Francis of Assisi Among the Saracens:

Orthodox Pacifism in the Middle Ages

Brad Pardue

University of Tennessee

At the time when the Christian army was besieging Damietta the holy man of God [Francis] was present with some companions, for they had crossed the sea in a desire for martyrdom … He said to his companion: ‘The Lord has showed me that if the battle takes place on such a day, it will not go well with the Christians … The holy man therefore arose and approached the Christians with salutary warnings, forbidding the war, denouncing the reason for it. But truth was turned to ridicule, and they hardened their hearts and refused to be guided.[1]

 Thomas of Celano

Francis of Assisi’s journey to the East in 1219 is one of the most famous missionary endeavors of the Middle Ages. Giotto has immortalized the event in his well-known painting in the Upper Basilica in Assisi. Dante Alighieri, Giotto’s near contemporary, also describes this occurrence in Canto XI of his Paradiso.[2] The fame of this incident is one of the factors that complicates the task of the historian for the facts are obscured by the myth that has developed around the event. The most extensive early accounts of Francis’ journey appear in Thomas of Celano’s Lives, produced in 1229 and 1244. These accounts, excerpted above, raise a series of important questions. What was Francis doing at Damietta, seeking martyrdom or the conversion of his audience? How unique was Francis’ preaching mission among the Saracens? Why did Francis criticize the crusaders he encountered? These are all questions that this paper attempts to answer. This study posits that a proper understanding of these events points to the conclusion that Francis was one of the first orthodox medieval pacifists in the Christian West.

Through careful analysis of early Franciscan writings and a variety of other sources from the period between 1050 and 1250 this study argues that Francis’ activities in Egypt have not been sufficiently examined within the broader context of his life and mission. Historians have too often generalized from other missionary accounts and the subsequent history of the Franciscan Order, concluding that while Francis may have abstained from violence, he was nevertheless a supporter of crusade.[3] Others, such as John Tolan, have argued that Francis’ mission was directed at martyrdom rather than the conversion of the Muslims.[4] The following reevaluation suggests that alternative interpretations can just as easily be made to fit the facts. The contours of Francis’ understanding of missions was profoundly shaped by the efforts of he and his followers to live and preach the vita apostolica. His own conversion is said to have culminated in his going out to preach in response to the reading of Matthew 10:7: “As you go, preach this message, The kingdom of heaven is near.”[5] Celano also informs us that when preaching Francis “always most devoutly announced peace to men and women, to all he met and overtook.”[6] The connections between these various strands of Francis’ thought supports the thesis first put forward by Keith Haines over twenty years ago, that Francis was a pacifist.[7]

Before examining Francis of Assisi’s role in and reaction to the Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) it is necessary to step back and consider the broader history of Christian interaction with the Islamic world. Even in the seventh and eighth centuries, when Islam first began to spread beyond the borders of Arabia, the Christian response took several forms. Some collaborated, some sought to convert their Saracen neighbors, and other engaged in aggressive and violent defense of their beliefs. Even during the period of the crusades (1095-1221), the approach to Islam remained multifaceted. Conversion, in particular, was advocated as a highly desirable solution to the imposing Islamic presence.

In his article, “Christian-Islamic Confrontation in the West: The Thirteenth-Century Dream of Conversion,” Robert Burns examined the attitudes and pronouncements of several medieval popes with regard to the Saracens.[8] His research reveals that even those who were strong advocates of crusade also encouraged efforts to convert Muslim peoples. Eight years before he called for the First Crusade (1095-1101) at the Council of Clermont (1095), Urban II (r. 1088-1099) had written to the new archbishop of Toledo, “With warm affection we exhort you, reverend brother, that you live worthy of so high and honored a pontificate, taking care always not to give offense to Christians or to Muslims: strive by word and example, God helping, to convert the infidels to the faith.[9]

