakened
and his fancy wandered in search of victories; at length he resolved to
embrace a military career, and circumstances seemed to favour his
aspirations. A knight of Assisi was about to join "the gentle count",
Walter of Brienne, who was then in arms in the Neapolitan States
against the emperor, and Francis arranged to accompany him. His
biographers tell us that the night before Francis set forth he had a
strange dream, in which he saw a vast hall hung with armour all marked
with the Cross. "These", said a voice, "are for you and your soldiers."
"I know I shall be a great prince", exclaimed Francis exultingly, as he
started for Apulia. But a second illness arrested his course at
Spoleto. There, we are told, Francis had another dream in which the
same voice bade him turn back to Assisi. He did so at once. This was in
1205.
Although Francis still joined at times in the noisy revels
of his former comrades, his changed demeanour plainly showed that his
heart was no longer with them; a yearning for the life of the spirit
had already possessed it. His companions twitted Francis on his
absent-mindedness and asked if he were minded to be married. "Yes", he
replied, "I am about to take a wife of surpassing fairness." She was no
other than Lady Poverty whom Dante and Giotto have wedded to his name,
and whom even now he had begun to love. After a short period of
uncertainty he began to seek in prayer and solitude the answer to his
call; he had already given up his gay attire and wasteful ways. One
day, while crossing the Umbrian plain on horseback, Francis
unexpectedly drew near a poor leper. The sudden appearance of this
repulsive object filled him with disgust and he instinctively
retreated, but presently controlling his natural aversion he
dismounted, embraced the unfortunate man, and gave him all the money he
had. About the same time Francis made a pilgrimage to Rome. Pained at
the miserly offerings he saw at the tomb of St. Peter, he emptied his
purse thereon. Then, as if to put his fastidious nature to the test, he
exchanged clothes with a tattered mendicant and stood for the rest of
the day fasting among the
horde of beggars at the door of the basilica.
Not
long after his return to Assisi, whilst Francis was praying before an
ancient crucifix in the forsaken wayside chapel of St. Damian's below
the town, he heard a voice saying: "Go, Francis, and repair my house,
which as you see is falling into ruin." Taking this behest literally,
as referring to the ruinous church wherein he knelt, Francis went to
his father's shop, impulsively bundled together a load of coloured
drapery, and mounting his horse hastened to Foligno, then a mart of
some importance, and there sold both horse and stuff to procure the
money needful for the restoration of St. Damian's. When, however, the
poor priest who officiated there refused to receive the gold thus
gotten, Francis flung it from him disdainfully. The elder Bernardone, a
most niggardly man, was incensed beyond measure at his son's conduct,
and Francis, to avert his father's wrath, hid himself in a cave near
St. Damian's for a whole month. When he emerged from this place of
concealment and returned to the town, emaciated with hunger and squalid
with dirt, Francis was followed by a hooting rabble, pelted with mud
and stones, and otherwise mocked as a madman. Finally, he was dragged
home by his father, beaten, bound, and locked in a dark closet.
Freed
by his mother during Bernardone's absence, Francis returned at once to
St. Damian's, where he found a shelter with the officiating priest, but
he was soon cited before the city consuls by his father. The latter,
not content with having recovered the scattered gold from St. Damian's,
sought also to force his son to forego his inheritance. This Francis
was only too eager to do; he declared, however, that since he had
entered the service of God he was no longer under civil jurisdiction.
Having therefore been taken before the bishop, Francis strippe
d himself
of the very clothes he wore, and gave them to his father, saying:
"Hitherto I have called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to
say only 'Our Father who art in Heaven.'" Then and there, as Dante
sings, were solemnized Francis's nuptials with his beloved spouse, the
Lady Poverty, under which name, in the mystical language afterwards so
familiar to him, he comprehended the total surrender of all worldly
goods, honours, and privileges. And now Francis wandered forth into the
hills behind Assisi, improvising hymns of praise as he went. "I am the
herald of the great King", he declared in answer to some robbers, who
thereupon despoiled him of all he had and threw him scornfully in a
snow drift. Naked and half frozen, Francis crawled to a neighbouring
monastery and there worked for a time as a scullion. At Gubbio, whither
he went next, Francis obtained from a friend the cloak, girdle, and
staff of a pilgrim as an alms. Returning to Assisi, he traversed the
city begging stones for the restoration of St. Damian's. These he
carried to the old chapel, set in place himself, and so at length
rebuilt it. In the same way Francis afterwards restored two other
deserted chapels, St. Peter's, some distance from the city, and St.
