Cantor and Henry have done the same, and still others whose names I have forgotten."[24] The long and enthusiastic chapter which the same author gives to the Brothers Minor in his great work on the Occident is too diffuse to find a place here.

It is a living and accurate picture of the early times of the Order; in it Francis's sermon before the sultan is again related.

It was written at a period when the friars had still neither monasteries nor churches, and when the chapters were held once or twice a year; this gives us a date anterior to 1223, and probably even before 1221.

We have here, therefore, a verification of the narratives of Thomas of Celano and the Three Companions, and they find in it their perfect confirmation.
As to the interviews between Francis and the sultan, it is prudent to keep to the narratives of Jacques de Vitry and William of Tyre.[25] Although the latter wrote at a comparatively late date (between 1275 and 1295), he followed a truly historic method, and founded his work on authentic documents; we see that he knows no more than Jacques de Vitry of the proposal said to have been made by Francis to pass through a fire if the priests of Mahomet would do as much, intending so to establish the superiority of Christianity.
We know how little such an appeal to signs is characteristic of St.
Francis.

Perhaps the story, which comes from Bonaventura, is born of a misconception.