CHAPTER XVI.
THE BROTHERS MINOR AND LEARNING Autumn, 1221-December, 1223 After the chapter of 1221 the evolution of the Order hurried on with a rapidity which nothing was strong enough to check.
The creation of the ministers was an enormous step in this direction; by the very pressure of things the latter came to establish a residence; those who command must have their subordinates within reach, must know at all times where they are; the Brothers, therefore, could no longer continue to do without convents properly so-called.

This change naturally brought about many others; up to this time they had had no churches.

Without churches the friars were only itinerant preachers, and their purpose could not but be perfectly disinterested; they were, as Francis had wished, the friendly auxiliaries of the clergy.

With churches it was inevitable that they should first fatally aspire to preach in them and attract the crowd to them, then in some sort erect them into counter parishes.[1] The bull of March 22, 1222,[2] shows us the papacy hastening these transformations with all its power.

The pontiff accords to Brother Francis and the other friars the privilege of celebrating the sacred mysteries in their churches in times of interdict, on the natural condition of not ringing the bells, of closing the door, and previously expelling those who were excommunicated.
By an astonishing inadvertence the bull itself bears witness to its uselessness, at least for the time in which it was given: "We accord to you," it runs, "the permission to celebrate the sacraments in times of interdict in your churches, _if you come to have any_." This is a new proof that in 1222 the Order as yet had none; but it is not difficult to see in this very document a pressing invitation to change their way of working, and not leave this privilege to be of no avail.
Another document of the same time shows a like purpose, though manifested in another direction.