To return to Bonaventure and the task imposed upon him by the General Chapter, the importance of the latter becomes apparent when we reflect that as far as the Order could effect it, the legend he was about to compose was to be the sole record of the life of Francis which should come down to posterity. This purpose evidently underlay the demand for its composition, for when the work was finished and submitted to the General Chapter of Pisa three years later it was officially approved of and all the other legends were formally proscribed. More stringent measures still for the suppression of the older legends were adopted at the Chapter of Paris in 1266. Therein was framed the following Constitution: [Footnote 27] "The General Chapter commands {59} under obedience that all the legends of St. Francis hitherto composed be destroyed, and that where they can be found outside the Order the Brethren shall strive to remove them, for the legend composed by the General was written according as he had it from the mouth of those who, as it were, had been always with Blessed Francis and knew everything with certainty, and those things which are proven are therein diligently set down." [Footnote 27: "Rinaldi," p. 11. Cf. "Opera Omnia," Tom. X, p. 58.] On the part of modern historiographers this ordination has excited much criticism, and even the warmest admirers and staunchest advocates of the Order must confess their inability to account for it adequately. At first sight it appears to be a very high-handed and obscurantist procedure, little in keeping with the ingenuous simplicity of the Franciscan spirit. It looks like an attempt to put out the light--to abolish the true ideal and substitute a counterfeit in its stead. But in reality it was nothing of the sort. At the present day it is impossible to determine the precise motives that actuated the authors of that statute, but no one who is even slightly acquainted with the condition of the Order at the period can fail to conjecture what most likely was the prevailing influence.