Putting the Christ Back in Medieval Christmas: Saint Francis of Assisi and the Creation of History's First Nativity Scene

  It is December in the year 1223 in the tiny Italian village of Greccio.  Mendicant friar, ascetic, holy man, lover of animals and of all mankind, one day to be canonized by the Church as Saint Francis of Assisi, invites all to come and gaze upon what he calls “the Babe of Bethlehem”.

Francis is too overcome by emotion and reverence to dare utter the name of the Lord Jesus aloud.

The faithful flock to central Italy by the thousands to catch a glimpse of this living wonder.

It is now only days before Christ’s Mass on December 25, one of the most holy days on the liturgical calendar, set aside to celebrate the birth of the One who was born to save us all.

St. Francis, with both his name and his reputation for holiness preceding him, had recently petitioned Pope Honorius III for permission to recreate the birth of Jesus in living form to place emphasis back on, “Christ and not material things,” as he put it.

Pope Honorius not only gave Saint Francis of Assisi permission to create the first Nativity scene in history, he also gave the display, which in reality was a staged performance containing real people and living animals rather than mere statues, his papal blessing.

Born in 1181 or 1182, the forty year old Francis has had a life unlike most others.  He was born into wealth, trained to be a merchant, served for a time as a soldier, renounced all worldly possessions and wandered the hills of Italy as a beggar seeking oneness with God and emulating the life of Jesus.

He donned monastic robes and for a time Francis followed the life of a penitent by helping to rebuild ruined churches and provide alms for the poor.  He spent over a decade traveling around the world, always on foot, seeking to bring the Gospel to the dispossessed and was commissioned by the Church to spread the message of Christ to the Islamic world in north Africa. 

By the time he was thirty many had taken up Francis’ example of poverty and worldly renunciation and now in the year 1223, in middle age, Francis finds himself at the head of what is to become the Franciscan Order.  He has, almost unwittingly, become a leader within the Catholic Church, and he is revered throughout all of Europe.

Saint Francis of Assisi

As Christmas 1223 approaches the forty-two year old soon to be Saint Francis of Assisi is dismayed by what he sees around him.  He sees the faithful near his home in central Italy enamored with wealth and material possessions.  He sees many given over to drunkenness and week’s long partying as Christ’s Mass draws nearer.

According to Saint Bonaventure, who in the year 1260 wrote the influential Life of Saint Francis from which most of our present day knowledge of Francis’ activities comes, Francis was determined to put the “Christ” back in the medieval “Christ” mass.

Francis wrote a letter to Pope Honorius III stating that he wished, “to do something for the kindling of devotion to the birth of Christ.”  

The Pope granted his permission and his blessing and according to Saint Bonaventure, Francis set about, “making ready a manger, and bade hay along with an ox and an ass,” inside a cave on the outskirts of the small Italian town of Greccio.

With monks from the Franciscan Order playing the parts of shepherds, and presumably Mary and Joseph as well, it was reported that Francis himself carved a wooden doll representative of the newborn baby Jesus.

A great crowd gathered outside the cave on the outskirts of Greccio to see firsthand this new recreation of the birth of the Lord and Savior.  Francis placed the wooden baby Jesus in the manger he had made and said aloud in Latin, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immaneul.”  Isaiah 7:14

Many witnesses reported that the instant Saint Francis placed the wooden baby Jesus into the manager, “the doll cried tears of joy,” and that the carved child, “Seemed to be awakened from sleep when the blessed Father Francis embraced Him in both his arms.”

 It was said that after the performance of the first Nativity Scene in history, the hay on which the baby Jesus lay could heal sick animals and protect all who touched it from the plague.

Of course, all reports of these first Nativity scene miracles come to us today from The Life of Saint Francis written by Saint Bonaventure thirty-seven years after the event took place, but presumably, Bonaventure would have interviewed many who had been there in person when compiling his work.

Saint Bonaventure

We can’t be sure today what exactly happened way back in 1223 when Saint Francis first recreated the birth of Christ in a cave outside Greccio somewhere in today’s central Italy, but we can be sure that something happened on that fateful day before Christmas eight hundred years ago.

Whatever happened, word of the miracle of the Nativity scene spread like wildfire across all of Christendom, and within only a few short years, carved recreations of Christ’s birth were in churches and cathedrals all across Europe in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas.

By the time the thirteenth century was over, in the year 1291, Pope Nicholas IV who, by the way, was the first ever Franciscan Pope, commissioned a permanent Nativity scene to be erected at Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the largest churches in Rome.

After Nativity scenes were immortalized by the artists of the Italian Renaissance, living representations of the birth of Christ in the true Franciscan tradition of Christmas 1223, once again became all the rage for a time across Italy and western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

For Saint Francis of Assisi nothing was more important than understanding the passion and suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by creating the first (living) Nativity scene in Greccio at Christmastime in the year 1223, he was hoping that the message of Jesus’ sacrifice would resonate with the faithful and touch people in ways that it hadn’t before.  

The Nativity Scene at Santa Maria Maggiore

A contemporary, and friend of Saint Francis of Assisi, Brother Thomas of Celano who lived from 1185 to 1260 and knew the founder of the Franciscans perhaps better than anyone else wrote of Francis’ connection to the Nativity, “Indeed, so thoroughly did the humility of the Incarnation and the charity of the Passion occupy his memory that he scarcely wanted to think of anything else.”

Today, Greccio is a beacon still to tourists and the faithful alike, especially during the Christmas season.  And from front lawns to gothic cathedrals to living rooms and town squares around the world Nativity scenes remain a lasting and enduring representation of the “Christ” that is in Christmas.

Site of the First Nativity Scene in Greccio

Perhaps, by laying a carved baby Jesus in a manger of hay way back in the year 1223 Saint Francis of Assisi didn’t heal the sick and, maybe, that baby Jesus didn’t ever cry real tears, or maybe it did.  Really, that’s not what’s important.

What is important is that Saint Francis of Assisi, so long ago, gave people a glimpse into something far greater than themselves and far more meaningful than what could be bought and sold.  Christmas, for nearly a thousand years has been commercialized and monetized in ways that never could have been imagined back in the Middle Ages, but Nativity Scenes as created by Saint Francis still remain to remind us all of the true meaning of Christmas.