In the latter part of the twelfth century the order—in obedience perhaps to that widely diffused evangelical spirit which generated the great Franciscan movement a little later—had been developing and spreading very extensively. Its votaries went about preaching repentance in the squares and open places of the different cities, and persuaded numbers of noble persons, as well as plebeians, to abandon the sins of the world and the flesh, and to live according to the pious and simple vows of the order, either in monasteries or in their own homes. Their efforts were opposed by the bishops and regular clergy, who were disposed to look upon all zeal as heretical. But Pope Innocent III., recognising their virtue and their influence on the people, resolved to secure the somewhat loose orthodoxy of the brethren, and to direct their fervour and piety to the service of the Church. He extended his favour to them, and bestowed upon them the doubtful blessing of a formal rule, which, with the privileges, included the restrictions and severe discipline of a regular monastic order. This little pleased the Umiliati, and they made a touching appeal to Innocent’s successor, Honorius III., to relieve them from their new obligations, bringing forward an ancient formula, given them, they declared, by St. Bernard, to the observance of which they had already bound themselves. But the Pope absolved them against their will from their old vows of obedience and insisted on the observance of Innocent’s rule.