Benjamin Kedar has questioned the extent to which the morality of crusading related to the espousal of the idea of missions.[10] A call for the conversion of the infidels was not necessarily at odds with advocacy of violent crusading. Peter the Venerable (c. 1092-1156), who commissioned a translation of the Koran in the 1140s, provides an important example of the way in which both projects could be combined. In the introduction to his Book against the Abominable Heresy or Sect of the Saracens (c.1143/44) he says to his imagined Muslim audience, “I approach you not, as our people often do with arms, but with words; not with force but with reason, not in hatred but in love.”[11] And yet it was the same man who actively preached the Second Crusade (1145-1147) and who wrote to an unnamed crusader king that although he was unable to accompany him to the East to crush the enemies of Christ he would aid him with his prayers as much as he was able.[12]

            By the middle of the eleventh century a general consensus seems to have developed that violence in the cause of Christ was justified. The foundational arguments for ecclesiastically controlled war had already begun to be developed during the pontificate of Gregory VII (r. 1073-85).[13] During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this earlier justification for holy war was further developed. In Causa XXIII of Gratian’s Decretum (c. 1140) the great canon lawyer examined the major objections against ecclesiastical war and then proceeded to answer them. This section of the Decretum seems quickly to have become a proof-text for crusade advocates and defenders. When, in the 1150s, the Patriarch of Jerusalem began to question the validity of Christian violence following the failure of the Second Crusade, Peter of Troyes quoted Gratian to prove that those who killed enemies of the Church in time of war were not guilty of murder.[14]

            This does not mean that criticism of the crusades did not exist. In his foundational study of the crusading ideal, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (1935), Carl Erdmann included a chapter entitled “For and Against Ecclesiastical War” in which he noted a history of dissent dating back to the time of the First Crusade and beyond.[15] In her important work, Criticism of Crusading, Elizabeth Siberry has conducted a more nuanced investigation. She distinguishes between two kinds of criticism: that directed against particular crusades or abuses and that directed against the idea of crusade itself. She concludes, “In the Central Middle Ages most critics were concerned with abuses or with particular aspects of the crusading movement, rather than with the concept itself.”[16]

In her discussion of the first type of criticism, Siberry addresses several of the most frequent concerns raised by critics. One of the major objections to the crusades was the cost associated with them. This could take both secular and religious forms. During the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the Spanish representatives sought exemption from taxes intended to fund the Fifth Crusade, not because they objected to crusade as such, but because they felt that their money would be better directed at the Reconquista, the effort to drives the Moors from the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula [17]

            Another major cause of concern was that crusades were not being directed at the appropriate enemies. During the period between 1095 and 1250 crusades took place within Europe’s boundaries: against Moors in Spain, but also against heretics in the Languedoc region, pagans on Europe’s northern frontiers, and against schismatics on the borders with Byzantium. The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220-1250) was also the object of a papally-sanctioned crusade. Sudden or unexpected defeat also prompted criticism. The poet Neidhart von Reuental (active 1210-1240), present at the siege of Damietta during the Fifth Crusade among the followers of the German prince Leopold of Austria (1176-1230), encouraged the crusaders to return home when he saw the successes of the Christians’ Saracen foes.[18] These criticisms were spoken in the same location and during the same period as those of Francis, although they spring from a different source.

            Using Siberry’s system of organization, the second major type of criticism was that directed at the concept of crusade itself. Most of what we know about these critics comes from the responses of those advocates and preachers of crusade who answered them. For example, Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141) responded to criticisms of the Order of Templars by declaring, “For we have heard that some of you have been troubled by foolish men, claiming that the profession to which you have devoted your lives … is illicit or pernicious, in other words that it constitutes a sin.”[19] Bernard of Clairvaux also produced a treatise, De laude novae militiae, intended to refute the arguments of those who attacked the activities of crusaders.[20]

Who is it that these apologists found it necessary to defend themselves against? Siberry has argued that “Apart from … [a few] anonymous criticisms, the only other pacifist objections to the crusades were advanced by the Cathars and Waldensians.”[21] In Keith Haines’ study, “Attitudes and Impediments to Pacifism in Medieval Europe,” which Siberry cites frequently, the author has provided a slightly longer list that includes other poverty movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.[22] Haines declares, “Yet not all men indulged in the duties, diversions and pastimes of war; there were those who found the taking of human life to be objectionable and sinful, and who openly and outrightly refused to fight … they clung strictly and tenaciously to the pacifist ideal.”[23]

            Given that several of Francis of Assisi’s biographers believe he may have been familiar with some of the ideas of these heretical groups,[24] it is important to examine more closely what the nature of their criticism was and if they could have exerted any influence on Francis’ perspective. In his extensive study of medieval heresy, recently updated and reissued, Malcolm Lambert suggests that the Cathar sect probably appeared in Europe in the middle of the twelfth century.[25] For the purposes of the present study, it is the Cathar rejection of violent warfare that is of most interest. In an anonymous treatise dating from the first half of the thirteenth century a Provencal member of the sect quoted Jesus’ statement in Matthew 19:17-18 that those who commit murder will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. He then justified the Cathar attack on the Catholic Church accusing, “for it is not persecuted for the goodness or justice which is in it, but on the contrary it persecutes and kills all who refuse to condone its sins and its actions … Nor is it like a sheep among wolves, but rather like wolves among sheep or goats, for it endeavors to rule over pagans and Jews and Gentiles.”[26]

            One of the ways in which the Cathar sought to set themselves apart from their Catholic adversaries was through the holiness of their lives and their abhorrence of war may have been one element of this. It may also have arisen from their dualism and their efforts to avoid the impurity of spilt blood. The Waldensians, recognized briefly by Pope Alexander III (r. 1159-1181) at the Third Vatican Council in 1179, also seem to have rejected the shedding of blood. Early in the thirteenth century the inquisitor Stephen of Bourbon wrote, “They say that all judges commit a sin in pronouncing the death penalty and they regard as murderers and damned souls those who preach war against the Saracens and Albigenses and other men.”[27] These examples validate the conclusions of Siberry and Haines that it is to the heretical poverty movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the historian must look for a clearly articulated ideology of pacifism.

When Siberry looks at Francis and his followers she places them squarely in the first category of critics, those who criticized particular abuses or particular crusaders. On the surface, Francis appears to be another Peter the Venerable, abstaining from violence himself and yet advocating crusade as a valid approach to the Islam world. Most historians seem to have accepted this interpretation. Yet this comparison breaks down when one considers that this evaluation of Peter is based on his own words. Evaluations of Francis’ understanding of crusade, perhaps because of the limited number of sources available, have tended to be based on observations of the later activities of his order. Siberry’s statement that “[i]t is wrong to suggest that in the thirteenth century the crusading movement aroused opposition from the new orders of friars,” requires reexamination when applied to Francis himself.[28]

At times even Siberry acknowledges that Francis cannot be made to fit neatly into the category of those who criticize only the abuses of crusade.[29] Her difficulty arises from the same passage with which this study began: Celano’s account of Francis at Damietta. Celano describes the scene: “The holy man [Francis] therefore arose and approached the Christians with salutary warnings, forbidding the war, denouncing the reasons for it.”[30] The story is so brief and the details so scant that it is impossible to determine from this passage exactly what form Francis’ criticisms took. Her decision to classify Francis as she does seems predicated on two principles: the subsequent history of the Franciscan Order and the evaluations of earlier scholars in the secondary literature. Siberry seems to have misrepresented the position of Keith Haines who serves as her most important reference, for Haines had concluded, “Perhaps the individual who came closest to the true pacifist was St. Francis of Assisi.”[31]

One of the most fascinating things about Francis was his ability to take ideas that were quasi-heretical and to provide an orthodox alternative acceptable to the Church. Both M.D. Lambert[32] and Ellen Scott Davison[33] have examined this characteristic of his personality in relation to apostolic poverty. A similar argument can be made with regard to pacifism. One key component of this project is to demonstrate the possible connections and modes of transmission between these groups and Francis during his formative period.

