d become backsliders. It will be remembered that the Order
was intended to possess nothing, either directly or indirectly. The
monasteries given to the friars did not become their property; so soon
as the proprietor should desire to take them back or anyone else should
wish to take possession of them, they were to be given up without the
least resistance; but on drawing near to Bologna he learned that a house
was being built, which was already called _The house of the Brothers_.
He commanded its immediate evacuation, not even excepting the sick who
happened to be there. The Brothers then resorted to Ugolini, who was
then in that very city for the consecration of Santa Maria di
Rheno.[5] He explained to Francis at length that this house did not
belong to the Order; he had declared himself its proprietor by public
acts; and he succeeded in convincing him.[6]

Bolognese piety prepared for Francis an enthusiastic reception, the echo
of which has come down even to our times:

"I was studying at Bologna, I, Thomas of Spalato, archdeacon in
the cathedral church of that city, when in the year 1220, the
day of the Assumption, I saw St. Francis preaching on the piazza
of the Lesser Palace, before almost every man in the city. The
theme of his discourse was the following: Angels, men, the
demons. He spoke on all these subjects with so much wisdom and
eloquence that many learned men who were there were filled with
admiration at the words of so plain a man. Yet he had not the
manner of a preacher, his ways were rather those of
conversation; the substance of his discourse bore especially
upon the abolition of enmities and the necessity of making
peaceful alliances. His apparel was poor, his person in no
respect imposing, his face not at all handsome; but God gave
such great efficacy to his words that he brought back to peace
and harmony many nobles whose savage fury had not even stopped
short before the shedding of blood. So great a devotion was felt
for him that men and women flocked after him, and he esteemed
himself happy who succeeded in touching the hem of his garment."

Was it at this time that the celebrated Accurso the Glossarist,[7]
chief of that famous dynasty of jurisconsults who during the whole
thirteenth century shed lustre upon the University of Bologna, welcomed
the Brothers Minor to his villa at Ricardina, near the city?[8] We do
not know.