This study began with the vision and ideals of one of the most attractive saints of the Middle Ages and it ends with his followers' bitter and painful division. The Observants and the Conventuals moved towards the formal and definitive separation which was effected by Leo X's Ite vos on 29 May 1517. The formation of parties representing groups of friars appears in the earliest hagiography and it mars the historiography of the order. These positions became more polarised. By the 1290s differences of opinion could no longer be held in check, no matter how much the general curia lauded the vow of obedience and the unity of the order. At a critical time the ministers were slow to comprehend that they, too, were accountable for their administration. They failed to grasp the reformers' aspirations and were prone to label them as troublesome and disobedient. They defaulted on the trust implicit in the solemn utterances of the vows by neglecting to establish and maintain a manner of life consonant with the tenets of the poor saint of Assisi. They consistently underestimated the growing strength of the Observants, who occupied the moral high ground increasingly in the 1430s and 1440s. The Observants' policies carried the day and led to Leo X's settlment in 1517. Nonetheless, the thirst for reform quickly manifested itself in the birth of the Capuchins (1525–9).