Saint John of Capistrano was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest from the Italian town of Capestrano, Abruzzo.
Background
As was the custom of this time, John is denoted by the village of Capestrano, in the Diocese of Sulmona, in the Abruzzi region, Kingdom of Naples. Hewas born there on 24 June 1386. His father had come to Italy with the Angevin court of Louis I of Anjou, titular King of Naples.
Education
He was brought up at the court of the caliph in Damascus, where his father was an official, and he was educated by a Sicilian monk. He studied law at the University of Perugia.
Career
In 1412 John became magistrate of Perugia, Papal States, where a civil quarrel caused his imprisonment. He experienced an emotional conversion while in prison and after his release in 1416 became a Franciscan. He was ordained in 1426, after which his fame as a preacher spread because of his efforts to restore doctrinal harmony and promote education. He became the principal force in the founding of the Franciscan Observants, a severely ascetic group of friars who separated from the more liberal Conventuals. In 1451 he was sent to Austria by Pope Nicholas V to convert the Hussites (followers of the Bohemian religious reformer Jan Hus). Aware of the Turkish threat to eastern Europe, he helped raise and lead the army that lifted the Turkish siege of Belgrade in 1456. He died of plague upon returning from his crusade.