The brothers lived in the deserted leper colony of Rivo Torto near Assisi; but they spent much of their time traveling through the mountainous districts of Umbria, always cheerful and full of songs, yet making a deep impression on their hearers by their earnest exhortations.

The realistic account in Matthew Paris—according to which the pope originally sent the shabby saint off to keep swine and only recognized his real worth by his ready obedience—has, in spite of its improbability, a certain historical interest since it shows the natural antipathy of the older Benedictine monasticism to the plebeian mendicant orders.

After about 1221, the day-to-day running of the order was in the hands of Brother Elias of Cortona, who was elected as leader of the friars a few years after Francis's death in 1232 but who aroused much opposition because of his autocratic leadership style.

[22] He planned and built the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi in which Francis is buried, a building which includes the friary Sacro Convento, still today the spiritual centre of the order.

Caesar of Speyer, the first German provincial, a zealous advocate of the founder's strict principle of poverty, began in 1221 from Augsburg with 25 companions, to win for the order the land watered by the Rhine and the Danube.

Gregory IX declared his intention to build a splendid church to house the body of Francis and the task fell to Elias, who at once began to lay plans for the erection of a great basilica at Assisi, to enshrine the remains of the Poverello.

The bull Quo elongati of Gregory IX declared that the Testament of St. Francis was not legally binding and offered an interpretation of poverty that would allow the Order to continue to develop.

Elias pursued with great severity the principal leaders of the opposition, and even Bernardo di Quintavalle, the founder's first disciple, was obliged to conceal himself for years in the forest of Monte Sefro.

The conflict between the two parties lasted many years and the Zelanti won several notable victories in spite of the favor shown to their opponents by the papal administration, until finally the reconciliation of the two points of view was seen to be impossible and the order was actually split into halves.

At the general chapter of 1239, held in Rome under the personal presidency of Gregory IX, Elias was deposed in favor of Albert of Pisa, the former provincial of England,[26] a moderate Observantist.

It was due to the action of Alexander IV's envoys, who were obliged to threaten the university authorities with excommunication, that the degree of doctor of theology was finally conceded to the Dominican Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscan Bonaventure (1257), who had previously been able to lecture only as licentiates.

Attempts were made, however, to satisfy the reasonable demands of the Spiritual party, as in the bull Exiit qui seminat[27] of Pope Nicholas III (1279), which pronounced the principle of complete poverty to be meritorious and holy, but interpreted it in the way of a somewhat sophistical distinction between possession and usufruct.

Pope Boniface VIII annulled Celestine's bull of foundation with his other acts, deposed the general Raymond Gaufredi, and appointed a man of laxer tendency, John de Murro, in his place.

Ubertino of Casale, the leader, after Olivi's death, of the stricter party, who was a member of the commission, induced the Council of Vienne to arrive at a decision in the main favoring his views, and the papal constitution Exivi de paradiso (1313) was on the whole conceived in the same sense.

[32] On 26 March 1322, with Quia nonnunquam, he removed the ban on discussion of Nicholas III's bull[36][37] and commissioned experts to examine the idea of poverty based on belief that Christ and the apostles owned nothing.

Only a small part of the Franciscan Order joined the opponents of John XXII, and at a general chapter held in Paris in 1329 the majority of all the houses declared their submission to the Pope.

The congregation was suppressed by the Franciscan general chapter in 1354; reestablished in 1368 by Paolo de' Trinci of Foligno; confirmed by Gregory XI in 1373, and spread rapidly from Central Italy to France, Spain, Hungary, and elsewhere.

Their influence brought about attempts at reform even among the Conventuals, including the quasi-Observantist brothers living under the rule of the Conventual ministers (Martinianists or Observantes sub ministris), such as the male Colletans, later led by Boniface de Ceva in his reform attempts principally in France and Germany; the reformed congregation founded in 1426 by the Spaniard Philip de Berbegal and distinguished by the special importance they attached to the little hood (cappuciola); the Neutri, a group of reformers originating about 1463 in Italy, who tried to take a middle ground between the Conventuals and Observantists, but refused to obey the heads of either, until they were compelled by the pope to affiliate with the regular Observantists, or with those of the Common Life; the Caperolani, a congregation founded about 1470 in North Italy by Peter Caperolo, but dissolved again on the death of its founder in 1481; the Amadeists, founded by the noble Portuguese Amadeo, who entered the Franciscan order at Assisi in 1452, gathered around him a number of adherents to his fairly strict principles (numbering finally twenty-six houses), and died in the odor of sanctity in 1482.

By direction of Pope Martin V, John of Capistrano drew up statutes which were to serve as a basis for reunion, and they were actually accepted by a general chapter at Assisi in 1430; but the majority of the Conventual houses refused to agree to them, and they remained without effect.

Equally unsuccessful were the attempts of the Franciscan Pope Sixtus IV, who bestowed a vast number of privileges on both of the original mendicant orders, but by this very fact lost the favor of the Observants and failed in his plans for reunion.

Their impact as missionaries was limited at first, since two of them died on Cortés's expedition to Central America in 1524, but Fray Pedro de Gante initiated the evangelization process and studied the Nahuatl language through his contacts with children of the Indian elite from the city of Tetzcoco.

After founding the Friars Minor and seeing a need, Francis created a way of life to which married men and women, as well as the single and the secular clergy, could belong and live according to the Gospel.

This movement continued in North America as various congregations arose from one coast to another, in answer to the needs of the large emigrant communities that were flooding the cities of the United States and Canada.

The Third Order Regular of the Brothers of the Poor of St. Francis of Assisi, CFP, are an active community, based in the United States, with houses in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, and Brazil.

Today this group is present in 17 countries: Italy, Croatia, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, US, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Brazil, Paraguay, Mexico, Peru, Sweden, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.

From its first century can be cited the three great scholastics Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, and John Duns Scotus, the "Doctor of Wonders" Roger Bacon, and the well-known mystic authors and popular preachers David of Augsburg and Berthold of Regensburg.

During the Middle Ages noteworthy members included Nicholas of Lyra, Biblical commentator Bernardino of Siena, philosopher William of Ockham, preachers John of Capistrano, Oliver Maillard, and Michel Menot, and historians Luke Wadding and Antoine Pagi.

The influence of Franciscan ideals shows in several great painters of the 13th and 14th centuries, especially Cimabue and Giotto, who, though they were not friars, were spiritual sons of Francis in the wider sense; it is also seen in the plastic masterpieces of the latter, as well as the architectural conceptions of both himself and his school.

The Italian Gothic style, whose earliest important monument is the great convent church at Assisi (built 1228–53), was cultivated as a rule principally by members of the order or men under their influence.

Other famous members of the Franciscan family include Anthony of Padua, François Rabelais, Alexander of Hales, Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, Pio of Pietrelcina, Maximilian Kolbe, Pasquale Sarullo, Mamerto Esquiú, Gabriele Allegra, Junipero Serra, Simpliciano of the Nativity, Mychal F. Judge, Angelico Chavez, Anton Docher, Joseph of Cupertino, Benedict Groeschel and Leonard of Port Maurice.