The book begins at the turn of the thirteenth century, when all the world was afraid that the time to come would bring disaster, conflagrations and horror as happened at most significant passages of time. There whispered rumors that Frederick II would be the anti-Christ as foretold by the revelations of St John. The faithful were at unrest and challenging the Church, wishing to return to Christianity's simpler beginnings. Pope Innocent III grappled with these conditions, seeking more power with which to guide them, Jerusalem had fallen and he drained the treasury to build the army which would conquer the Holy Land from the Byzantium and return it to Christendom. Thus begins the story of St Francis of Assisi.