In the time of St. Francis the world known to the West was confined to Europe, North Africa and the Near East, where, for a hundred years, the Crusaders had waged war and carried on commerce. The political and social configuration of the European states was not at all that of our day.  France was not half as big; Spain was partly in the hands of the Moors; England was still suzerain of Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine; as for the Holy Roman and German Empire, it included not only Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Bohemia but overflowed on the Walloons, Lorraine, Burgundy and Provence.  Italy, save for the Pontifical States, also made part of it.