#feel like I should also mention that Francis was part of the Fifth Crusade

[emjee]

So in the endnotes of “Verbum caro factum est” I mentioned that I would save my headcanons about Nicky and the Franciscans for another time and then a bunch of people in the comments were like “I Would Like To See It” which, fair, so here we are.

First of all, shout out to these tags from @regina-del-cielo which really made me start thinking about this seriously:

The Franciscans (which includes the Order of Friars Minor, who are men, and the Poor Clares, who are women) are a Christian religious order that was founded in 1209 by Saint Francis of Assisi (the Poor Clares were founded in 1212 by Saint Clare of Assisi, who saw what Francis was doing and was like, what’s up can the ladies also get in on that).

I shan’t give you a full rundown of my man Francis’s life because he had quite a full one but here are some reasons I think Nicky would have vibed with him, even if they never actually met:

1. First and foremost, the Franciscans take material poverty and service to the poor very seriously. St. Francis was definitely a “put your money where your mouth is” kind of guy, except he was a mendiant friar so he had no money, but the point still stands. Nicky “we can do some good” di Genova 🤝 Francis “I once heard the voice of God telling me to repair his church and so I literally repaired a church building and then started a monastic order” of Assisi.

2. Francis spent a lot of his early life re-evaluating some poor life choices. He lived a rather riotous life as a young man, his father was very rich, and he went away to war with dreams of grandeur only to be captured and held prisoner for a year, which caused him to reconsider his conduct.

3. Francis had a dramatic streak I think Nicky would have been amused by. Francis’s father didn’t approve of this whole “I’m going to devote my life to God and become as poor as Christ” thing, and he and Francis had a very public confrontation in which Francis’s father said “fine, go do these foolish things, but you have to return everything I have ever given you” and Francis said “gladly” and stripped naked on the spot, because his clothes had come from his father.

4. Just in terms of chronology, the start of Nicky’s life and the start of the Franciscans are close to each other, less than 150 years apart. I think he and Francis would both have been trying to answer the question “how can I best serve God and my neighbor” and I think Nicky would have been interested in Francis’s answers.