Chapter Title: “When I Was in My Sins” 1181–1205
Book Title: Francis of Assisi
Book Subtitle: The Life
Book Author(s): Augustine Thompson
Published by: Cornell University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.7591/j.ctvrf89tp.4
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Cornell University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Francis of Assisi
This content downloaded from
132.174.250.183 on Tue, 03 Nov 2020 20:55:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
“Wh e n I Wa s i n My Si ns,” 1181–1205
the crucifi x had a profound and visceral effect on Francis; he wept
uncontrollably and, in his desire to unite himself to the naked and
crucified Christ, he mortified his body with ever more savage penances. Soon Francis moved out of the family home and took up
residence at San Damiano, where he became a freelance penitent
or conversus attached to the church. Whether this was suggested to
him by Don Peter or by Bishop Guido, or was a spontaneous act
of his own, we do not know. When he made the move, he did it
without consulting his parents, or even informing them.
Francis “Leaves the World”
Francis moved out of the family home and took up residence at
San Damiano in late 1205, about six months after his return to Assisi. Over those six months, his parents had watched as their son’s
behavior went from moody and distracted to withdrawn and isolated and fi nally to bizarre and self-destructive. Now, suddenly, he
simply disappeared. One can imagine Pietro and Pica’s frustration
changing to anxiety, and then to alarm. Pietro went about frantically, searching for information about his son. He finally located
him at San Damiano, living in fi lth. Francis’s biographer Thomas
of Celano tells us that when Pietro “learned that Francis was living
in that place in such a way, he was touched inwardly with sorrow
of heart and deeply disturbed by the sudden turn of events.” Later
hagiographers usually paint Pietro in the darkest of colors, but this
early passage probably reflects the man’s true personality: a loving
father deeply wounded by his son’s agony, now struggling to fi nd a
way to help him. Pietro gathered a group of friends to help retrieve
his son and bring him home.
Word reached Francis ahead of time. He hid from his father
for over a month, probably with the connivance of Don Peter.
A sympathetic member of the family household supplied him
with food. When Francis fi nally came out of hiding and appeared
in public on the streets of Assisi, he was so emaciated and unkempt that people threw mud at him. They called him insane
[ 15 ]
This content downloaded from
132.174.250.183 on Tue, 03 Nov 2020 20:55:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fr a nc i s of A ssi si: Th e Li f e
and blamed his madness on his fasting and self-mortification.
Horrified by the news, Pietro went to retrieve his vagabond son.
He then took him home and locked him up, arguing and reasoning with him for several days in the hope of bringing him to his
senses. Francis, however, was completely deaf to him. Eventually, Pietro had to leave town on business, and Pica, “moved by
maternal instinct,” as Thomas of Celano tells us, let her boy leave
the house. Francis immediately ran back to San Damiano and
returned to his former habits.
When Pietro returned from his business trip to find his son gone,
he exploded with frustration at his wife. It was obvious that his
every attempt to talk, or even beat, some sense into his son had
failed. The business trip had given Pietro time to consider how
to deal with the situation. His son was clearly out of his mind,
perhaps irrevocably. Pietro had to protect his family and his
business. Were his wife Pica to die, her dowry, on which the business was founded (and in which Pietro had, under civil law, only
a life interest), would pass to Angelo and Francis. Angelo was a
cooperative business partner, but Francis would probably lose,
squander, or give away his portion, effectively crippling the family enterprise.
Pietro made one last attempt to reason with his son. He went
to fi nd him at San Damiano, where Francis came out to meet
him. It was a painful encounter. Francis was in tears, making it
impossible for Pietro to communicate with him. Understanding
that the issue was at least in part fi nancial, Francis offered his
father the proceeds from the sale of the horse and arms in Foligno. Living at San Damiano as a penitent, he probably considered
himself free of family aff airs. He did not truly grasp what was at
stake. The danger to the business lay in Francis’s legal right to half
of his mother’s dowry, not in some relatively minor loss from the
sale of a horse.
Unable to make Francis understand, Pietro took the purse and
left. As Francis was of age, over twenty-five years old, Pietro was
forced to go to law against his son. He went to the communal magistrates and began the process for excluding Francis from claims on
[ 16 ]
This content downloaded from
132.174.250.183 on Tue, 03 Nov 2020 20:55:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
“Wh e n I Wa s i n My Si ns,” 1181–1205
the dowry. The grounds were probably mental incapacity. Perhaps
he merely intended to have a custodian appointed to manage his
son’s affairs, something normal in cases of mental incapacity. Recognizing Pietro’s rights and the gravity of the matter, the city sent a
bailiff to summon Francis before the tribunal. When the bailiff arrived, Francis, showing unexpected legal savvy, invoked his status
as an ecclesiastical person and refused to recognize the authority of
the court. The judges, who had no other choice, remanded the case
to Bishop Guido. As ecclesiastical judge, the bishop summoned
Francis to reply to his father. This he freely did, Thomas of Celano
tells us, saying that he would do so willingly “because the bishop
is the father of souls.”
