THE RULE OF 1221[1] The winter of 1220-1221 was spent by Francis chiefly in fixing his thought by writing.

Until now he had been too much the man of action to have been able to give much thought to anything but the _living word_, but from this time his exhausted forces compelled him to satisfy his longing for souls by some other means than evangelizing tours.

We have seen that the chapter of September 29, 1220, on one side, and the bull _Cum secundum_ on the other, had fixed in advance a certain number of points.

For the rest, complete liberty had been given him, not indeed to make a final and unchangeable statement of his ideas, but to set them forth.

The substance of legislative power had passed into the hands of the ministers.[2] That which we call the Rule of 1221 is, then, nothing more than a proposed law, submitted to a representative government at its parliament.