Article 7

On the Habit of the Brothers

Although it is stated in the Rule that the Brothers shall have a Robe with a Hood, and a Tunic without a Hood; and although it seems from this that the holy Founder intended that they should have no more than this unless necessity required it, nevertheless we declare that the Brothers may make use of a greater number with the permission of their Ministers and Custodians, who shall regulate this as they judge fitting, jointly or separately, in their Provinces, after having carefully examined the needs and the other circumstances that must be weighed according to God and according to the spirit of the Rule.

Nor must it be imagined that they violate it in this respect; since it expressly orders the Ministers and the Custodians to take great care to provide for the needs of the sick and for the clothing of the other Brothers with regard to places, times, and cold countries.

Now although it is said in the same Rule that it is they alone who must take this care, and that the word alone seems at first to bind them to it to the exclusion of all others, nevertheless, upon reflecting that at the beginning of the Order the Brothers were few in comparison with what they are today, and that then the Ministers and Custodians alone might perhaps have been able to provide for all these needs;

Considering, moreover, the circumstances of the present time and how greatly their number has increased, and since there is no appearance that Saint Francis, who made the Rule, intended to impose upon the Ministers and Custodians an unbearable burden and thereby allow the Brothers to lack necessary things; we permit the said Ministers and Custodians to entrust to others the care of clothing the Brothers and assisting the sick, which the Rule lays upon them: and those who are appointed for this must discharge it faithfully.