Chapter IV: The Counter-Reformation (5)

§ 98.5. =The Franciscans from A.D. 1223.=--There was no mention
in the rule of A.D. 1223 of any sort of fixed place of abode
either in cloisters or in houses of their own. The life of the
order was thus conceived of as a homeless and possessionless
pilgrimage; and as for the means of life they were dependent on
what they got by begging, so also it was considered that for the
shelter of a roof they should depend upon the hospitable. The
gradual transition from a purely itinerant life had already begun
by the securing of fixed residences at definite points in the
transalpine district and first of all in Germany. After the first
sending forth of disciples in A.D. 1219, without much attention
to rule and without much plan, had run its course there with
scarcely any success, a more thoroughly organized mission, under
the direction of brother Cæsarius of Spires, consisting of twelve
clerical and thirteen lay brethren, including John v. Piano
Cupini, Thomas v. Celano, Giordano v. Giano, was sent by the
“_Mat Chapter_” of A.D. 1221 to Germany, which, strengthened by
oft-repeated reinforcements, carried on from A.D. 1228 a vigorous
propaganda in Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and Norway.
In accordance with the rule of A.D. 1223 Germany as forming
one province was divided into five custodies, but in A.D. 1230
into two distinct provinces, the Rhineland and Saxony, with a
corresponding number of custodies. Even more brilliant was the
success attending the mission to England in A.D. 1224. On their
missionary tours the brethren took up their residence temporarily
in hospitals and leper houses, or in hospitable parsonages and
private houses, and preached by preference in the open air, where
the people flocked around them in crowds, occasionally at the
invitation of a bishop or priest in the churches. Presents of
lands gave them the opportunity of erecting convents of their
own, with churches and burying-grounds for themselves, which,
placed under the charge of a guardian, soon increased in number
and importance. The begging, which was now made the basis of the
whole institution, was regulated by the principle, that, besides
the benefactions voluntarily paid into the cloister, monks sent
forth at particular terms, hence called Terminants[284] with
a beggar’s bag, should beg about for the necessaries of life.
With agriculture and industrial work, and generally all bodily
labour, the brothers had nothing to do. On the contrary, what
was altogether foreign to the intention of the founder and their
rules, and so originating not from within the order itself, but
from without, first of all by the admission of scientifically
cultured priests, a strong current set in in favour of scientific
studies, stimulated by their own personal ambition as well as
by rivalry with the Dominicans. These scholarly pursuits soon
yielded abundant fruit, which raised the reputation, power,
and influence of the order to such a height, that it has been
enabled to carry out in all details the task assigned it in
the papal polity. Architecture, painting, and poetry also found
among the members of the order distinguished cultivators and
ornaments.--Supported by accumulating papal privileges, which,
for example, gave immunity from all episcopal jurisdiction and
supervision, and allowed its clergy the right in all parts,
not only of preaching, but also of reading mass and hearing
confessions, and aided in its course of secularization by papal
modifications and alterations of its rule, which permitted the
obtaining and possessing rich cloister property, the order of
Minor Brothers or Minorites soon could boast of an extension
embracing several thousands of cloisters.--Francis, wasted by
long-continued sickness and by increasing infirmities, was found
dead, in A.D. 1226, stretched on the floor of the Portiuncula
chapel. Two years afterwards he was canonized by Gregory IX.,
and in A.D. 1230 there was a solemn translation of his relics to
the beautiful basilica built in his honour at Assisi. The legend,
that a seraph during his last years had imprinted upon him the
bloody wound-prints or stigmata of the Saviour was also turned
to account for the glorification of the whole order, which
now assumed the epithet “_seraphic_.”--The one who possessed
most spiritual affinity to his master of all the disciples of
St. Francis, and after him most famous among his contemporaries
and posterity, was =St. Anthony of Padua=. Born in A.D. 1195 at
Lisbon, when an Augustinian canon at Coimbra he was, in A.D. 1220,
received into the communion of the Minorites, when the relics of
the five martyrs of Morocco were deposited there, and thereupon
he undertook a mission to Africa. But a severe sickness obliged
him to return home, and driven out of his course by a storm, he
landed at Messina, from whence he made a pilgrimage to Assisi.
