Around 1209, Francis of Assisi wrote a brief way of life for his first followers, made largely from Gospel passages. This early text helped define the movement’s core aims: preaching, brotherhood, and living without personal property.
In 1209, Francis went to Rome to seek approval from Pope Innocent III. This step placed the new community under papal authority and helped it survive as a recognized religious movement rather than being treated as an illegal group.
By 1221, as the number of friars increased, Francis produced an expanded “Earlier Rule” (Regula non bullata). It gathered biblical and practical guidance for daily life, showing the shift from a small band to a larger, organized order.
On 1223-11-29, Pope Honorius III approved the final, shorter Rule (Regula bullata). This made Francis’s ideals into a stable legal framework, shaping Franciscan spirituality around humility, obedience, and a disciplined form of poverty.
Around 1224, Francis composed the Canticle of the Creatures (also called the Canticle of the Sun) in an Umbrian Italian vernacular. The poem models a Franciscan style of devotion that praises God through creation, influencing later Franciscan prayer and popular religious literature.
In the autumn of 1226, shortly before he died, Francis dictated a Testament to remind the brothers how he understood their calling. It served as a forceful spiritual witness—especially about poverty and work—even though it soon became controversial in legal status.
Soon after Francis was canonized in 1228, Pope Gregory IX commissioned Thomas of Celano to write a biography (the Vita prima). This helped standardize a public memory of Francis and provided an early literary foundation for Franciscan identity and preaching.
On 1230-09-28, Gregory IX issued the bull Quo elongati to clarify how to interpret the 1223 Rule. It declared that Francis’s Testament did not have binding legal authority over the whole order, increasing the gap between Francis’s personal warnings and the order’s developing legal structures.
Around 1247, Celano produced a second biography (often called the Vita secunda), drawing on recollections collected from those who knew Francis. This expanded and reshaped the tradition, showing how storytelling and hagiography (saints’ lives) guided Franciscan spirituality as the order spread.
In 1263, the Franciscan General Chapter meeting in Pisa recognized Bonaventure’s Legenda maior as the most faithful portrait of Francis. This work linked Francis’s life to a strong theological message—imitation of Christ—giving the order a single, coherent narrative for teaching and worship.
In 1266, the General Chapter in Paris declared Bonaventure’s Legenda maior the official life of Francis and ordered older legends not to be used. This was meant to reduce internal conflict by limiting rival stories that supported different views of poverty and authority.
On 1279-08-14, Pope Nicholas III issued the bull Exiit qui seminat to give an official interpretation of the Franciscan Rule, especially on “perfect poverty.” The document tried to protect the order’s ideal while also making governance workable, but it did not end debates between stricter and more flexible Franciscans.
On 1323-11-12, Pope John XXII issued Cum inter nonnullos, declaring heretical the claim that Christ and the apostles owned nothing at all (neither individually nor as a group). This ruling sharply narrowed what could be taught as orthodox, escalating conflict with radical Franciscans who saw absolute poverty as central to Francis’s message.
By the first half of the 1300s, collections of stories about Francis and his early companions circulated in Latin (often linked with the Actus tradition) and later in Italian as the Fioretti (“Little Flowers”). These narrative “flower stories” helped move Franciscan spirituality beyond legal debates into memorable examples of humility, prayer, and joy that shaped popular devotion well past 1350.
Franciscan Writings and the Formation of Franciscan Spirituality (c. 1209–1350)