politic (Freemantle 147).
Francis's apparent loathing of corporal matters seems consistent with a hardness of spirituality that may be easily associated with absolutist religious doctrine. Yet the image of the stigmata as the ultimate expression of self-denial is, in Francis, of a piece with the itinerant monk who preached to the birds and animals. Thus Francis's spiritual experience and indeed his experience of the Church is mystical, not institutional. On the other hand, Francis outlived a direct conflict between his view of what the spiritual Church should be, even at an institutional level, as against the institutional Church as it was. As Wells puts it, "This struggle within the Franciscan Order is a very interesting one, because it foreshadows the great troubles that were coming to Christendom. . . . St. Francis did his best to be a good child of the church, and his comment on the spirit of official Christianity was only implicit" (Wells 576). Wells's account of Francis's life illustrates the pattern of spiritual and institutional development, both of the man and of the church of his age.
One notable figure is that of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1126). We cannot tell here in any detail of now this pleasant young gentleman gave up all the amenities and ease of his life and went forth to seek God; the opening of the story is not unlike the early experiences of Gautama Buddha. He had a sudden conversion in the midst of a life of pleasure, and, taking a vow of extreme poverty, he gave himself up to an imitation of the life of Christ, and to the service of the sick and wretched, and more particularly to the service of the lepers who then abounded in Italy.
He was joined by great multitudes of disciples, and so the first Friars of the Franciscan Order came into existence. An order of women devotees was set up beside the original confraternity, and in addition great numbers of men and women were brought into less formal associa...