I am invited to Coventry (rather than sent to it) for the priestly ordination of a Franciscan friar. The various subdivisions of Franciscans into their evocative-sounding allegiances of Observants, Capuchins and Conventuals is a somewhat specialised study, and to the outsider, one to be approached with a certain trepidation.
The Conventual Franciscans are more colloquially known in England by their colour-coded habits as the Greyfriars. They assure me on good authority (namely, their own) that theirs is the original DNA of the order and all others are scions.
