Saint James of the Marches

Jacob de Marchia (Latin: Jacobus de Marchia, Italian: Giacomo della Marca; c. 1391 – 28 November 1476), commonly known in English as Saint James of the Marches, was an Italian Friar Minor, preacher and writer. He was a Papal legate and Inquisitor. He was born Dominic Gangala (Italian: Domenico Gangala) in the early 1390s to a poor family in Monteprandone, then in the March of Ancona (now in Ascoli Piceno) in central Italy along the Adriatic Sea. As a child, he began his studies at Offida under the guidance of his uncle, a priest, who soon afterwards sent him to school in the nearby city of Ascoli Piceno. He later studied at the University of Perugia where he took the degree of Doctor in Canon and Civil law. After a short stay at Florence as tutor for a noble family, and as judge of sorcerers, he was received into the Order of Friars Minor, in the chapel of the Portiuncula, in Assisi, on 26 July 1416. At that time, he took the monastic name Jacobus (Jacob, Jacopo; rendered James in English). Having finished his novitiate at the hermitage of the Carceri, near Assisi, he studied theology at Fiesole, near Florence, with John of Capistrano, under Bernardine of Siena. He began a very austere life fasting nine months of the year. Bernardine told him to moderate his penances. On 13 June 1420, he was ordained a priest and soon began to preach in Tuscany, in the Marches, and in Umbria; for half a century he carried on his spiritual labours, remarkable for the miracles he performed and the numerous conversions he wrought. He helped spread devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. From 1427, James preached penance, combated heretics, and was on legations in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Bosnia. He was also appointed inquisitor against the Fraticelli, a heretic sect that dissented from the Franciscans on the vow of poverty, among other things.