proceeded against by suspension, excommunication, and the perpetual deprivation of their benefices. Lay people transgressing in this matter are to be seriously reprimanded." {29} Some of the prominent adherents of William of St. Amour accepted the Papal condemnation in a submissive spirit and publicly retracted their false opinions, and promised on oath never more to maintain them. Amongst these were Christian of Beauvais and Odo of Douay. William himself was not so tractable. He had recourse to evasions and explanations, and endeavoured to show that his views were not really condemned. He continued to foster a spirit of hostility to the Mendicants amongst his partisans at Paris, and eventually he drew upon himself the sentence of perpetual banishment from France. Under pain of excommunication and forfeiture of all his benefices he was forbidden ever to return, and under like penalties he was prohibited to preach or teach. His friends at Paris did all in their power to procure his recall, but they were strenuously opposed by the Mendicants. Thus, the ill-feeling between the two parties was maintained, and it was only by the renewed intervention of the Pope and the employment by him of stringent measures against the secular professors that order was established and the Mendicants treated with justice and tolerance. After ten years' exile Pope Clement permitted William to return to Paris. He had not abandoned his old opinions, and it needed a severe reprimand on the part of the Pope accompanied by a threat of further banishment to restrain him from again assailing the Mendicants. After his death, some {30} years later, the agitation against the Friars gradually died out, and they regained the esteem and confidence in which they had formerly been held. CHAPTER V. MINISTER-GENERAL. Bonaventure was elected Minister-General of the Franciscan Order in the year 1257. At that time the Order was passing through a serious crisis in its history. Internal difficulties had arisen concerning the observance of certain points of the Rule. Some of the Brethren advocated the rigorous and literal acceptation of all its prescriptions: others contended for a more mild and liberal interpretation. Amongst the advocates of both views were extremists who sought to introduce excessive rigour or undue laxity: the main body on either side were men of moderation. These eventually prevailed and preserved to the world the Order of St. Francis in the only feasible way in which it could continue to exist. Those who aimed at too great laxity, which would deprive the Order of its distinctive features, and those who would accentuate those features until they became impracticable or grotesque, were gradually eliminated.