omparatively, very well done, and appears to have escaped the
researches of the Franciscan bibliographers: _Singularissimum
eximiumque opus universis mortalibus sacratissimi ordinis
seraphici patris nostri Francisci a Domino Jesu mirabili modo
approbati necnon a quampluribus nostri Redemptoris sanctissimis
vicariis romanis pontificabus multipharie declarati notitiam
habere cupientibus profecto per necessarium. Speculum Minorum
... per Martinum Morin ... Rouen_, 1509. It is 8vo, with
numbered folios, printed with remarkable care. It contains
besides the bulls the principal dissertations upon the Rule,
elaborated in the thirteenth century, and a _Memoriale ordinis_
(first part, f^o 60-82), a kind of catalogue of the
ministers-general, which would have prevented many of the errors
of the historians, if it had been known.

[4] The Bollandists themselves have entirely overlooked those
sources of information, thinking, upon the authority of a single
badly interpreted passage, that the Order had not obtained a
single bull before the solemn approval of Honorius III.,
November 29, 1223.

[5] And not March 29, as Sbaralea has it. The original, which I
have had under my eyes in the archives of Assisi, bears in fact:
_Datum Anagnie XI. Kal. aprilis pontificatus nostri anno sexto_.

[6] The Abbe Horoy has indeed published in five volumes what he
entitles the _Opera omnia_ of Honorius III., but he omits,
without a word of explanation, a great number of letters,
certain of which are brought forward in the well-known
collection of Potthast. The Abbe Pietro Pressuti has undertaken
to publish a compendium of all the bulls of this pope according
to the original Registers of the Vatican. _I regesti del
Pontifice Onorio III._ Roma, t. i., 1884. Volume i. only has as
yet appeared.

* * * * *

IV

CHRONICLERS OF THE ORDER

I. CHRONICLE OF BROTHER GIORDANO DI GIANO[1]

Born at Giano, in Umbria, in the mountainous district which closes the
southern horizon of Assisi, Brother Giordano was in 1221 one of the
twenty-six friars who, under the conduct of Caesar of Speyer, set out for
Germany. He seems to have remained attached to this province until his
death, even when most of the friars, especially those