It appears that Guido, who had already been advising Francis,
now preferred to serve as mediator between son and father, rather
than acting as a judge. In the presence of Francis’s whole family, including Pica and Angelo, as would be fitting in an action
on her dowry, the bishop urged Francis to renounce any claim
on his family’s resources and to depend on God alone. Without
hesitation, Francis agreed to renounce his claim. Then, in a gesture that must have come easily to his somewhat exhibitionistic
temperament, Francis withdrew into an adjoining room, removed
the fi ne clothing typical of his family’s station, and stripped down
to the penitent’s hair shirt he was wearing underneath. He came
out and put his old garments at his father’s feet. He then turned
to those present and declared: “Until now I have called Pietro di
Bernardone my father. But, because I have proposed to serve God,
I return to him the money on account of which he was so upset,
and also all the clothing which is his, wanting to say, from now
on: ‘Our Father who art in heaven,’ and not ‘My father, Pietro di
Bernardone.’ ”
Those present broke out in tears at the pathos of the scene. The
bishop then performed a gesture that mimicked the ritual by which
one became a brother of penance. Usually in that ceremony the
new brother was covered with an altar cloth from the shrine of the
confraternity’s patron saint. Bishop Guido covered Francis with his
mantle. The silent Pietro picked up the clothes, turned, and went
[ 17 ]
This content downloaded from
132.174.250.183 on Tue, 03 Nov 2020 20:55:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Fr a nc i s of A ssi si: Th e Li f e
home with the rest of the family. We do not know if he ever spoke
in peace with his son again.
Francis was now free to follow his own path, a path that
led him away from family and city. The physical and spiritual
freedom must have been an exhilarating experience. It was now
the winter of 1206 and snowing. Francis wandered alone in the
woods, singing songs to God in his bad French. Suddenly, two
robbers overtook him and demanded that he identify himself. Hagiographers claim that he replied that he was the “Herald of the
Great King.” Finding that Francis had no money, the two toughs
beat him, stripped him of his tunic and hair shirt, and left him
for dead. Battered and suffering from the cold, Francis made his
way to a nearby monastery, perhaps that of San Verecondio in
Vallingegno, just south of Gubbio. The monks took him in for
several days, allowing him to work as a menial domestic. In spite
of the shelter and warmth of the kitchen, he could not shake the
cold from his body, so, after a short time, he left the monastery
and headed off to Gubbio, where he was taken in and clothed by
an old acquaintance.
Frustrated, and suddenly unsure that this was the life God had
chosen for him, he headed back to Assisi, where he had the experience that would change his life forever. Years later he would
write in his Testament: “The Lord granted me, brother Francis,
to begin doing penance this way: When I was in my sins, just
to see lepers was very bitter for me. And the Lord himself took
me among them, and I showed mercy to them. And on leaving
them, what seemed bitter to me had turned for me into sweetness of body and soul. And afterwards I waited a little and left
the world.”
This encounter with lepers, not the act of stripping off his
clothing before the bishop, would always be for Francis the core
of his religious conversion. As near as we can tell, it happened on
the outskirts of Assisi, perhaps at the leprosarium of San Rufi no
dell’Arce, which was on the way back from Gubbio. Or it could
have been at San Lazzaro near Rivo Torto, or perhaps at San
Salvatore delle Pareti, as reported by Bonaventure.
[ 18 ]
This content downloaded from
132.174.250.183 on Tue, 03 Nov 2020 20:55:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
“Wh e n I Wa s i n My Si ns,” 1181–1205
Wherever the leprosarium was, Francis lodged there with the
residents and earned his keep caring for them. His experience with
them had nothing to do with choices between wealth and poverty, knightly pride and humility, or even doing service instead
of conducting business. It was a dramatic personal reorientation
that brought forth spiritual fruit. As Francis showed mercy to these
outcasts, he came to experience God’s own gift of mercy to himself. As he cleaned the lepers’ bodies, dressed their wounds, and
treated them as human beings, not as refuse to be fled from in horror, his perceptions changed. What before was ugly and repulsive
now caused him delight and joy, not only spiritually, but also viscerally and physically. Francis’s aesthetic sense, so central to his
personality, had been transformed, even inverted. The startled
veteran sensed himself, by God’s grace and no power of his own,
remade into a different man. Just as suddenly, the sins that had been
tormenting him seemed to melt away, and Francis experienced a
kind of spiritual rebirth and healing. Not long after this encounter,
later accounts tell us, perhaps in allegory, that Francis was walking
down a road and met one of these same lepers. He embraced the
man in his arms and kissed him. Francis’s spiritual nightmare was
over; he had found peace.
[ 19 ]
This content downloaded from
132.174.250.183 on Tue, 03 Nov 2020 20:55:07 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms