Francis of Assisi: The Life of a Restless Saint

by Volker Leppin, Rhys S. Bezzant (translator)

»Weder Geld noch Kleider will ich von dir, von jetzt an nenne ich nur noch einen Vater, den im Himmel!« Mit diesen Worten entsagte der aus einer wohlhabenden Familie stammende Giovanni Battista Bernardone, genannt Franz von Assisi (1181/82–1226), dem Besitz, lebte von da an ein Leben in Armut, stets darauf bedacht, Gutes zu tun und in der Nachfolge Jesu zu leben. Der zunächst als Sonderling Abgetane wurde zum Gründer eines der bedeutsamsten Orden des Mittelalters, aus dem viele große Gelehrte stammten.
Der Kirchenhistoriker Volker Leppin nähert sich Franziskus aus neuer Er rückt die verschiedenen Beziehungsgefüge in den Vordergrund und verabschiedet sich vom Rahmen reiner Chronologie. Franziskus' Beziehungen sind von Konflikten mit der Familie, der Gesellschaft und der Kirche geprägt, aber auch von der Fähigkeit, andere für sein Tun zu begeistern. Leppin erschafft so das großartige Porträt eines faszinierenden, von seiner Mission überzeugten und bedeutsamen Mannes.

Genres: History, Biography, Religion, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir

296 pages, Hardcover

Published January 28, 2025

About the author

Volker Leppin is professor for church history in the department for Evangelical Lutheran theology at the University of Tübingen and member of the scientific advisory committee of the Luther Decade.

Reviews

[Greg Talbot · Rating 3 out of 5]

“No second death can do them harm. Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks, And serve Him with great humility” - The Canticle for Brother Sun

If notions of power stem from money, fame or privilege, how do we understand the outsized life of the hermetic Francis of Assisi? Despite being a renunciate of the merchant class, stripped of any financial security and one who committed to work on a leper colony, Francis somehow came into the circles of imperial pope Innocent III and Egyptian Al-Malik al-Kāmil. Some 1,200 years after the death of Jesus Christ, when the Catholic Church was prodigiously influential and influencing geopolitics, Francis established a Franciscan order rapturously devoted to penance and Christ-centered service

Volker Leppin’s “Francis of Assisi” attempts to tell the Franci’s story by focusing on the historicity by setting aside the sainthood accounts from the medieval era. Through the prism of the hagiographic writings such as Celano’s “First Life”, his apostles “Legend of Three Companions”, and Francis's penned “Testament”, Leppin (in a translation by Rhys S. Bezzzunt) shares the struggles of separating the two. He explores the “double tradition, which is characterized on the one hand by hagiographies on which everyone who wants to recount the life of Francis remains dependent (p.7). Autobiographies, he states, are interpretations, full of narrative tensions, and we must abandon these to understand reality.

Unfortunately, I was frustrated by Leppin’s circumspect approach to the historical texts. Understandably he is bound to the primary texts, but often the writings are loaded with qualifications, doubts, uncertainties. A coherent narrative of a life story is choppy, with unnecessary interludes and unrewarding transitions. The writing plods along, often with detours to side characters or papal decrees. As I read on, I increasingly became annoyed by how fragmentary Pippin’s narrative of Francis was, despite a growing interest in his Francis's story.

The primary texts may be suspect and proclaim miracles that are suspicious to the modern reader. I appreciated the insights into Francis’s personality from the historical record that are less flattering - a bizarre impulsivity, possible PTSD from an imprisonment, and early rebellions against the social order being from his father’s overbearingness instead of a deep abiding faith. Still, I kept thinking that the writing served a more niche graduate student audience, one familiar with the related texts, and that this book is less serviceable to a larger audience.

Even if we abandon the hagiography, there are remarkable writings about the visions and miracles of Francis that inform the medieval worldview. As Leppin writes “For medieval people the world was permeated by God’s rule, and that he was able to reveal himself to people in visions, dreams, and revelations (p.9)”. A dream occurs that comes to Francis as a direct message to God. Sharing the revelations of the dream with Pope Innocent III leads to the establishment of the Francisian order. Another tale, possibly apocryphal, is of a crucifix speaking to Francis, and giving him orders to repair the house of worship – (a very literal workman repairing message was received by Francis). The bizarre events of Francis’s reckless actions to convert soldering Muslims, and possibly seeking martyrdom with inspiration from the book of Daniel. There are also the multiple accounts of stigmata on Francis’s body in his late life. I share a skepticism with modern readers on these stories, but also think the purpose of the hagiography is valuable, and unexplored in this book.

Circling back to the idea of Francis’s renunciation, and modeling of a Chris-centirc life, I was fascinated by how Francis challenges the lives of the faithful in our time. Eight hundred years after his death, Christians take pilgrimages to Portiuncula and find inspiration in the saint. As Leppin points out, there are parts of Francis’s preaching that are unpleasant to contemplate such as sermons on “everlasting fire”, and “terror and anxiety” (p.111). His devotion comes across as fanatical, with strong a strong emphasis on penitence and begging as a means for survival. Nevertheless, there are areas of renunciation that still feel ahead of our culture - the reverence of nature and ecology, the renunciation of oppressive economic systems, the denunciation of hierarchy among the brotherhood, and a life of service and charity toward the dispossessed. There are parallels to our own time when Christ’s doctrines can be politicized for power or received for self-transformation

Although we have to contend with Francis’s historical life with the applied sainthood, there is no doubt that Francis aspired to be a “man-out-of-time”. The biblical passage from John 18:36 puts it best with the devotional “My kingdom is not of this earth”. In Leppin’s biography, we see the ways that Francis aspired to live a reunciate life. We are also aware of the ways in which he was not a revolutionary - the Francisean order submitted to the Church’s dogma; and we are aware that many other orders defied the Church were persecuted as heretics. Maybe mystery lies at the heart of the Francis story, but it’s a story beckoning of hope and blessing, and a reminder that our position in this world is not reflective of our power.

[Daniel Gullotta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn’t the book I’d recommend to meet Francis of Assisi, but it is the book I’d recommend to understand what we can, do, and might know about him. Leppin excels at setting Francis within his medieval world, offering a rich explanation of his upbringing, the religious context of Roman Catholicism as he knew and shaped it, and how his legacy was formed through a complicated web of sources. Leppin is especially strong in sorting through fact, fiction, likelihood, speculation, and later embellishment—from Francis’ own words, to early biographies by his followers, to hagiographies by admirers generations later. That said, this is an academic work. It’s not devotional, it’s not meant to inspire, and you may not leave it understanding why so many people love Francis. But it is deeply insightful, well-organized (if occasionally dense), and full of careful historical analysis. Recommended for readers who want the historical Francis.

[Evan Cruse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to rate! Many parts of this biography were fascinating: stigmata, nativity scene, Francis moving worms off the road so they wouldn't get stepped on, etc.

And, I appreciate the desire to have a more scholarly consistent biography as opposed to Celano or the Three Companions.

But, in a way it felt too historical? In pushing against hagiography, the story was warped into getting bogged down into every detail. Which slowed down the entire biography, and led to a choppy read.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author concludes his work by saying that the few and varied accounts we have of Francis' l9ife don't allow us to really answer who he was. This is the problem I had with the gook: the writer spends so much time and effort analyzing, comparing and contrasting the various sources at each point that the final effect is pretty boring.

[Pendy Budde · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent overview of early (12th and 13th Century) church history.

[William Dillon · Rating 3 out of 5]

struggled with this. gets really hung up on trying to decipher the facts

[John Mannebach III · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrific insight into a “well-known” saint. The writing and organization, however, was extremely dense.

[Olive Schumacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

waited til the very end to mention the stigmata 🙄

[Sally Harmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned about Francis, the man, not the glorified saint.