Mary of the Angels, in the plain below it, at a spot called the
Porziuncola. Meantime he redoubled his zeal in works of charity, more
especially in nursing the lepers.
On a certain morning in 1208,
probably 24 February, Francis was hearing Mass in the chapel of St.
Mary of the Angels, near which he had then built himself a hut; the
Gospel of the day told how the disciples of Christ were to possess
neither gold nor silver, nor scrip for their journey, nor two coats,
nor shoes, nor a staff, and that they were to exhort sinners to
repentance and announce the Kingdom of God. Francis took these words as
if spoken directly to himself, and so soon as Mass was over threw away
the poor fragment left him of the world's goods, his shoes, cloak,
pilgrim staff, and empty wallet. At last he had found his vocation.
Having obtained a coarse woolen tunic of "beast colour", the dress then
worn by the poorest Umbrian peasants, and tied it round him with a
knotted rope, Francis went forth at once exhorting the people of the
country-side to penance, brotherly love, and peace. The Assisians had
already ceased to scoff at Francis; they now paused in wonderment; his
example even drew others to him. Bernard of Quintavalle, a magnate of
the town, was the first to join Francis, and he was soon followed by
Peter of Cattaneo, a well-known canon of the cathedral. In true spirit
of religious enthusiasm, Francis repaired to the church of St. Nicholas
and sought to learn God's will in their regard by thrice opening at
random the book of the Gospels on the altar. Each time it opened at
passages where Christ told His disciples to leave all things and follow
Him. "This shall be our rule of life", exclaimed Francis, and led his
companions to the public square, where they forthwith gave away all
their belongings to the poor. After this they procured rough habits
like that of Francis, and built themselves small huts near his at the
Porziuncola. A few days later Giles, afterwards the great ecstatic and
sayer of "good words", became the third follower of 
Francis. The little
band divided and went about, two and two, making such an impression by
their words and behaviour that before long several other disciples
grouped themselves round Francis eager to share his poverty, among them
being Sabatinus, vir bonus et justus, Moricus, who had belonged to the
Crucigeri, John of Capella, who afterwards fell away, Philip "the
Long", and four others of whom we know only the names. When the number
of his companions had increased to eleven, Francis found it expedient
to draw up a written rule for them. This first rule, as it is called,
of the Friars Minor has not come down to us in its original form, but
it appears to have been very short and simple, a mere adaptation of the
Gospel precepts already selected by Francis for the guidance of his
first companions, and which he desired to practice in all their
perfection. When this rule was ready the Penitents of Assisi, as
Francis and his followers styled themselves, set out for Rome to seek
the approval of the Holy See, although as yet no such approbation was
obligatory. There are differing accounts of Francis's reception by
Innocent III. It seems, however, that Guido, Bishop of Assisi, who was
then in Rome, commended Francis to Cardinal John of St. Paul, and that
at the instance of the latter, the pope recalled the saint whose first
overtures he had, as it appears, somewhat rudely rejected. Moreover, in
site of the sinister predictions of others in the Sacred College, who
regarded the mode of life proposed by Francis as unsafe and
impracticable, Innocent, moved it is said by a dream in which he beheld
the Poor Man of Assisi upholding the tottering Lateran, gave a verbal
sanction to the rule submitted by Francis and granted the saint and his
companions leave to preach repentance everywhere. Before leaving Rome
they all received the ecclesiastical tonsure, Francis himself being
ordained deacon later on.
