He is commonly portrayed wearing a brown habit with a rope tied around his waist, featuring three knots symbolizing the three Franciscan vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Upon his return, Pietro took to calling his son Francesco ("Free man" or "Frenchman"), possibly in honour of his commercial success and enthusiasm for all things French.

[11] Although many hagiographers remark about his bright clothing, rich friends, and love of pleasures,[18] his displays of disillusionment toward the world that surrounded him came fairly early in his life, as is shown in the "story of the beggar".

Freed by his mother during Bernardone's absence, Francis returned at once to San Damiano, where he found shelter with the officiating priest, but he was soon cited before the city consuls by his father.

Having obtained a coarse woollen tunic, the dress then worn by the poorest Umbrian peasants, he tied it around himself with a knotted rope and went about exhorting the people of the countryside to penance, brotherly love, and peace.

[25] This was important in part because it recognized Church authority and prevented his following from accusations of heresy, as had happened to the Waldensians decades earlier.

[11] For those who could not leave their affairs, Francis later formed the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance, a fraternity composed of either laity or clergy whose members neither withdrew from the world nor took religious vows.

In approximately 1211, a captain of the Medrano family held the lordship of the castle and town of Agoncillo, situated near the city of Logroño, in the region of La Rioja, Spain.

[29][28] The Medrano family generously donated some land, including a tower, situated close to the Ebro River within the city of Logroño as a gift to Saint Francis, where he established the first Spanish convent of his Order there.

On 8 May 1213, he was given the use of the mountain of La Verna (Alverna) as a gift from Count Orlando di Chiusi, who described it as "eminently suitable for whoever wishes to do penance in a place remote from mankind".

A bloody and futile attack on the city was launched by the Christians on 29 August 1219, following which both sides agreed to a ceasefire that lasted four weeks.

[f] According to some late sources, the Sultan gave Francis permission to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land and even to preach there.

Drawing on a 1267 sermon by Bonaventure, later sources report that the Sultan secretly converted or accepted a death-bed baptism as a result of meeting Francis.

They received concessions from the Mameluke Sultan in 1333 with regard to certain Holy Places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and (so far as concerns the Catholic Church) jurisdictional privileges from Pope Clement VI in 1342.

As the order's official rule, it called on the friars "to observe the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience without anything of our own and in chastity".

In 1978, the remains of Francis were examined and confirmed by a commission of scholars appointed by Pope Paul VI, and put into a glass urn in the ancient stone tomb.

He used real animals to create a living scene so that the worshipers could contemplate the birth of the child Jesus in a direct way, making use of the senses, especially sight.

[50] Both Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure, biographers of Francis, tell how he used only a straw-filled manger (feeding trough) set between a real ox and donkey.

[54] Francis preached the Christian doctrine that the world was created good and beautiful by God but suffers a need for redemption because of human sin.

One account describes how one day, while Francis was travelling with some companions, they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side.

[48] Another legend from the Fioretti tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf "terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals".

"[59] The same Pope wrote on the occasion of the World Day of Peace, 1 January 1990, that Francis "invited all of creation – animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon – to give honour and praise to the Lord.

[70][71][72][73] The pontiff recounted that Cardinal Cláudio Hummes had told him, "Don't forget the poor", right after the election; that made Bergoglio think of Francis.

[h] On 18 June 1939, Pope Pius XII named Francis a joint patron saint of Italy along with Catherine of Siena with the apostolic letter "Licet Commissa".

[80] He is the patron of many churches and other locations around the world, including: Italy;[81] San Pawl il-Baħar, Malta; Freising, Germany; Lancaster, England; Kottapuram, India; Buhi, Camarines Sur, Philippines; General Trias, Philippines; San Francisco;[81] Santa Fe, New Mexico; Colorado; Salina, Kansas; Metuchen, New Jersey; and Quibdó, Colombia.

[88] Orthodox Saint, bishop, and theologian Ignatius Brianchaninov referred to a particular hagiographer of Francis of Assisi as being in delusion: "As an example of a book written in the state of delusion called opinion, we cite the following: 'When Francis was caught up to heaven,' says a writer of his life, 'God the Father, on seeing him, was for a moment in doubt to as [sic] to whom to give the preference, to His Son by nature, or to His son by grace-Francis.'

[90] Today, Francis' feast is celebrated at New Skete, an Eastern Orthodox monastic community in Cambridge, New York founded by Catholic Franciscans in the 20th century.

[94] The interreligious spiritual community of Skanda Vale in Wales also takes inspiration from the example of Francis, and models itself as an interfaith Franciscan order.

There are countless seventeenth- and eighteenth-century depictions of Saint Francis of Assisi and a musical angel in churches and museums throughout western Europe.

The titles of these depictions vary widely, at times describing Francis as "consoled", "comforted", in "ecstasy" or in "rapture"; the presence of the musical angel may or may not be mentioned.