            There is definitely a geographical connection between these groups and Francis. Lambert argues that, “Lombardy, and to a lesser extent, central Italy in these decades (1180s and 1190s) was rapidly attaining the distinction of being the land of heresy par excellence, rivaled only by Languedoc.[34] Here Francis’ hometown of Assisi can be found and here he grew to maturity. There is little available evidence to suggest any direct connection between these heretical groups and Francis. There are, however, possible lines of transmission that ought to be noted. Francis’ father was a cloth merchant and Paul Sabatier has argued that Pietro would likely have encountered the ‘Poor Men of Lyons’ or Waldensians during his travels to the markets of France.[35] Francis may also have heard some stories about the Humiliati, sanctioned in 1201, and the Cathar, against whom Pope Innocent III (r. 1198-1216) initiated a crusade in 1209. Both were active in Francis’ region.[36]

One should not overstate, however, the similarities between Francis and other poverty movements of his period. He was always careful to maintain his orthodoxy, something that none of the others were able to do for an extended period. One way in which Francis set himself and his movement apart from earlier groups such as the Waldensians was by his attitude towards priests. In the unofficial Rule of 1221 Francis instructed the brothers, “All the friars are bound to be Catholics, and live and speak as such … We must regard all other clerics and religious as our superiors in all that concerns salvation … We must respect their position and office, together with their ministry.”[37] He also repeated this admonition in his Testament.

Having noted this distinction between religious and ordinary believers, it is equally important to recognize that this was not the fault line that Francis selected to distinguish between those inside and those outside his order. That line fell elsewhere, or perhaps it would be more accurate to reject such language entirely when speaking of the earliest days of the movement. This is significant because one of the most obvious objections to the present argument is that Francis was simply a strong advocate of clerical abstinence from violence. But Francis’ message, a call to return to the vita apostolica, was not intended for the religious alone.

Like the Waldensians or the Humiliati, the Franciscan Order began as a lay movement. Until 1220, the boundaries of the Order were fluid. It was on 22 September of that year, in the bull Cum secundum consilium, that the year of novitiate was introduced.[38] The Rule of 1221 makes it clear that this addition was introduced at the insistence of the pope.[39] From the earliest days of the movement, Francis’ way of life was based on his understanding of the gospel texts. In his preface to David Flood’s study of the regula non bullata, Kajetan Esser, OFM, describes the early rule as “an effort to form the individual and communal life of the brothers based simply on the gospel. For the references to the gospel always return. Francis and his brothers where men of the gospel.”[40] Bonaventure made a similar evaluation in his Vita in the 1260s, a work that became the official history of the saint within the Order. Francis’ contemporaries recognized the source of his ideas and the universality of his message. When he approached the pope in 1210 seeking approval for himself and his followers, some argued that his way of life was too difficult. However, John of St. Paul, Bishop of Santa Sabina, responded, “We must be careful. If we refuse this beggarman’s request because it is new or too difficult, we may be sinning against Christ’s Gospel, because he is only asking us to approve a form of Gospel life.”[41]

Even after 1220, when the boundaries of the official Order became more fixed, Francis continued consciously to exert a strong influence on the layman. In 1221, he produced a rule of life for the newly created Third Order, men and women who desired to follow Francis’ example but who were unable to leave the world. One key component of their way of life was that they abstain from any form of violence. It is one thing to be at peace with your Christian neighbor and quite another to be at peace with the Muslims occupying the Holy Land. Nevertheless, a close reading of Francis’ writings reveals that he intended his conception of peace to be applied that broadly. Near the conclusion of the earliest extant rule of the Franciscan Order (1221) Francis wrote, “Remember the words of our Lord, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, in whose footsteps we must follow, called the man who betrayed him his friend … Therefore, our friends are those who for no reason cause us trouble and suffering, sham or injury, pain or torture, even martyrdom and death.”[42] David Flood has suggested that this section of the Rule was a testament or last will that Francis produced for his brothers before departing for Egypt in 1219.[43]

Although Francis did not see missions exclusively as a means of attaining martyrdom, it is quite evident that he anticipated his own death at the hands of the Saracens. Celano makes this clear but we need only look at the section of the Rule just quoted.[44] The fact that Francis thought it necessary to prepare a testament for his followers is a strong indication that he believed he would not be coming back. Perhaps most telling is the fact that Francis concludes this early testament by quoting John 17:6-26, the prayer that Jesus prayed for his followers before his own death on the Cross.[45] Why is it so important to establish that Francis thought that he would be martyred in the East? Precisely because this means that when Francis said that we must consider as friends those who torture and kill us, he meant to extend this designation to cover the Saracens. 

