Franciscan Timeline:
1181-1182 Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone is born and baptized in Assisi, Italy. Later, at the insistence of his father, who was in France when he was born, Gionanni is renamed Francesco.
1190 Francis attends the parish school at the Church of San Giorgio.
1193 Chiara di Favarone (Clare) is born to a renowned Assisian family of nobility.
1198 During a period of civil unrest, Clare's family takes refuge in its castle in Cocorano.
1199-1200 Civil war rages in Assisi, a city intent on gaining independence from both papal and imperial power. Assisi's nobility flee to the city of Perugia, Assisi’s arch-rival.
1202 Francis fights in a battle between Assisi and Perugia, is captured and imprisoned in Perugia.
1203-1205 Clare is exiled in Perugia along with other families from the nobility at war with the Commune in Assisi.
1203 Francis’s father pays Perugia a ransom. After returning to Assisi, Francis endures a long illness
1204 Francis sets out to join the army of Walter de Brienne. He returns to Assisi after receiving a vision and message in Spoleto which directs him to return home to seek God’s will. A gradual period of conversion begins.
1205 Francis gives generously to the poor and embraces a leper. He is mocked by fellow Assisians. He seeks solitude with God in caves and abandoned churches. In the fall, while contemplating the Byzantine cross in the Church of San Damiano, Francis hears God's voice, “Go, repair my house which, as you see, is falling completely to ruin.” Believing that God has asked him to repair the Church of San Damiano, he sells cloth from his father’s shop and gives money to the local priest to repair the church building.
1206 (January/February) Francis' father takes Francis before the bishop of Assisi, demanding repayment for his stolen cloth. Francis strips, returning his clothes and renouncing his inheritance . After spending time in Gubbio, Francis returns to Assisi. He nurses lepers and begs for stones to repair three small churches near Assisi, including San Damiano and the Porzuncola.
1208 Francis desires to imitate Jesus perfectly. He begins to preach repentance and peace. Several young men from Assisi leave their families and possessions to join Francis.
1209 Francis writes a rule for his new order. He and his companions go to Rome with to gain papal approval for the order. Pope Honorius III grants his wish. Francis settles with his “brothers” in a small church below Assisi called “The Porzuncula.
1210 Clare hears Francis preach in the Church of San Georgio in Assisi.
1211 Francis tries to reach Muslim territory to convert Muslims. Heavy winds detour his ship and force his return to Italy.
1211 Francis goes to Dalmatia (Cathar country).
1212 On the evening of Palm Sunday, Clare is consecrated at the Porzuncula (Our Lady of the Angles). Eventually Clare and her sisters settle at San Damiano.
1213 Francis receives as a gift La Verna, a mountain in the Tuscan Valley; he often seeks solitude there.
1214 Francis goes to Spain as a missionary.
1215 Francis begins his “Eucharistic Crusade,” exhorting people to show reverence for Communion.
1215 Clare receives the title of abbess.
1217 Some 5,000 brothers attend the first Chapter of Mats at the Porzuncola. Francis seeks volunteers to preach in Germany, Tunis, and Syria. e
1218-1219 Clare and her sisters receive the Constitutions of Cardinal Hugolino, along with the Rule of St. Benedict.
1219 Franciscan missionaries to Morocco killed, the order’s first martyrs. Francis sails to the Holy Land and in Egypt tries to convert the Muslim sultan.
1220 Pope Honorius III requires Francis to establish more discipline in his order. Recognizing his poor administrative skills, Francis appoints Peter of Catanii as minister general.
1221 Francis writes a letter that becomes the basic rule of the Third Order, a Franciscan order for lay men and women. At the request of church authorities, Francis begins to create a more formal rule for the First Order.
1223 (Fall) After much debate in the brotherhood, Francis revises his Rule. The final revision of the Rule is approved by Pope Honorius III on December 24/25: Exhausted and ill, Francis travels to Greccio. He re-enacts the Christmas story, using local farm animals.
1224 Francis returns to La Verna to pray and fast. There, on or about September 14, 1224, he receives the stigmata, the marks of Christ’s wounds.
1224 Beginning of Clare's sickness.
1225 (Spring) Nearly blind and suffering possibly from Tuberculoid leprosy Francis returns to San Damiano, where Clare and her sisters care for him. He writes The Canticle of Brother Sun. In the late summer, Francis submits to cauterization treatment for his eye maladies.
1226 (September) Francis composes a final verse for his Canticle of the Creatures about “Sister Death”. He asks to be taken back to the Porzuncola, where he dies on October 3. He is buried at the Church of San Giorgio in Assisi
1227 Francis’s friend and protector, Cardinal Ugolino, becomes Pope Gregory IX.
1227 The Pope confirms that the sisters at San Damiano are to receive the help of the brothers.
1228 Francis is canonized.
1228 Pope Gregory IX visits Clare at San Damiano.
1230 Francis’ remains are transferred to the recently built Lower Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi.
1234 St. Agnes, daughter of the king of Bohemia, founds a monastery in Prague, and takes the veil there. Clare's first letter to Agnes.
1240 Clare's miraculous protection of the community at San Damiano during an attack by Saracens.
1241 (June 22) Through the intercessory prayers of the sisters, the city of Assisi is liberated from the siege of the imperial armies.
1253 Clare's last known letter to Agnes of Prague.
1253 The Pope visits Clare and approves her Rule two days before her death on August 11th, Clare's death.
1253 (November) Death of St. Agnes of Assisi (Clare's sister).
1255 Canonization of St. Clare.
1260 Clare's body and the San Damiano community are transferred to the Basilica of Saint Clare.
1263 The Order of San Damiano takes the name of the Order of St. Clare.
To see what some of the popes have said throughout history about the Franciscan Order, check out: "The Popes & The OFS" page.