[1] The date usually fixed for the approval of the Rule by Innocent III. is the month of August, 1209. The Bollandists had thought themselves able to infer it from the account where Thomas of Celano (1 Cel., 43) refers to the passage through Umbria of the Emperor Otho IV., on his way to be crowned at Rome (October 4, 1209). Upon this journey see Boehmer-Ficker, _Regesta Imperii. Dei Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Philipp, Otto IV._, etc., Insbruck, 1879, 4to, pp. 96 and 97. As this account follows that of the approval, they conclude that the latter was earlier. But Thomas of Celano puts this account there because the context led up to it, and not in order to fix its date. Everything leads to the belief that the Brothers retired (_recolligebat_, 1 Cel., 42) to Rivo-Torto before and after their journey to Rome. Besides, the time between April 23d and the middle of August, 1209, is much too short for all that the biographers tell us about the life of the Brothers before their visit to Innocent III. The mission to Florence took place in winter, or at least in a very cold month. But the decisive argument is that Innocent III. quitted Rome toward the end of May, 1209, and went to Viterbo, returning only to crown Otho, October 4th (Potthast, 3727-3803). It is therefore absolutely necessary to postpone to the summer of 1210 the visit of the Penitents to the pope. This is also the date which Wadding arrives at. [2] 3 Soc., 35. [3] 1 Cel., 32; 3 Soc., 51; Bon., 34. Cf. _Test. B. Fr._ M. K. Mueller of Halle, in his _Anfaenge_, has made a very remarkable study of the Rule of 1221, whence he deduces an earlier Rule, which he believes to be that of 1209 (1210). For once I find myself entirely in accord with him, except that the Rule thus reconstructed (Vide _Anfaenge_, pp. 14-25, 184-188) appears to me to be not that of 1210, which was very short, but another, drawn up between 1210 and 1221. The _plures regulas fecit_ of the 3 Soc., 35, authorizes us to believe that he made perhaps as many as four--1st, 1210, very short, containing little more than the three passages of the vocation; 2d, 1217 (?), substantially that proposed by M. Mueller; 3d, 1221, that of which we shall speak at length farther on; 4th, 1226, the Will, which if not a Rule is at least an appendix to the Rule. If from 1221-1226 he had time to make two Rules and the Will, as is universally admitted, there is nothing surprising in his having made two from 1210-1221. Perhaps we have a fragment of that of 1217 in the regulation of hermitages. Vide below, p. 109.