All of the early authors agree that, after his rescue and recuperation from whatever illness he suffered, Francis decided to take up arms as a knight. Along with a friend he left his family home in Assisi bound for Apulia in the south of Italy, where he intended to put himself under arms with a lord named Walter of Brienne who was raising an army as part of the militia of Pope Innocent III. After only a day’s journey to Spoleto, however, something happened that caused Francis to return to Assisi