The order now turned his learning to account by appointing him
teacher of theology, first at Bologna, then at Montpellier. For
three years he continued as custos in the south of France, going
up and down through the land as a powerful preacher of repentance,
till the death of the founder and the choice of a successor
called him back to Italy. He died at Padua in A.D. 1231. The
pope canonized him in A.D. 1232, and in A.D. 1263 his relics were
enshrined in the newly built beautiful church at Padua dedicated
to him. Among the numerous tales of prodigies, which are said
to have accompanied his goings wherever he went, the best known
and most popular is, that when he could obtain no ready hearing
for his doctrine among men, he preached on a lonely sea-shore
to shoals of fishes that crowded around to listen. His writings,
sermons, and a biblical concordance, under the title _Concordantiæ
Morales SS. Bibliorum_, are often printed along with the _Letters,
Hymns, Testament_, etc., ascribed to St. Francis.--Among the
legends of the order still extant about the life of St. Francis
is the _Vita I._ of Thomas of Celano, written in A.D. 1229, the
oldest and relatively the most impartial. On the other hand, the
later biographies, especially that of the so-called _Tres socii_
and the _Vita II._ of Thomas, which has been made accessible by
the Roman edition of Amoni of 1880, written contemporaneously
somewhere about A.D. 1245, as well as that of St. Bonaventura
of A.D. 1263, recognised by the chapter of the order as the
only authoritative form of the legends, are all more or less
influenced by the party strifes that had arisen within its ranks,
while all are equally overladen with reports of miracles. In
A.D. 1399, by authority of the general chapter at Assisi, the
“_Liber Conformitatum_” of Bartholomew of Pisa pointed out forty
resemblances between Christ and St. Francis, in which the saint
has generally the advantage over the Saviour. In the Reformation
times an anonymous German version of this book was published by
Erasmus Alber with a preface by Luther, under the title, _Der
Barfüssermönche Eulenspiegel und Alkoran_, Wittenberg, 1542.
The most trustworthy contemporary source of information has been
only recently again rendered accessible to us in the _Memorabilia
de Primitiv. Fratrum in Teutoniam Missorum Conversatione et
Vita_ of the above-named Giordano of Giano, embracing the years
1207-1238, which G. Voigt discovered among his father’s papers,
and has published with a full and comprehensive introduction.
The Franciscans of Quaracchi near Florence have re-edited it
“after the unique Berlin manuscript,” as well as the supplementary
document, the _De Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Anglia_, in the first
volume of their _Analecta Franciscana, Quar._, 1885.--Thode, in
his _Fr. v. A. und die Anfänge d. Kunst d. Renaissance in Ital._
(Berl., 1885), has described in a thorough and brilliant style
the mighty influence which St. Francis and his order exerted
upon the development of art in Italy, especially of painting
and architecture, as well as of poetry in the vernacular; for
he has shown how the peculiar and close relation in which the
saint stood to nature gave the first effective impulse to the
emancipation of art from the trammels of formalism, and how the
new artistic tendency, inspired by his spirit, was first given
expression to in the building and adorning of the basilica at
Assisi dedicated to him.[285]

§ 98.6. =Party Divisions within the Franciscan Order.=--That
the founder was by no means wholly in sympathy with the tendency
which prevailed in his order from A.D. 1221, and only tolerated
what he was no longer in a position to prevent, might have been
guessed from the fact that from that time he withdrew himself
more and more from the supreme direction of the order, and
made it over to =Elias of Cortona=, as his general-vicar, who
in existing circumstances was better fitted for the task. But
from his _Testament_ it appears quite evident that he strictly
adhered to the views of his early days, and even attempted a
last but fruitless reaction against the tendency to worldly
conformity that had set in. Thus, for example, it still puts all
the brethren under obligation to perform honourable labour, and
will allow them to beg only in case of necessity, but especially
forbids them most distinctly by their sacred vow of obedience
from asking any privilege from the papal chair, or altering
the simple literal meaning of the rule of the order, and of this
his last will and testament by addition, abatement, or change.
