My personal knowledge of the Rule and the Intention of its Author

5.  Likewise We, who from tender years have aroused our affection for the order itself, growing up in that time have discussed in frequent collations with some of the same confessor's companions, to whom his life and conversation were known, the very rule and holy intention of blessed Francis himself; and later as a cardinal and shortly afterwards by [choice of] the same See, the order's governor, protector, and corrector, We have handled the actual conditions of the aforesaid order on account of Our imminent concern; driven to keep Ourselves informed in the duty of the apostolate as much concerning the pious intention of the aforesaid confessor as concerns those things which the rule itself and its observance contain, on account of the aforesaid things and even from long experience We had recourse to the aforesaid order [itself]; and no less those things, which by Our same predecessors are known to have been approved and declared, than even the rule itself and its contingents, which We with full maturity have discussed, in the sequence [of this] present [document] We have established, declared, [and] approved more certainly, [and] We have strengthened, described and conceded those things which have been approved, and even others, by arranging [them] more clearly and in order, which are expressed more fully in the following articles.