he persecutions of their brothers.

An attentive study will perhaps show it emerging little by little under
the generalship of Raimondo Gaufridi (1289-1295); Conrad di Offida ([Cross]
1306) seems to have had some effect upon it, but only with the next
generation do we find the legend completed and avowed in open day.

Begun in a misapprehension it ends by imposing itself upon the Church,
which to-day guarantees it with its infallible authority, and yet in its
origin it was a veritable cry of revolt against the decisions of Rome.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The text was published in 1620 by Spoelberch (in his
_Speculum vitae B. Francisci_, Antwerp, 2 vols., 12mo, ii., pp.
103-106), after the copy addressed to Brother Gregory,
minister in France, and then preserved in the convent of the
Recollects in Valenciennes. It was reproduced by Wadding (Ann.
1226, no. 44) and the Bollandists (pp. 668 and 669).

So late an appearance of a capital document might have left
room for doubts; there is no longer reason for any, since the
publication of the chronicle of Giordano di Giano, who relates
the sending of this letter (Giord., 50). The Abbe Amoni has
also published this text (at the close of his _Legenda trium
Sociorum_, Rome, 1880, pp. 105-109), but according to his
deplorable habit, he neglects to tell whence he has drawn it.
This is the more to be regretted since he gives a variant of
the first order: _Nam diu ante mortem_ instead of _Non diu_,
as Spoelberch's text has it. The reading _Nam diu_ appears
preferable from a philological point of view.

[2] Engraved in Saint Francois d'Assise, Paris, 4to, 1885, p. 277.

[3] _Bibliotheca Patrum._ Lyons, 1677, xxv., _adv.
Albigenses_, lib. ii., cap. 11., cf. iii., 14 and 15.
Reproduced in the A. SS., p. 652.

[4] The curious may consult the following sources: Salimbeni,
ann. 1250--_Conform._, 171b 2, 235a 2; Bon., 200; Wadding,
_ann. 1228_, no. 78; A. SS., p. 800. Manuscript 340 of the
_Sacro Convento_ contains (fo. 55b-56b) four of these hymns.
Cf. _Archiv._ i., p. 485.

[5] See in particular Hase: _Franz v. Assisi_. Leipsic, 1
vol., 8vo., 1856. The learned professor devotes no less than
sixty closely printed pages to the study of the stigmata,
142-202.

[6] The more I think about it, the mo