The early historians of the Franciscan order traced the causes of the troubles of the order in their time to Elias, a contemporary and friend of St Francis and an early Minister General. Elias was blamed for opening the way to all relaxations of discipline and disregard of the founder's teaching, and all conflicts and persecutions. Mrs Brooke shows that responsibility cannot be placed on one man, but on many of the early friars. She gives a more historical account of Elias, showing that he was never as dominant a figure as has been supposed. The early conflicts of the order are shown to have been more complex, more interesting and more probable than the fourteenth-century controversialists would allow. The second part of the book describes the achievements of Elias's successors as Minister General, and the important laws they passed. Mrs Brooke has been able to reconstruct the early constitutions, now lost, in greater detail than has previously been attempted.