A01=Volker Leppin
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Author_Volker Leppin
Category=DNBX
Category=QRAX
Category=QRVS1
Catholicism
Christ
church
commission
contemplation
conversion
eco-theology
environment
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eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Franciscans
martyrdom
medieval
mysticism
nature
penance
piety
poverty
prayer
Protestantism
spirituality
Product details
- ISBN 9780300288650
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 13 Jan 2026
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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An award-winning historian reconstructs the life of Francis of Assisi, uncovering the man behind the myths
“Refreshing. . . . Complex, multilayered, and ambitious.”—Costica Bradatan, Times Literary Supplement
One of the most famous figures in Christian history, Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226) was revered as a miracle worker during his life and quickly canonized after his death. He has inspired generations of Christians and other spiritual seekers, from medieval ascetics to 1960s hippies and modern environmentalists. The “poverello” wrote poems praising the sun, moon, and stars, spoke to the birds, and—so the story goes—even tamed a wolf. But what do we know for sure about who he was, and what is simply legend?
Drawing on centuries of scholarship, Volker Leppin pieces together fragments of Francis’s life story to find a seeker who never reached his destination, a man whose extraordinary charisma drew others in yet who was uncomfortable in the spotlight. Amazingly, Francis stayed within the fold of the church while offering a new and radical vision of Christianity that proved wildly popular.
Leppin’s Francis of Assisi sets Francis’s inner emotional and spiritual world against a broader historical background to show how the message of this inspiring and often vexing medieval saint continues to resonate in our contemporary world.
“Refreshing. . . . Complex, multilayered, and ambitious.”—Costica Bradatan, Times Literary Supplement
One of the most famous figures in Christian history, Francis of Assisi (1181/82–1226) was revered as a miracle worker during his life and quickly canonized after his death. He has inspired generations of Christians and other spiritual seekers, from medieval ascetics to 1960s hippies and modern environmentalists. The “poverello” wrote poems praising the sun, moon, and stars, spoke to the birds, and—so the story goes—even tamed a wolf. But what do we know for sure about who he was, and what is simply legend?
Drawing on centuries of scholarship, Volker Leppin pieces together fragments of Francis’s life story to find a seeker who never reached his destination, a man whose extraordinary charisma drew others in yet who was uncomfortable in the spotlight. Amazingly, Francis stayed within the fold of the church while offering a new and radical vision of Christianity that proved wildly popular.
Leppin’s Francis of Assisi sets Francis’s inner emotional and spiritual world against a broader historical background to show how the message of this inspiring and often vexing medieval saint continues to resonate in our contemporary world.
Volker Leppin is Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale Divinity School. Rhys S. Bezzant is Principal of Ridley College in Melbourne. He translated Volker Leppin’s Martin Luther: A Late Medieval Life.