After their return to Assisi, the
Friars Minor -- for thus Francis had named his brethren, either after
the minores, or lower classes, as some think, or as others believe,
with reference to the Gospel (Matthew 25:40-45), and as a perpetual
reminder of their humility -- found shelter in a deserted hut at Rivo
Torto in the plain below the city, but were forced to abandon this poor
abode by a rough peasant who drove in his ass upon them. About 1211
they obtained a permanent foothold near Assisi, through the generosity
of the Benedictines of Monte Subasio, who gave them the little chapel
of St. Mary of the Angels or the Porziuncola. Adjoining this humble
sanctuary, already dear to Francis, the first Franciscan convent was
formed by the erection of a few small huts or cells of wattle, straw,
and mud, and enclosed by a hedge. From this settlement, which became
the cradle of the Franciscan Order (Caput et Mater Ordinis) and the
central spot in the life of St. Francis, the Friars Minor went forth
two by two exhorting the people of the surrounding country. Like
children "careless of the day", they wandered from place to place
singing in their joy, and calling themselves the Lord's minstrels. The
wide world was their cloister; sleeping in haylofts, grottos, or church
porches, they toiled with the labourers in the fields, and when none
gave them work they would beg. In a short while Francis and his
companions gained an immense influence, and men of different grades of
life and ways of thought flocked to the order. Among the new recruits
made about this time by Francis were the famous Three Companions, who
afterwards wrote his life, namely: Angelus Tancredi, a noble cavalier;
Leo, the saint's secretary and confessor; and Rufinus, a cousin of St.
Clare; besides Juniper, "the renowned jester of the Lord".
During
the Lent of 1212, a new joy, great as it was unexpected, came to
Francis. Clare, a young heiress of Assisi, moved by the saint's
preaching at the church of St. George, sought him out, and begged to be
allowed to embrace the new manner of life he had founded. By his
advice, Clare, who was then but eighteen, secretly left her father's
house on the night following Palm Sunday, and with two companions went
to the Porziuncola, where the friars met her in procession, carrying
lighted torches. Then Francis, having cut off her hair, clothed her in
the Minorite habit and thus received her to a life of poverty, penance,
and seclusion. Clare stayed provisionally with some Benedictine nuns
near Assisi, until Francis could provide a suitable retreat for her,
and for St. Agnes, her sister, and the other pious maidens who had
joined her. He eventually established them at St. Damian's, in a
dwelling adjoining the chapel he had rebuilt with his own hands, which
was now given to the saint by the Benedictines as domicile for his
spiritual daughters, and which thus became the first monastery of the
Second Franciscan Order of Poor Ladies, now known as Poor Clares.
In
the autumn of the same year (1212) Francis's burning desire for the
conversion of the Saracens led him to embark for Syria, but having been
shipwrecked on the coast of Slavonia, he had to return to Ancona. The
following spring he devoted himself to evangelizing Central Italy.
About this time (1213) Francis received from Count Orlando of Chiusi
the mountain of La Verna, an isolated peak among the Tuscan Apennines,
rising some 4000 feet above the valley of the Casentino, as a retreat,
"especially favourable for contemplation", to which he might retire
from time to time for prayer and rest. For Francis never altogether
separated the contemplative from the active life, as the several
hermitages associated with his memory, and the quaint regulations he
wrote for those living in them bear witness. At one time, indeed, a
strong desire to give himself wholly to a life of contemplation seems
to have possessed the saint. During the next year (1214) Francis set
out for Morocco, in another attempt to reach the infidels and, if needs
be, to shed his blood for the Gospel, but while yet in Spain was
overtaken by so severe an illness that he was compelled to turn back to
Italy once more.
The first general chapter of the Friars Minor
was held in May, 1217, at Porziuncola, the order being divided into
provinces, and an apportionment made of the Christian world into so
many Franciscan missions. Tuscany, Lombardy, Provence, Spain, and
Germany were assigned to five of Francis's principal followers; for
himself the saint reserved France, and he actually set out for that
kingdom, but on arriving at Florence, was dissuaded from going further
by Cardinal Ugolino, who had been made protector of the order in 1216.
He therefore sent in his stead Brother Pacificus, who in the world had
been renowned as a poet, together with Brother Agnellus, who later on
established the Friars Minor in England. Although success came indeed
to Francis and his friars, with it came also opposition, and it was
with a view to allaying any prejudices the Curia might have imbibed
against their methods that Francis, at the instance of Cardinal
Ugolino, went to Rome and preached before the pope and cardinals in the
Lateran. This visit to the Eternal City, which took place 1217-18, was
apparently the occasion of Francis's memorable meeting with St.
Dominic. The year 1218 Francis devoted to missionary tours in Italy,
which were a continual triumph for him. He usually preached out of
doors, in the market-places, from church steps, from the walls of
castle court-yards. Allured by the magic spell of his presence,
admiring crowds, unused for the rest to anything like popular preaching
in the vernacular, followed Francis from place to place hanging on his
lips; church bells rang at his approach; processions of clergy and
people advanced to meet him with music and singing; they brought the
sick to him to bless and heal, and kissed the very ground on which he
trod, and even sought to cut away pieces of his tunic. The
extraordinary enthusiasm with which the saint was everywhere welcomed
was equalled only by the immediate and visible result of his preaching.
His exhortations of the people, for sermons they can hardly be called,
short, homely, affectionate, and pathetic, touched even the hardest and
most frivolous, and Francis became in sooth a very conqueror of souls.
Thus it happened, on one occasion, while the saint was preaching at
Camara, a small village near Assisi, that the whole congregation were
so moved by his "words of spirit and life" that they presented
themselves to him in a body and begged to be admitted into his order.
It was to accede, so far as might be, to like requests that Francis
devised his Third Order, as it is now called, of the Brothers and
Sisters of Penance, which he intended as a sort of middle state between
the world and the cloister for those who could not leave their home or
desert their wonted avocations in order to enter either the First Order
of Friars Minor or the Second Order of Poor Ladies. That Francis
prescribed particular duties for these tertiaries is beyond question.
They were not to carry arms, or take oaths, or engage in lawsuits, etc.
It is also said that he drew up a formal rule for them, but it is clear
that the rule, confirmed by Nicholas IV in 1289, does not, at least in
the form in which it has come down to us, represent the original rule
of the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. In any event, it is customary
to assign 1221 as the year of the foundation of this third order, but
the date is not certain.
At the second general chapter (May,
1219) Francis, bent on realizing his project of evangelizing the
infidels, assigned a separate mission to each of his foremost
disciples, himself selecting the seat of war between the crusaders and
the Saracens. With eleven companions, including Brother Illuminato and
Peter of Cattaneo, Francis set sail from Ancona on 21 June, for
Saint-Jean d'Acre, and he was present at the siege and taking of
Damietta. After preaching there to the assembled Christian forces,
Francis fearlessly passed over to the infidel camp, where he was taken
prisoner and led before the sultan. According to the testimony of
Jacques de Vitry, who was with the crusaders at Damietta, the sultan
received Francis with courtesy, but beyond obtaining a promise from
this ruler of more indulgent treatment for the Christian captives, the
saint's preaching seems to have effected little.
Before
returning to Europe, the saint is believed to have visited Palestine
and there obtained for the friars the foothold they still retain as
guardians of the holy places. What is certain is that Francis was
compelled to hasten back to Italy because of various troubles that had
arisen there during his absence. News had reached him in the East that
Matthew of Narni and Gregory of Naples, the two vicars-general whom he
had left in charge of the order, had summoned a chapter which, among
other innovations, sought to impose new fasts upon the friars, more
severe than the rule required. Moreover, Cardinal Ugolino had conferred
on the Poor Ladies a written rule which was practically that of the
Benedictine nuns, and Brother Philip, whom Francis had charged with
their interests, had accepted it. To make matters worse, John of
Capella, one of the saint's first companions, had assembled a large
number of lepers, both men and women, with a view to forming them into
a new religious order, and had set out for Rome to seek approval for
the rule he had drawn up for these unfortunates. Finally a rumour had
been spread abroad that Francis was dead, so that when the saint
returned to Italy with Brother Elias -- he appeared to have arrived at
Venice in July, 1220 -- a general feeling of unrest prevailed among the
friars.
Apart from these difficulties, the order was then
passing through a period of transition. It had become evident that the
simple, familiar, and unceremonious ways which had marked the
Franciscan movement at its beginning were gradually disappearing, and
that the heroic poverty practiced by Francis and his companions at the
outset became less easy as the friars with amazing rapidity increased
in number. And this Francis could not help seeing on his return.
Cardinal Ugolino had already undertaken the task "of reconciling
inspirations so unstudied and so free with an order of things they had
outgrown." This remarkable man, who afterwards ascended the papal
throne as Gregory IX, was deeply attached to Francis, whom he venerated
as a saint and also, some writers tell us, managed as an enthusiast.
The
saint, meanwhile, during the few years that remained in him, sought to
impress on the friars by the silent teaching of personal example of
what sort he would fain have them to be. Already, while passing through
Bologna on his return from the East, Francis had refused to enter the
convent there because he had heard it called the "House of the Friars"
and because a studium had been instituted there. He moreover bade all
the friars, even those who were ill, quit it at once, and it was only
some time after, when Cardinal Ugolino had publicly declared the house
to be his own property, that Francis suffered his brethren to re-enter
it. Yet strong and definite as the saint's convictions were, and
determinedly as his line was taken, he was never a slave to a theory in
regard to the observances of poverty or anything else; about him
indeed, there was nothing narrow or fanatical. As for his attitude
towards study, Francis desiderated for his friars only such theological
knowledge as was conformable to the mission of the order, which
was
before all else a mission of example. Hence he regarded the
accumulation of books as being at variance with the poverty his friars
professed, and he resisted the eager desire for mere book-learning, so
prevalent in his time, in so far as it struck at the roots of that
simplicity which entered so largely into the essence of his life and
ideal and threatened to stifle the spirit of prayer, which he accounted
preferable to all the rest.
It
was during Christmastide of this
year (1223) that the saint conceived the idea of celebrating the
Nativity "in a new manner", by reproducing in a church at Greccio
the praesepio of Bethlehem, and he has thus come to be regarded as
having
inaugurated the popular devotion of the Crib. Christmas appears indeed
to have been the favourite feast of Francis, and he wished to persuade
the emperor to make a special law that men should then provide well for
the birds and the beasts, as well as for the poor, so that all might
have occasion to rejoice in the Lord.
Early in August, 1224,
Francis retired with three companions to "that rugged rock 'twixt Tiber
and Arno", as Dante called La Verna, there to keep a forty days fast in
preparation for Michaelmas. During this retreat the sufferings of
Christ became more than ever the burden of his meditations; into few
souls, perhaps, had the full meaning of the Passion so deeply entered.
It was on or about the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (14
September) while praying on the mountainside, that he beheld the
marvellous vision of the seraph, as a sequel of which there appeared on
his body the visible marks of the five wounds of the Crucified which,
says an early writer, had long since been impressed upon his heart.
Brother Leo, who was with St. Francis when he received the stigmata,
has left us in his note to the saint's autograph blessing, prese
rved at
Assisi, a clear and simple account of the miracle, which for the rest
is better attested than many another historical fact. The saint's right
side is described as bearing on open wound which looked as if made by a
lance, while through his hands and feet were black nails of flesh, the
points of which were bent backward. After the reception of the
stigmata, Francis suffered increasing pains throughout his frail body,
already broken by continual mortification. For, condescending as the
saint always was to the weaknesses of others, he was ever so unsparing
towards himself that at the last he felt constrained to ask pardon of
"Brother Ass", as he called his body, for having treated it so harshly.
Worn out, moreover, as Francis now was by eighteen years of unremitting
toil, his strength gave way completely, and at times his eyesight so
far failed him that he was almost wholly blind.
During an access
of anguish, Francis paid a last visit to St. Clare at St. Damian's, and
it was in a little hut of reeds, made for him in the garden there, that
the saint composed that "Canticle of the Sun", in which his poetic
genius expands itself so gloriously. This was in September, 1225. Not
long afterwards Francis, at the urgent instance of Brother Elias,
underwent an unsuccessful operation for the eyes, at Rieti. He seems to
have passed the winter 1225-26 at Siena, whither he had been taken for
further medical treatment. In April, 1226, during an interval of
improvement, Francis was moved to Cortona, and it is believed to have
been while resting at the hermitage of the Celle there, that the saint
dictated his testament, which he describes as a "reminder, a warning,
and an exhortation". In this touching document Francis, writing from
the fullness of his heart, urges anew with the simple eloquence, the
few, but clearly defined, principles that were to guide his followers,
implicit obedience to superiors as holding the place of God, literal
observance of the rule "without gloss", especially as regards poverty,
and the duty of manual labor, being solemnly enjoined on all the friars.
Meanwhile
alarming dropsical symptoms had developed, and it was in a dying
condition that Francis set out for Assisi. A roundabout route was taken
by the little caravan that escorted him, for it was feared to follow
the direct road lest the saucy Perugians should attempt to carry
Francis off by force so that he might die in their city, which would
thus enter into possession of his coveted relics. It was therefore
under a strong guard that Francis, in July, 1226, was finally borne in
safety to the bishop's palace in his native city amid the enthusiastic
rejoicings of the entire populace. In the early autumn Francis, feeling
the hand of death upon him, was carried to his beloved Porziuncola,
that he might breathe his last sigh where his vocation had been
revealed to him and whence his order had struggled into sight. On the
way thither he asked to be set down, and with painful effort he invoked
a beautiful blessing on Assisi, which, however, his eyes could no
longer discern. The saint's last days were passed at the Porziuncola in
a tiny hut, near the chapel, that served as an infirmary. The arrival
there about this time of the Lady Jacoba of Settesoli, who had come
with her two sons and a great retinue to bid Francis farewell, caused
some consternation, since women were forbidden to enter the friary. But
Francis in his tender gratitude to this Roman noblewoman, made an
exception in her favour, and "Brother Jacoba", as Francis had named her
on account of her fortitude, remained to the last.
On the eve of
his death, the saint, in imitation of his Divine Master, had bread
brought to him and broken. This he distributed among those present,
blessing Bernard of Quintaville, his first companion, Elias, his vicar,
and all the others in order. "I have done my part," he said next, "may
Christ teach you to do yours." Then wishing to give a last token of
detachment and to show he no longer had anything in common with the
world, Francis removed his poor habit and lay down on the bare ground,
covered with a borrowed cloth, rejoicing that he was able to keep faith
with his Lady Poverty to the end. After a while he asked to have read
to him the Passion according to St. John, and then in faltering tones
he himself intoned Psalm 141. At the concluding verse, "Bring my soul
out of prison", Francis was led away from earth by "Sister Death", in
whose praise he had shortly before added a new strophe to his "Canticle
of the Sun". It was Saturday evening, 3 October, 1226, Francis being
then in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the twentieth from his
perfect conversion to Christ.
The saint had, in his humility, it
is said, expressed a wish to be buried on the Colle d'Inferno, a
despised hill without Assisi, where criminals were executed. However
this may be, his body was, on 4 October, borne in triumphant procession
to the city, a halt being made at St. Damian's, that St. Clare and her
companions might venerate the sacred stigmata now visible to all, and
it was placed provisionally in the church of St. George (now within the
enclosure of the monastery of St. Clare), where the saint had learned
to read and had first preached. Many miracles are recorded to have
taken place at his tomb. Francis was canonized at St. George's by
Gregory IX, 16 July, 1228. On that day following the pope laid the
first stone of the great double church of St. Francis, erected in
honour of the new saint, and thither on 25 May, 1230, Francis's remains
were secretly transferred by Brother Elias and buried far down under
the high altar in the lower church. Here, after lying hidden for six
centuries, like that of St. Clare's, Francis's coffin was found, 12
December, 1818, as a result of a toilsome search lasting fifty-two
nights. This discovery of the saint's body is commemorated in the order
by a special office on 12 December, and that of his translation by
another on 25 May. His feast is kept throughout the Church on 4
October, and the impression of the stigmata on his body is celebrated
on 17 September.