[1.] Eleven hundred and one metres above the level of the sea; the plain around Assisi has an average of two hundred, and the town of two hundred and fifty, metres above.
[2.] As in the majority of Tuscan cities the dimensions of the houses were formerly fixed by law.
[3.] The biographies say that he died (October 3, 1226) in his forty-fifth year. But the terms are not precise enough to make the date 1181 improbable. For that matter the question is of small importance. A Franciscan of Erfurt, about the middle of the thirteenth century, fixes the date at 1182. Pertz, vol. xxiv., p. 193.
[4.] A number of different genealogies have been fabricated for Francis; they prove only one thing, the wreck of the Franciscan idea. How little they understood their hero, who thought to magnify and glorify him by making him spring from a noble family! "Quæ rero," says Father Suysken, S. J., "de ejus gentilitio insigni disserit Waddingus, non lubet mihi attingere. Factis et virtutibus eluxit S. Franciscus non proavorum insignibus aut titulis, quos nec desideravit." (A. SS. p. 557a.) It could not be better said.
In the fourteenth century a whole cycle of legends had gathered about his birth. It could not have been otherwise. They all grow out of the story that tells of an old man who comes knocking at the parents' door, begging them to let him take the infant in his arms, when he announces that it will do great things. Under this form the episode certainly presents nothing impossible, but very soon marvellous incidents begin to gather around this nucleus until it becomes unrecognizable. Bartholomew of Pisa has preserved it in almost its primitive form. Conform., 28a 2. Francis certainly had several brothers [3 Soc., 9. Mater ... quæ cum præ ceteris filiis diligebat], but they have left no trace in history except the incident related farther on. Vide p. 44. Christofani publishes several official pieces concerning Angelo, St. Francis's brother, and his descendants: Storie d'Assisi, vol. i., p. 78 ff. In these documents Angelo is called Angelus Pice, and his son Johannectus olim Angeli domine Pice, appellations which might be cited in favor of the noble origin of Pica.
[5.] Documentary History of Languedoc, iii., p. 607.
[6.] The Cathedral of Assisi. To this day all the children of the town are baptized there; the other churches are without fonts.
[7.] 3 Soc., 1; 2 Cel., 1, 1. Vide also 3 Soc., edition of Pesaro, 1831.
[8.] The langue d'oïl was at this epoch the international language of Europe; in Italy it was the language of games and tourneys, and was spoken in the petty princely courts of Northern Italy. Vide Dante, De vulgari eloquio, lib. I., cap. x. Brunetto Latini wrote in French because "the speech of France is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of the nobility of the Gallic dialect. Ann. 1224 apud Pertz, Script. xvi. We shall find St. Francis often making allusions to the tales of the Round Table and the Chanson de Roland.
[9.] We must not be led astray by certain remarks upon his ignorance, from which one might at first conclude that he knew absolutely nothing; for example, 2 Cel., 3, 45: Quamvis homo iste beatus nullis fuerit scientiæ studiis innutritus. This evidently refers to science such as the Franciscans soon came to apprehend it, and to theology in particular.