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WILLIAM OF VAUROUILLON, O.MIN. 307 Nicholas V a letter of 27 March 1453, whereby that Pontiff decreed that the Chateauroux convent was to be given over exclusively to the Observants and perpetual silence on the question imposed on the Conventuals 86 • While it is not apparent in the document, the latter was given to the archbishop of Tours to execute. Unfortunately, he did not summon the provincial or the procurator, but in their absence proceeded to issue divers sentences, censures and eccle– siastical punishments against any who contradicted or opposed the decision. Feeling they had been unduly harmed by such a procedure, William and Britonelli appealed immediately to the Pope for redress. The outcome was a new letter, Exhibita siquidem (first as of Nicholas V and then as of Callistus III), establishing a commission to pass judgment on the contioversy 87 • From Pius II (1461) we gather that a decision was made in the spring of 1456 in favor of the provincial, who was given possession of the convent, but likewise that both Conventuals and Observants continued to live in the house 88 • At this juncture, the situation was rendered more precarious both by a decree of Callistus (24 February 1456) obtained by the provincial - likely that mentioned by Pius II - which restricted the role of the vicars of the Observants, and by a second document two months later (24 April) abolishing the first as « extorted from Us by Our beloved sons, the minister and friars Conventual of the Province of Touraine » 89 • Either this new development or simply the human friction created by two groups living together brought matters to a crisis. Whatever the cause, the summer of 1456 saw a battle royal. The Observants rose up against the Conventuals and beat them usque ad sanguinis effusionem et membrorum mutilatio– nem, not only within the cloister but likewise in the church, which had afterwards to be reconciled by order of Cardinal Alanus, then delegate of the Holy See in France 90 • They then called in the 86 Sane, in Bull.Franc. n.s. I, n.1647, p.820s. 87 See note 79 above; and Pius II, Justis, in Bull.Franc. n.s. II, n.1016, p.531a. 88 Bull.Franc. n.s. II, n.937, p.487b. Nonetheless. rehearsing the version of Viscount Guy, Pius II states in 1462 that the Observants were driven out and the house occupied by Conventuals only (ibid., n.1016, p.53lb). This is borne out by later details; cf. note 94 below. 8 0 Regimini universalis Ecclesiae (Bull.Franc. n.s. II, n.133, p.76); and Romani Pon- tificis (ibid., n.156, p.86ss). 90 Thus Pius II (1461), in Bull.Franc. n.s. II, n.937, p.487b. That this and the rest of the incident took place in 1456, and not in 1460 (as Fr. Raoul suggests, art. cit., 202), is clear first of all from the mention of « almost four years » (Pius II, p.488a) through which a subsequent appeal to Parliament dragged on, and of an intervening appeal to Pius II (1460) by Count Guy; and secondly, from the fact that Cardinal Alanus was in France only after 17 Sept. 1455 and before 4 May 1458, according to L. VON PASTOR, Geschichte der Piipste I, 5-7 Aufl., Freiburg i. Br. 1925, 682 note 4; 705 n.4; Storia dei Papi I, Roma 1910, 606, 625, 627 n.1.