After his death, on 4th October, 1226, Elias retained in his
hand the regency till the next meeting of the Pentecost chapter;
but then he was deprived of office by the election of John Pareus
as general-minister, a member of the stricter party. Meanwhile
the increasing number and wealth of their cloisters and churches,
with their appurtenances, made it absolutely necessary that
the brethren should face the question how the holding of such
possessions was to be reconciled with the strict injunction of
poverty in the sixth chapter of their rule, according to which
“the brothers are to possess nothing of their own, neither a
house, nor an estate, nor anything whatsoever, but are to go
about for alms as strangers and pilgrims in this world.” At
the next general chapter, in A.D. 1230, this question came up
for discussion, along with that of the validity of the testament
above referred to. When they could not agree among themselves, it
was decided, in spite of all the protestations of the general, to
request by a deputation the advice of the pope, Gregory IX., on
this and certain other disputed questions. With reference to the
testament, the pope declared that its demands, because issued
without the consent and approval of the general chapter, could
not be binding upon the order. With reference to the property
question, he repudiated the rendering of the rule in such
a way as if in this, just as in all other orders, only the
possession of property on the part of individual brothers was
forbidden; but the membership of the order as a whole could not
be prevented from holding property, as directly contrary to the
literal statements of the rule, without, however, entering upon
the question as to whose property the movables and immovables
standing really at the call of the order were to be considered.
And as he had at an earlier date, on the occasion of sending a
new Minorite mission to Morocco, granted as a privilege to the
order to take alms in money, which was allowed by the rule only
for the support of sick brethren, for the reason that without
money they would not be able there to procure the necessaries
of life, so he now extended this permission for other purposes
essential to the good of the order, _e.g._ building and
furnishing of cloisters and churches, as not contrary to the
rule, if the collecting and spending of the money is carried on,
not by members of the order, but by procurators chosen for the
work. It was probably to this victory of the lax party that Elias
owed his elevation at the next election, in A.D. 1332, to the
office of general. It also enabled him to maintain his position
for seven years, during which he showed himself particularly
active and efficient, not only as general of the order, but also
in political negotiations with the princes of Italy, especially
as mediator between the pope and the emperor, Gregory IX. and
Frederick II. But his government of the order in a despotic
and lordly manner, and his reckless endeavours to conform
to worldly customs, intensified the bitterness of his pious
opponents, and his growing friendliness with the emperor lost
him the favour of the pope. And so it came about that his
overthrow was accomplished at the general chapter in Rome,
in A.D. 1239. He now openly passed over into the service of the
emperor, against whom the ban had anew been issued, accompanied
him on his military campaigns, and inveighed unsparingly against
the pope in public speeches. As partisan of the banned emperor,
already _de jure_ excommunicated, the ban was pronounced against
him personally in A.D. 1244, and he was expelled from the
order. He died in A.D. 1253, reconciled with the church after
a penitential recantation and apology. His four immediate
successors in the generalship all belonged to the strict party;
but the growing estrangement of the order from the interests
and purposes of the curia, especially too its relations to
the _Evangelium æternum_, pronounced heretical in A.D. 1254
(§ 108, 5), produced a reaction, in consequence of which the
general, John of Parma, was deprived of office in A.D. 1257.
With his successor, St. Bonaventura, the opposition succeeded
to the undisputed control of the order. The difficult question,
how the really pre-eminently rich cloister property was to
be reconciled with the rule of the order requiring absolute
abandonment of all possessions, found now among the preponderating
lax party, the so-called =Fratres de communitate=, its solution
in the assertion, that the goods in their hands had been bestowed
upon them by the donors only in usufruct, or even that they
were presented not so much to the order, as rather to the
Romish Church, yet with the object of supporting the order.
Nicholas III., in A.D. 1279, legitimated the theory, for he
decided the question in dispute in his bull _Exiit qui seminat_,
by saying that it is allowed to the disciples of St. Francis to
hold earthly goods in usufruct, but not in absolute possession,
as this is demanded by the example of Christ and His apostles.
