FRANCIS, SAINT, the founder of one of the four orders of mendicant friars, called Franciscan's, was born at Assisi, in Umbria, in 1182. Ile was the son of Pater do Bernardino, a wealthy merchant, and his mother's name was Pica. His mother christened him John, but his father, who was absent at the time of his birth, changed his name to Francis. Wadding, in the ' Annalcs Minorum; says, because he learned French early, to qualify himself for his father's profession, Jacobus de Voragine turns it into a miracle ; "Primo rations miraculi counotandi : linguam enim Gallicam miraculosb a Deo recepisso cognoscitur." (' Acta Sanctor.' Octob , tom. ii., p. 559.) St. Francis was at first a young man of dissolute manners, but in consequence of a fit of sickness about the year 1206, he became so atrougly affected with religious zeal as to take a resolution to retire from the world. He now devoted himself to solitude, and mortified himself to so great a degree that the inhabitants of Assisi judged him to be distracted. His father, thinking to make him resume the habits of ordinary life, threw him into prison ; but finding that this made no impression upon him, he carried him before the Bishop of Assisi, in order to make him renounce all title to his father'a temporal possessions, which he not only agreed to, but stripped off all his clothes, even to his shiM He than prevailed with a considerable number of persons to devote themselves, as he had done, to the poverty which he con aidered as enjoined by the gospel, and drew up an institute, or rule, for their use, which was approved by Pope Innocent III. in 1210, as well as by the Council of Lateran held in 1215. In 1211 he obtained from the Benedictines the church of Portiuncula, near Assisi, and his Order increased so fast that when he held a chapter iu 1219, near 5000 friars of it wero present. Ha aubsequently obtained a bull iu favour of his Order from Pope Idenorius III. About this time ho went into the Holy Land, and endeavoured in vain to convert the Sultan Meledin. It is said that he offered to throw himself into the flames to prove his faith in what he taught. He returned soon after to his native country, and died at Assisi in 1226. He was canonised
by Pope Gregory IX. the 6th of May 1230, when October 4th, the day on which his death happened, was appointed as his festival.
The followers of St. Francis were called Franciscans, Gray or Minor Friars; the first name they had from their founder ; the second from their gray clothing ; and the third from a pretended humility. Their habit was a loose garment of a gray colour, reaching to their uncles, with a cowl of,,the same, and a cloak over it when they went abroad. They girded themselves with cords, and went bare-footed.
This order was divided into several bodies, some of which were more rigid than others. The most ample and circumstantial account of it is to be found in Annales Miuorum, seu Trium Ordinum h S. Francisco Inatitutorum, auctore Luca Waddinge Iliberno ; ' the second and hest edition of which was published at Rome by J08. Maria Fonaeca ab Ebora, in 19 vole., fol., 1731-44, with a supplement, ' Opus poathumum Fr. Jo. Hyacinthi Sbaraleas; fol., Rome, 1806. To Wadding we are indebted for the Opuscula S. Franciaci,' 4to, Antw., 1623; and the Bibliotheca Ordinis Minorum,' 4to, Rome, 1650. The Acta Sanctoruna ' of the Bollandists already quoted (€ Octob.; tom. it, p. 545.1004), contains several lives of St. Francis, including that by St. Bonaventurs.
Davenport ('Hilt. Fratr. MM.,' p. 2) says this order came into England in 1219; but Stow, Dugdale, Leland, and othera say the Franciscans came in 1224, and that they had their first house in Canterbury, and their second at London. Tanner says Notit. Monaat.; pref. p. 13), that at the dissolution the Conventual Fran ciscans had about fifty-five houses in England; but from the last edition of Dugdala'a Monasticon; it appears they had sixty-six. Their rule, as translated by Stevens, with several charters of Edward III. and one of Richard IL in favour of them, will be found in that work, vol. vi., p. iii., pp. 1504-03. See also Parkinson's ' Col lectanea Anglo•Minoritica, or a Collection of the Antiquities of the English Franciscans, or Friara Minors, commonly called Gray Friars,' 4to, London, 1726. The original of the Franciscan rule will be found In Wedding's Annalea; vol. i., pp. 66-79.