How gladly would we follow him in this pilgrimage, accompany him in thought through Judea and Galilee, to Bethlehem, to Nazareth, to Gethsemane! What was said to him by the stable where the Son of Mary was born, the workshop where he toiled, the olive-tree where he accepted the bitter cup?
Alas! the documents here suddenly fail us.

Setting out from Damietta very shortly after the siege (November 5, 1219) he may easily have been at Bethlehem by Christmas.

But we know nothing, absolutely nothing, except that his sojourn was more prolonged than had been expected.
Some of the Brothers who were present at Portiuncula at the chapter-general of 1220 (Whitsunday, May 17th) had time enough to go to Syria and still find Francis there;[28] they could hardly have arrived much earlier than the end of June.

What had he been doing those eight months?
Why had he not gone home to preside at the chapter?
Had he been ill ?[29] Had he been belated by some mission?
Our information is too slight to permit us even to venture upon conjecture.
Angelo Clareno relates that the Sultan of Egypt, touched by his preaching, gave command that he and all his friars should have free access to the Holy Sepulchre without the payment of any tribute.[30] Bartholomew of Pisa on his part says incidentally that Francis, having gone to preach in Antioch and its environs, the Benedictines of the Abbey of the Black Mountain,[31] eight miles from that city, joined the Order in a body, and gave up all their property to the Patriarch.
These indications are meagre and isolated indeed, and the second is to be accepted only with reserve.

On the other hand, we have detailed information of what went on in Italy during Francis's absence.