Excerpt from Francis of Assisi The principal events of the following history took place in the beginning of the thirteenth century, of which it seems advisable to give a slight sketch at the commencement, that the reader maybe able to place St. Francis'in his proper chronological place among those events and personages, which occupy a larger space in history than historians generally are willing to allow, to a man who wielded only a moral influence, and was nothing more than a reformer and a saint. This will be found all the more necessary that it has been the aim of the writer in the work itself, rather to follow, as far as modern custom and authentic facts permit, the simplicity of the popular legend than to attempt any elaborate historical picture. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.