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Meet the Franciscan Order: The Continuing Legacy of St. Francis of Assisi
The Big Three of Religious Orders, Part Two
While you may not have known much about the Dominicans before the previous entry in this series, it is a fair bet you know something about the Order of Friars Minor. They are more popularly known as the Franciscans, after their founder, St. Francis of Assisi. Francis is probably the best-known saint in history after St. Peter and St. Paul, and is universally beloved by both Christians and non-Christians alike (it’s amazing that it took 800 years for a pope to take the name Francis). Given that, I’ll only give a short bio here.
Francis de Bernardone was born in Assisi, Italy in 1181 or 1182 (the records are not certain) to a wealthy cloth merchant. He spent his youth enjoying the benefits of that wealth, carousing with friends at parties and festivals (he was nicknamed “the King of the Revels”) and generally living the life of a spoiled playboy. In 1202 war broke out between Assisi and the rival city of Perugia, and Francis joined the militia both out of civic duty and in hopes of military glory. The forces of Assisi were completely routed, and Francis was taken prisoner and held in a dungeon for a year before his father raised the ransom demanded for his release.