            Celano’s account of Francis’ activities in the East, particularly his interaction with Sultan al-Kamil, raises one more important and related question. Was his driving motivation the desire for martyrdom? If so, this would undermine the thesis that Francis saw the conversion of the Saracens as a valid non-violent alternative to crusade. Both Celano and Dante seem to see martyrdom as his primary objective. Historians have picked up on this emphasis on martyrdom in the early biographies and used it to explain the orientation of Francis and his followers. In his recent work, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination, John Tolan has dedicated a chapter to the Franciscan approach to missions among the Saracens, characterizing it as primarily geared towards martyrdom. He concludes, “Missions to the Saracens, for the Franciscans, was part of the vita apostolica, serving to bring friars to glorious martyrdom and, incidentally, to convert unbelievers.”[46] To make such a sweeping generalization for a large religious order is to do a disservice to the diverse individuals who engaged in Franciscan missions during the thirteenth century. Like Siberry, Tolan has also drawn conclusions based on later developments within the Order and projected back to explain Francis’ motivations. When one examines Francis’ missionary activities within the broader context of his life a more complex picture emerges.

From the very beginning, Francis understood his mission to be tied to preaching. During the feast of St. Matthias, 24 February, 1208, Francis heard the reading of Matthew 10:7-10, which described the manner in which Jesus sent his disciples out into the world. On hearing these words Francis is said to have declared, “This is what I wish, this is what I seek, this is what I long to do with all my heart.”[47] All the early sources agree that this event marked a turning point in Francis’ ministry. These words of Scripture led Francis into the squares of Assisi to preach to others and to win his first disciples.[48]

            Preaching seems always to have been at the core of the Franciscan way of life. Celano recounts that when the number of Francis’ followers reached eight, he divided them into four groups of two and sent them out into the Italian countryside. Francis instructed them, “Go, my dearest brothers two by two into the various parts of the world, announcing to men peace and repentance unto forgiveness of sins [emphasis added].”[49] As the order grew, the scale of these missions became more ambitious. Celano himself took part in a mission to Germany that began in 1217. Francis’ attempted missions to Syria, Spain, and Egypt should be seen as simply another component of the larger preaching aims of the Order.[50]

            One of the strongest indications that Francis saw missions to the Saracens as flowing out of his wider call to preach is the presence in both of the Order’s rules of a chapter dedicated to those who feel called to such missions. The Rule declares, “And so the friars who are inspired by God to work as missionaries among the Saracens and other unbelievers must get permission to go from their minister … [who] should give them permission and raise no objection.”[51] These instructions are followed by fifteen scriptural injunctions intended to guide and encourage the brothers. 

A careful reading of the Rule’s discussion of missions reveals a complex situation. While some passages seem to advocate martyrdom, others suggest that this ought not to be the primary objective of the brothers. Francis quotes Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 10:23, “When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.”[52] When considered in light of the model of the vita apistolica upon which Francis based his way of life, it becomes more difficult to interpret the Rule’s call to missions simply as a call to martyrdom. Benjamin Kedar has pointed out that, “The relationship between preaching and martyrdom was not devoid of tension. On the abstract level, it was [and is] easy to present martyrdom as the ultimate completion of preaching … But the individual missionary leaving for the lands of Islam had to make up his mind whether his foremost aim was to persuade the infidels of Christianity’s truth, or to attain self-fulfillment by suffering death at their hands.”[53]

Certainly there were those among the early Franciscans who sought martyrdom above all else. Nevertheless, Tolan’s characterization of all Franciscan missions as motivated by a desire for martyrdom does not recognize either the motives and choices of individual friars or the gospel model on which missions were originally based. Kedar’s description of the mission provisions of the Rules as “measured injunctions” appears much more accurate.[54]

            Francis’ missionary journey to the court of the sultan during the Fifth Crusade is a fascinating and remarkable story, retold and represented in a variety of forms over the last seven centuries. But when one looks at the original details one finds that important questions present themselves. It is much easier to tell a story than to really understand it. When historians have attempted to explain Francis’ activities their conclusions have too often been founded on insufficient analysis of the early sources. Generalizations based on accounts of other missions, and even on the subsequent history of the Franciscan Order, are not satisfactory. Francis’ program was universal, growing out of his efforts to return to the vita apistolica. His message of peace was not just for the clergy but for ordinary men as well. A strong case can be made that Francis even intended his concept of peace to be applied to Christendom’s Muslim foes. While the arguments put forward above strongly support Keith Haines’ thesis that Francis was one of the few orthodox medieval pacifists, additional research is needed before a more conclusive ruling can be made. What is apparent is that this thesis fits the facts just as well, and perhaps better, than the traditional interpretation. 

