Among all these merchants the richest were those who dealt in textile
stuffs. They were literally the bankers of the time, and their heavy
wagons were often laden with the sums levied by the popes in England or
France.

Their arrival at a castle was one of the great events. They were kept as
long as possible, everyone being eager for the news they brought. It is
easy to understand how close must have been their relations with the
nobility; in certain countries, Provence for example, the merchants were
considered as nobles of a second order.[5]

Bernardone often made these long journeys; he went even as far as
France, and by this we must surely understand Northern France, and
particularly Champagne, which was the seat of commercial exchange
between Northern and Southern Europe.

He was there at the very time of his son's birth. The mother, presenting
the child at the font of San Rufino,[6] had him baptized by the name of
John, but the father on his return chose to call him Francis.[7] Had
he already determined on the education he was to give the child; did he
name him thus because he even then intended to bring him up after the
French fashion, to make a little Frenchman of him? It is by no means
improbable. Perhaps, indeed, the name was only a sort of grateful homage
tendered by the Assisan burgher to his noble clients beyond the Alps.
However this may be, the child was taught to speak French, and always
had a special fondness for both the language and the country.[8]

These facts about Bernardone are of real importance; they reveal the
influences in the midst of which Francis grew up. Merchants, indeed,
play a considerable part in the religious movements of the thirteenth