But now arose a new controversy, over the form and measure
of using with a distinction of a _usus moderatus_ and a _usus
tenuis_ or _pauper_, the latter permitting no store even of
the indispensable necessaries of life beyond what is absolutely
required to satisfy present needs. Those, on the other hand,
who were dissatisfied with the principles affirmed in the papal
bull, the =Spirituales= or _Zelatores_, with Peter John de
Oliva and Ubertino de Casale at their head, assumed an attitude
of open, fanatical opposition to the papacy, identifying it
with antichrist (§ 108, 6). A section of them, which, besides
the points about poverty, took offence at the lax party also
over questions of clothing reform, obtained permission from
Cœlestine V., in A.D. 1294, to separate from the main body
of the order, and, under the name of =Cœlestine Eremites=, to
form an independent communion with a general of their own. They
settled for the most part in Greece and on the islands of the
Archipelago. Boniface VIII., in A.D. 1302, peremptorily insisted
upon their return to the West and to the present order. But as
he died soon after, even those who had returned continued their
separate existence and their distinctive dress.--Continuation,
§ 112, 2.

§ 98.7. =The Dominican or Preaching Order.=--=St. Dominic=,
to whom this order owes its origin, was born, in A.D. 1170,
at Calaruega, in Old Castile, of a distinguished family (De
Guzman?). As a learned Augustinian canon at Osma, he had already
wrought zealously for the conversion of Mohammedans and heretics,
when Bishop Diego of Osma, entrusted in A.D. 1204, by King
Alphonso VIII. with obtaining a bride for his son Ferdinand,
took him as one of his travelling retinue. The sudden death
of the bride, a Danish princess, rendered the undertaking
nugatory. On their homeward journey they met at Montpellier
with the Cistercian mission, sent out for the conversion of
the Albigensians (§ 109, 1), the utter failure of which had
become already quite apparent. Dominic, inflamed with holy zeal,
prevailed upon his bishop to enter along with himself upon the
work already almost abandoned in despair; and after the bishop’s
early death, in A.D. 1206, he carried on the enterprise at his
own hand. For Albigensian women, converted by him, he founded a
sort of conventual asylum at Prouille, and a house at Toulouse,
which was soon afterwards gifted to him, became the first
centre where his disciples gathered around him, whence by-and-by
they removed into the cloister of St. Romanus, assigned to them
by Bishop Fulco. During the Albigensian crusade, the thought
ripened in his mind that he might secure a firmer basis and
more powerful support for his enterprise by founding a new,
independent order, whose proper and exclusive task should be the
combating and preventing of heresy by instruction, preaching, and
disputation. In order to obtain for this proposal ecclesiastical
sanction, he accompanied his patron, Bishop Fulco of Toulouse,
in A.D. 1215, to the Fourth Lateran Council at Rome. But pope and
council seemed little disposed to favour his idea. The former,
indeed, sought rather to persuade him to join some existing
ecclesiastical institution, and carry out his scheme under its
organization. Consequently Dominic, with his sixteen companions,
resolved to adopt the rule of St. Augustine, augmented by several
Præmonstratensian articles. When, however, Honorius III. had
ascended the papal chair, Dominic hastened again to Rome, and
in A.D. 1216 obtained from this pope without difficulty what
Innocent III. had refused him, namely, permission to found a new,
independent order, with the privilege of preaching and hearing
confession everywhere. Then, and also subsequently, he preached
frequently with great acceptance to those living in the papal
palace, and thus an opportunity was afforded of establishing the
office of a _magister sacri palatii_, or papal court preacher,
which was immediately occupied, and has ever since continued to
be held, by a Dominican. At a later period the supreme censorship
of books was also assigned to this same official. The first
general chapter of the order met at Bologna in A.D. 1220. There
the vow of poverty, which was hitherto insisted upon only in
the sense of all the earlier orders as a mere abandonment of
property on the part of individuals, was put in a severer form,
so that even the order as such kept itself free from every kind
of possession of earthly goods and revenues, except the bare
cloister buildings, and exhorted all its adherents to live
only on begged alms. