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St. Francis of Assisi

He got down off his horse to embrace a leper and gave him all his money, went to live among lepers and ate out of the same bowl, and gave away everything he owned to the poor.

Feast October 4Died at about 44Assisi, Italy

Born 1182 · Died 1226 · Canonized 1228

NO DOCUMENT HELD FIXES HIS BIRTH YEAR. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives 'in 1181 or 1182 — the exact year is uncertain'; Benedict XVI gives 'either at the end of 1181 or the beginning of 1182'. The year recorded here is 1182 rather than 1181 only so that the arithmetic returns the age the sources actually support; 1181 is equally possible and the figure should be read as approximate either way. He died on 3 October 1226. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA'S 'forty-fifth year of his age' MEANS FORTY-FOUR COMPLETED YEARS, NOT FORTY-FIVE — on either candidate birth year he was 44 that October. No exact age is recorded here, because no document held states one at all — only that phrase.

A lifelong Catholic

Francis was born at Assisi in 1181 or 1182, the son of Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy cloth merchant. He was baptized Giovanni; his father renamed him. He was popular, well dressed, and free with money. At about twenty he went out to fight Perugia, was captured, and spent over a year in prison, where a fever turned his mind toward other things.

Praying in the ruined chapel of San Damiano he heard a voice tell him to repair a house falling into ruin. He took it literally and sold his father's cloth to pay for the work. He hid from his father for a month, came back filthy, and was pelted with mud and stones as a madman; then his father had him beaten and locked up. Brought before the bishop, Francis took off his clothes, gave them back, and said he had only one Father now.

He rebuilt three chapels with his own hands. In 1208 a Gospel reading sent him out preaching, and men followed him. Innocent III approved his way of life. Clare came to him in 1212, and he made a third order for those who could not leave home. Then the work outgrew him. Friars pressed to relax the rule, and Francis, thinking himself unfitted for a post that wanted an organizer, gave up leading the order.

At the chapter of 1219 he gave each chief follower a mission and kept the war zone for himself, walking unarmed into the sultan's camp at Damietta. La Verna had been his for about eleven years; there in 1224, during a forty-day fast before Michaelmas, he received the stigmata. He made all his brothers sit down and eat so that one who was hungry would not have to eat alone.

Worn out and by then almost blind, he died at the Porziuncola on 3 October 1226, lying on the bare ground. Gregory IX canonized him in 1228.

What they carried

His body took the worst of it, and much of that he had done himself. Eighteen years of work without a break wore him out on top of the hardship he kept putting on himself, and at the last he asked pardon of Brother Ass — his own name for his body — for having treated it so harshly.

Patron of

  • those who promote ecologyformal
  • Italyformal

State of life

friar · deacon · mystic

Themes

poverty · care of the poor · care of the sick · conversion · joy · creation · peacemaking · the cross

Benedict XVI on Francis of Assisi (2010 General Audience)

  • Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), 'St. Francis of Assisi' — source of the birth at Assisi 'in 1181 or 1182 — the exact year is uncertain', Pietro Bernardone the cloth merchant, the mother Pica, the baptismal name Giovanni and the father's renaming, the year and more in a Perugian prison after the fight with Perugia 'when about twenty', the leper on the plain ('he dismounted, embraced the unfortunate man, and gave him all the money he had'), the San Damiano voice, the beating and the dark closet, the stripping before the bishop, the vocation 'On a certain morning in 1208, probably 24 February', Innocent III's verbal sanction, Clare in Lent 1212, the Third Order, the sultan at Damietta in 1219, the Rule approved by Honorius III on 29 November 1223, the crib at Greccio in 1223, the near-blindness, the Canticle of the Sun in September 1225, and the death on 'Saturday evening, 3 October, 1226'. NOTE: this article predates the 1969 reform and is NOT a source for the feast day. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm
  • THE STIGMATA — WHAT THIS RECORD SAYS AND WHY IT SAYS NO MORE. The record gives the year, the place, the eleven years he had held the mountain and the fast he was keeping when it happened — and stops there. The bare fact rests on Benedict XVI, General Audience of 27 January 2010: 'In 1224, at the hermitage in La Verna, Francis had a vision of the Crucified Lord in the form of a seraph and from that encounter received the stigmata from the Seraph Crucifix, thus becoming one with the Crucified Christ. It was a gift, therefore, that expressed his intimate identification with the Lord.' That is the whole of what the papal document states — no day, no description. UNLIKE PADRE PIO, WHERE NOTHING HELD CARRIED A DATE OR A DESCRIPTION, HERE ONE DOES: the Catholic Encyclopedia dates it 'on or about the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (14 September)' and describes the wounds — '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.' Both were deliberately left out. The encyclopedia hedges its own date, and the description earns nothing in a record a fourteen-year-old reads. The restraint is a choice here, not a shortage of sources, and this note exists so nobody later mistakes it for one. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100127.html
  • 17 SEPTEMBER IS A TRAP AND IS NOT IN THIS RECORD. The Catholic Encyclopedia states that 'the impression of the stigmata on his body is celebrated on 17 September'. That is the PRE-1969 calendar. The current General Roman Calendar held here carries no such day. Same failure mode as the encyclopedia giving Catherine of Siena's feast as 30 April.
  • Benedict XVI, General Audience of 27 January 2010 — also the source for 'an authentic "giant" of holiness', the birth date 'either at the end of 1181 or the beginning of 1182', the military campaign and capture 'At age 20', the kiss of peace given to the leper, Innocent III's dream of the Lateran, the journey to Rome in 1209, the sultan Malik al-Kamil in 1219 approached 'intentionally armed only with his faith and personal humility', the death 'on the evening of 3 October 1226, in the Portiuncula' 'lying on the bare earthen floor', and the canonization 'Two years later'.
  • THE SAN DAMIANO WORDS EXIST IN TWO WORDINGS AND THIS RECORD QUOTES NEITHER DIRECTLY. Catholic Encyclopedia: 'Go, Francis, and repair my house, which as you see is falling into ruin.' Benedict XVI: 'Go, Francis, and repair my Church in ruins'. The summary paraphrases rather than choosing. Same treatment as Padre Pio's two sayings and Chiara Badano's last words: where two sources differ, the variance is recorded rather than resolved.
  • John Paul II, apostolic letter Inter Sanctos, declaring him patron of those who promote ecology. TWO CAUTIONS ON THIS DOCUMENT. (1) THE DATE IS 29 NOVEMBER 1979, NOT DECEMBER. vatican.va's own apostolic-letter index titles it '29 Decembris 1979 / December 29, 1979', and that is wrong: the document's dateline reads 'die undetricesimo mensis Novembris, anno Domini millesimo nongentesimo septuagesimo nono', and the URL path agrees at 19791129. The document beats the index. (2) THERE IS NO ENGLISH VERSION. The /en/ path serves the Latin text and the page's own language bar offers only ES and LA. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19791129_inter-sanctos.html
  • Francis, encyclical Laudato Si', 24 May 2015, nn. 10-12 — treats Francis of Assisi directly and states the ecology patronage in English, which Inter Sanctos does not: 'He is the patron saint of all who study and work in the area of ecology, and he is also much loved by non-Christians.' Also n. 10: 'I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically.' Nothing else in the encyclical's 264 kB bears on this record. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
