PORTIUNCULA 1211 It was doubtless toward the spring of 1211 that the Brothers quitted Rivo-Torto.

They were engaged in prayer one day, when a peasant appeared with an ass, which he noisily drove before him into the poor shelter.
"Go in, go in!" he cried to his beast; "we shall be most comfortable here." It appeared that he was afraid that if the Brothers remained there much longer they would begin to think this deserted place was their own.[1] Such rudeness was very displeasing to Francis, who immediately arose and departed, followed by his companions.
Now that they were so numerous the Brothers could no longer continue their wandering life in all respects as in the past; they had need of a permanent shelter and above all of a little chapel.

They addressed themselves in vain first to the bishop and then to the canons of San Rufino for the loan of what they needed, but were more fortunate with the abbot of the Benedictines of Mount Subasio, who ceded to them in perpetuity the use of a chapel already very dear to their hearts, Santa Maria degli Angeli or the Portiuncula.[2] Francis was enchanted; he saw a mysterious harmony, ordained by God himself, between the name of the humble sanctuary and that of his Order.
The brethren quickly built for themselves a few huts; a quickset hedge served as enclosing wall, and thus in three or four days was organized the first Franciscan convent.
For ten years they were satisfied with this.

These ten years are the heroic period of the Order.

St.Francis, in full possession of his ideal, will seek to inculcate it upon his disciples and will succeed sometimes; but already the too rapid multiplication of the brotherhood will provoke some symptoms of relaxation.
The remembrance of the beginning of this period has drawn from the lips of Thomas of Celano a sort of canticle in honor of the monastic life.