James of the Marches

Christian saint

Jacob de Marchia (Jacobus de Marchia, ; 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 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,

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. He was sent by the Papal Council as an Inquisitor to Bosnia in 1432–33, working in the Bosnian Vicariate. He returned in 1435 and served as Vicar of Bosnia until 1439. He left Bosnia citing King Tvrtko I as the cause of failure of Franciscan mission. In August, 1439, he imprisoned Bálint Újlaki, who first translated the Bible into Hungarian (Hussite Bible). At the time of the Council of Basle, James promoted the reunion of the moderate Hussites with the Catholic Church, and later that of the Eastern Orthodox at the Council of Ferrara Florence. He instituted several montes pietatis (literally, "mountains of piety": nonprofit credit organizations that lent money at very low rates on pawned objects), and preached in all the greater cities. King Tvrtko II was a major opponent of James's reforms in Bosnia, and was probably strongly influenced in that regard by Queen Dorothy.