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[1]Marian Habig, ed., St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies, English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis of Assisi. 3^rd ed., trans. Raphael Brown, Placid Hermann, Paul Oligny, Nesta de Robeck, and Leo Sherley-Price (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1973), 388.

[2]Mark Musa, ed. and trans., The Portable Dante (NY: Penguin Books, 1995), 457.

[3]This interpretation appears in specialist works such as Elizabeth Siberry’s Criticism of Crusading 1095-1274 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 18; Tomaz Mastnak’s Crusading Peace: Christendom, the Muslim World, and Western Political Order (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 185; and in more general studies of the crusades such as Carl Erdmann’s The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1977).  

[4]John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (NY: Columbia University Press, 2002), 218.

[5]Habig, St. Francis of Assisi: Writings, 246-247.

[6]Ibid., 248.

[7]Keith Haines, “Attitudes and Impediments to Pacifism in Medieval Europe,” Journal of Medieval History 7 (1981), 369-388, 374.

[8]Burns, Robert, “Christian-Islamic Confrontation in the West: The Thirteenth-Century Dream of Conversion,” The American Historical Review 76 (1971), 1386-1434.

[9]Ibid., 1389.

[10]Benjamin Z. Kedar, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 99.

[11]Peter the Venerable, Liber contra sectam sive haeresim Saracenorum, ed. J. Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 231.

[12]Kedar, Crusade and Mission, 100.

[13]Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, 229.

[14]J. Leclercq, “Gratien, Pierre de Troyes et la seconde croisade,” Studia Gratiana 2 (1954), 589-593.

[15]Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, 229-268.

[16]Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, 217.

[17]P.A. Linehan, “Religion, Nationalism and National Identity in Medieval Spain,” Studies in Church History 18 (1982), 188-192.

[18]Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, 193.

[19]Ibid., 209.

[20]Ibid.  

[21]Ibid., 212.

[22]Haines, “Attitudes and Impediments to Pacifism,” 375.

[23]Ibid., 370.

[24]Paul Sabatier, Life of St. Francis of Assisi (NY: Scribner’s, 1895), 40.

[25]Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation, 3^rd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), 62.

[26]Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, 213.

[27]Ibid., 215.

[28]Ibid., 18.

[29]Ibid.

[30]Habig, St. Francis of Assisi: Writings, 388.

[31]Haines, “Attitudes and Impediments to Pacifism,” 374. 

[32]M.D. Lambert, Franciscan Poverty: The Doctrine of Absolute Poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order, 1210-1323 (London: SPCK, 1961).

[33]Ellen Scott Davison, Forerunners of Saint Francis (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928).

[34]Lambert, Franciscan Poverty, 87.

[35]Sabatier, Life of St. Francis, 40.

[36]Habig, St. Francis of Assisi: Writings, 43.

[37]Ibid., 46.

[38]Ibid., 21.

[39]Ibid., 32.

[40]David Flood, OFM and Thaddee Matura, OFM, The Birth of a Movement: A Study of the First Rule of St. Francis. trans. Paul Schwartz, OFM and Paul Lachance, OFM. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1975), ix.

[41]Habig, St. Francis of Assisi: Writings, 652.

[42]Ibid., 47.

[43]Flood, Birth of a Movement, 46.

[44]Habig, St. Francis of Assisi: Writings, 277.

[45]Ibid., 49-50.

[46]Tolan, Saracens, 218.

[47]Habig, St. Francis of Assisi: Writings, 247.

[48]Ibid., 246-247.

[49]Ibid., 252.

[50]Ibid., 274-277.

[51]Ibid., 43.

[52]Ibid.

[53]Kedar, Crusade and Mission, 125.

[54]Ibid.