Trad. c. 1205/06
Prayer before the Crucifix
Prayer. A very short plea for faith, hope, charity, discernment, and the grace to carry out God’s command, traditionally placed before the San Damiano crucifix.
The witness
Francis was born into a merchant household, dreamed first of knighthood, and was gradually remade by prayer, poverty, the Gospel, ruined churches, and people with leprosy. He called his community the lesser brothers: not a spiritual elite above the world, but brothers moving through it without domination.
He left only a small body of writing—rules, letters, prayers, praises, admonitions, and a testament. That makes the distinction on these pages important: Francis’s own words come first; stories about him are dated and named.
The writings
28 entriesFrancis was an author, but not usually a solitary man at a desk. He composed, dictated, revised with brothers, assembled Scripture into prayer, and occasionally wrote in his own hand. Related recensions are kept together below. The dates are a map of likelihood, not a settled publication history.
c. approximately? especially uncertainearliest → latest
Beginnings
Conversion and the first fraternity
c. 1209–1221
The Earlier Rule
Rule of life. The unsealed, twenty-four-chapter form of the brothers’ Gospel life. It grew from the primitive rule approved orally around 1209 into the community’s working text of 1221.
c. 1212/13
Form of Life for Saint Clare and Her Sisters
Brief rule fragment. Francis promises care for Clare’s community and binds its life to the poverty of Christ; the lines survive inside Clare’s later Rule.
c. 1212–1215?
Exhortation to the Praise of God
Litany of praise. A rough, energetic summons for heaven, earth, and every creature to praise God; its early date is plausible rather than demonstrable.
Undated
A Rule for Hermitages
Practical rule. A compact pattern for three or four brothers: some live as “mothers,” others as “sons,” alternating solitude, prayer, protection, and service.
Formation
A movement learning how to live
c. 1217–1221
The Admonitions
Twenty-eight teachings. Short instruction on Eucharist, obedience, humility, mercy, peace, purity of heart, and the hidden possession of virtue—probably delivered over time and then collected.
c. 1220
Letters to the Clergy · two recensions
Ecclesial exhortation. Francis urges reverence for the Eucharist and for written words bearing God’s name. The revised form reflects contemporary papal legislation.
c. 1220
Letter to the Rulers of the Peoples
Public letter. A warning to civil authorities to remember death, receive the Eucharist rightly, and call their people to public praise of God.
c. 1220
Letters to the Custodians · two recensions
Circular instructions. Francis asks regional superiors to distribute his appeals to clergy and rulers and to foster reverence, proclamation, and prayer.
c. 1220–1226?
Exhortations to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance · two recensions
Letters to the Faithful. A Gospel pattern for lay penitents: love God and neighbor, receive Christ sacramentally, practice mercy, and turn from the self-enclosed life. Their sequence and dating remain debated.
Undated
Praises to Be Said at All the Hours
Liturgical praise. Biblical acclamations arranged for communal use before the Divine Office, turning the brothers’ daily hours repeatedly toward worship.
After 1221?
A Salutation of the Virtues
Wisdom poem. Francis greets Wisdom, Poverty, Humility, Charity, Obedience, and Simplicity, then shows how each virtue confounds its opposing vice.
After 1221?
A Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Marian praise. A compact meditation on Mary as virgin, palace, tabernacle, house, robe, servant, and mother of the incarnate Word.
After 1221?
A Prayer Inspired by the Our Father
Meditative paraphrase. The Lord’s Prayer is opened phrase by phrase into contemplation, desire, forgiveness, and obedience.
Maturity
Mercy, prayer, and the final Rule
c. 1221–1223
Letter to a Minister
Personal counsel. To a superior exhausted by difficult brothers, Francis makes repeated mercy—not escape to a hermitage—the place where obedience and love are learned.
c. 1221–1223
True and Perfect Joy
Dictated teaching. A winter road, a locked friary door, and rejection become Francis’s test: joy lies neither in success nor wonders but in patient, unretaliating love.
c. 1221–1223?
The Office of the Passion
Devotional office. Fifteen psalms composed chiefly from biblical phrases let Francis pray in the voice of Christ through Passion, resurrection, ascension, and the feasts.
1223
The Later Rule
Papal rule. The distilled twelve-chapter Rule of the Friars Minor, confirmed by Honorius III on 29 November 1223: Gospel, poverty, prayer, work, mission, and life together.
1223/24
Letter to Brother Anthony
Permission to teach. Francis welcomes Anthony’s teaching of theology so long as study does not extinguish “the spirit of prayer and devotion.”
Last years
La Verna, illness, song, and farewell
c. 1224
Letter to the Entire Order
Circular letter. A solemn appeal to the whole fraternity concerning Eucharistic reverence, the Divine Office, obedience, and the responsibilities of priests.
Sept. 1224
The Praises of God
Autograph prayer. Written for Brother Leo after La Verna: a cascade of names addressed to God—goodness, love, beauty, security, quietude, and refreshment.
Sept. 1224
Blessing for Brother Leo
Autograph blessing. On the reverse of the Praises, Francis writes the priestly blessing of Numbers 6 over Leo and marks the parchment with the Tau.
Later years?
Letter to Brother Leo
Autograph note. Francis gathers counsel spoken “on the way,” releases Leo to discern what best pleases God, and promises welcome whenever he needs to come.
1225–1226
The Canticle of the Creatures
Umbrian song. Sun, moon, wind, water, fire, earth, forgiveness, suffering, and death become siblings in praise. Tradition remembers it growing in stages during Francis’s illness.
1225
The Canticle of Exhortation for the Ladies of San Damiano
Umbrian song. The newly recovered Audite, poverelle consoles and instructs Clare’s sisters in illness, humility, discernment, and life together.
Apr.–May 1226
The Testament Made in Siena
Dictated farewell. Too ill to speak at length, Francis condenses his desire into three charges: mutual love, poverty, and fidelity to the Church.
Sept. 1226
The Testament
Remembrance and exhortation. Francis narrates how God led him among people with leprosy, gave him brothers, and revealed the Gospel form of life, then asks that the Rule be observed simply.
Shortly before Oct. 1226
Last Will for Saint Clare and Her Sisters
Final counsel. Preserved in Clare’s Rule, Francis urges the sisters to remain always in the life and poverty of Jesus Christ and his mother.
The pages
2 pagesFor the road
On Travel
Carry little. Enter with peace. Receive what is given. Cross borders without conquest. Find your quietude in God.
Prayer and conversion
The Cave
What the earliest biography says, what Chesterton imagined, and how hidden prayer opened Francis into dependence, gratitude, and a world received as gift.