  • Pius XII, papal brief of 18 June 1939 proclaiming Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena primary patrons of Italy. Italian only. NOTE A DEFECT IN THE HOLY SEE'S OWN PAGE: the paragraph praising Catherine breaks off mid-sentence at 'Né altrimenti si adoperò' and never resumes. That is vatican.va's text, not a fetch error. The operative declaration is intact. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/briefs/documents/hf_p-xii_brief_19390618_patroni-italia.html
  • THE TWO ACTS OF KINDNESS ARE BOTH FROM THE ENCYCLOPEDIA, VERBATIM. BOTH ARE IN THE RECORD, AND THE HUNGRY FRIAR IS HERE BY AN EXPLICIT SWAP WORTH KEEPING ON FILE. On 2026-08-16 he was cut to make room for the missionary program, the tenure of La Verna and the crisis over the rule, all three of which the record had been missing; later the same day he was restored and Francis's two earlier failed attempts to reach the Saracens were dropped instead. THE REASONING, so it survives whichever way a future editor decides: the 1219 chapter and his keeping the war zone for himself already establish Damietta as a deliberate program, so the earlier attempts were texture on a point the summary had made, while the friar is the only moment in the summary that shows Francis with one person rather than a crowd, an order or a pope. Both are equally well sourced and the choice was about what a reader keeps, not about what is true. The failed attempts remain quoted below and can be traded back. Eating with lepers: 'he shrank not from abiding with the lepers in their loathly lazar-houses and from eating with them out of the same platter.' The hungry friar: Francis 'had a table laid out and sat down beside the famished friar, and lest the latter might be ashamed to eat alone, ordered all the other brethren to join in the repast.' A third, not used: the friars were to keep 'only low and mean tables, so that "if a beggar were to come to sit down near them he might believe that he was but with his equals and need not blush on account of his poverty."'
  • Feast 4 October, memorial. Universal Calendar, Liturgy Office of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, which prints '4 St Francis of Assisi — memorial'. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/OctUC.shtml
  • NO PATRONAGE OF ANIMALS IS RECORDED, though it is the thing most often said of him. No document held declares one. The two patronages carried here are the only two any held document establishes. Same rule that leaves Anthony of Padua, Bakhita, Goretti, Kateri and Padre Pio without formal patronages they are popularly assigned.
  • THE CHAPTER OF MATS IS DATED DIFFERENTLY IN TWO RECORDS IN THIS CORPUS AND NEITHER IS WRONG. The Catholic Encyclopedia places it 'at Porziuncola at Whitsuntide, 1220 or 1221 (there is seemingly much room for doubt as to the exact date and number of the early chapters)'; Benedict XVI's catechesis on Anthony of Padua flatly says 1221. Anthony's record follows Benedict. This record does not name the chapter at all, so the two do not collide.
  • THE ENCYCLOPEDIA SUPPLIES THE CAUSES THIS SUMMARY HAD BEEN LEAVING OUT, AND ALL THREE WERE ADDED ON 2026-08-16. (1) DAMIETTA WAS A PROGRAM, NOT AN IMPULSE: at the general chapter of 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." TWO EARLIER ATTEMPTS HAD FAILED AND ARE DELIBERATELY NOT IN THE SUMMARY, held here so the evidence stays complete: he "embark[ed] for Syria, but having been shipwrecked on the coast of Slavonia, he had to return to Ancona", and in 1214 "set out for Morocco, in another attempt to reach the infidels ... but while yet in Spain was overtaken by so severe an illness". They were in the summary for part of 2026-08-16 and were traded out for the hungry friar; the reasoning is recorded in the note on the two acts of kindness above. (2) LA VERNA WAS ALREADY HIS: "About this time (1213) Francis received from Count Orlando of Chiusi the mountain of La Verna ... as a retreat, 'especially favourable for contemplation'." The eleven years in the summary is 1213 to 1224, both years from this same article, per the standing rule on its arithmetic; the article hedges the first with "about this time", so read the interval as approximate. The stigmata came during "a forty days fast in preparation for Michaelmas". (3) THE CRISIS OVER THE RULE: Francis was "urged by a large number of the friars to relax the rigours of the rule, according to the promptings of human prudence, and feeling, perhaps unfitted for a place which now called largely for organizing abilities, relinquished his position as general of the order in favour of Peter of Cattaneo". The Rule of 1221 "was too lengthy and unprecise to become a formal rule, and two years later Francis retired to Fonte Colombo ... and rewrote the rule in more compendious form"; that draft was lost by the brother he gave it to, so he "returned to the solitude of Fonte Colombo, and recast the rule on the same lines as before". That is the second rewrite, and it is why the summary says twice.
