To alleviate the vow of poverty and to multiply observances were the two points toward which their efforts were bent.
In appearance it was a trifling matter, in reality it was much, for it was the first movement of the old spirit against the new.

It was the effort of men who unconsciously, I am willing to think, made religion an affair of rite and observance, instead of seeing in it, like St.
Francis, the conquest of the liberty which makes us free in all things, and leads each soul to obey that divine and mysterious power which the flowers of the fields adore, which the birds of the air bless, which the symphony of the stars praises, and which Jesus of Nazareth called _Abba_, that is to say, Father.
The first Rule was excessively simple in the matter of fasts.

The friars were to abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays; they might add Mondays and Saturdays, but only on Francis's special authorization.

The vicars and their adherents complicated this rule in a surprising manner.
At the chapter-general held in Francis's absence (May 17, 1220), they decided, first, that in times of feasting the friars were not to provide meat, but if it were offered to them spontaneously they were to eat it; second, that all should fast on Mondays as well as Wednesdays and Fridays; third, that on Mondays and Saturdays they should abstain from milk products unless by chance the adherents of the Order brought some to them.[40] These beginnings bear witness also to an effort to imitate the ancient Orders, not without the vague hope that they would be substituted for them.

Brother Giordano has preserved to us only this decision of the chapter of 1220, but the expressions of which he makes use sufficiently prove that it was far from being the only one, and that the malcontents had desired, as in the chapters of Citeaux and Monte Cassino, to put forth veritable constitutions.
These modifications of the Rule did not pass, however, without arousing the indignation of a part of the chapter; a lay brother made himself their eager messenger, and set out for the East to entreat Francis to return without delay, to take the measures called for by the circumstances.
There were also other causes of disquiet.