  • FOURTH-CLASS OMISSION — A CONNECTION NO HELD DOCUMENT SUPPLIES, AND THE ONE A READER WILL REACH FOR. The summary now tells the crisis over the rule and, separately, the retreat to La Verna and the stigmata. IT DOES NOT JOIN THEM, AND THE JOIN WOULD BE AN INVENTION. Nothing held says Francis withdrew to the mountain because he had lost the order. SCOPE OF THE NEGATIVE: both narrative documents were read end to end for a causal link between the two. The Catholic Encyclopedia frames the 1224 retreat as "a forty days fast in preparation for Michaelmas" and gives its cause as devotional — during it "the sufferings of Christ became more than ever the burden of his meditations" — never as a withdrawal from the friars or the rule. Benedict XVI, General Audience of 27 January 2010, puts the handover of the Order to Br Pietro Cattani in one paragraph and La Verna in another with no bridge between them; his only causal claim about the crisis runs elsewhere, that Francis "understood, however, through suffering and pain that everything must have its own order and that the law of the Church is necessary to give shape to renewal". The sequence is available and is what the record carries. The causation is not, so a sentence like "having lost his order, he went up the mountain" must not be written here, however well it would read.
  • THE SEAM, REPAIRED 2026-08-17 — C5, AND ONE OF THE TWO ORPHANS WAS A MISSING LINK IN THE SUMMARY'S OWN SEQUENCE. struggles named four things and the summary narrated two of them; the mud and stones and the near-blindness were in the one field that cannot explain itself. Both are in the encyclopedia at ref [0]. (1) THE MOCKERY HAS A CAUSE AND THE SUMMARY WAS SKIPPING IT: '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.' The summary went straight from selling the cloth to the beating, so a reader met the pelting in struggles with no reason for it, and the record's own order of events had the month in the cave missing. Carried now as the hiding, the state he came back in, and the pelting, in that order. (2) THE NEAR-BLINDNESS IS AT THE END AND IS STATED WITH ITS CAUSE: '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.' The summary now carries it into the death sentence, where the article puts it. NOTE THE HEDGE THAT SURVIVED THE MOVE: 'at times ... almost wholly blind' is not blindness, and the summary says 'by then almost blind' rather than 'blind'.
  • WHAT struggles SAYS NOW, AND WHY IT IS NOT A LIST ANY MORE. With all four of its old items narrated in the summary, the field would have been pure duplication — the Padre Pio failure. It now names the thing the summary cannot: that the body took the worst of it and that much of the damage was self-inflicted, which the same article states twice — 'increasing pains throughout his frail body, ALREADY BROKEN BY CONTINUAL MORTIFICATION', and '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.' BROTHER ASS WAS IN NO FIELD OF THIS RECORD BEFORE TODAY and is the best line the article has about what he carried. WHAT CAME OUT OF THE SUMMARY TO PAY FOR THE TWO ORPHANS, all of it duplicated on the same card or in a ref: the leper on the plain, which the holiness line one paragraph above states more fully — 'He got down off his horse to embrace a leper and gave him all his money'; 'led the town's young men'; 'given him as a retreat' at La Verna, which ref [12] quotes in full; and 'wrote the rule twice more at Fonte Colombo', with the rule crisis itself kept, since a summary that never mentions the rule is the seam defect WRITING.md names this record for.
  • THE DRIFT ROW ON LA VERNA — CLOSED 2026-08-17 BY RESTORING THE HEDGE, WHICH IS A ONE-WORD REPAIR AND WAS STILL A REAL DEFECT. The summary said 'La Verna had been his eleven years' flat. Ref [12] had already recorded why that is too strong: the interval is 1213 to 1224, and the article hedges the first date with 'About this time (1213) Francis received from Count Orlando of Chiusi the mountain of La Verna'. It now reads 'for about eleven years'. Rule 2 in WRITING.md is written for the opposite case — carry the hedge the document puts on a CAUSE — and this is the same instrument on an interval: a hedge dropped is a claim strengthened, and the record had strengthened one without meaning to.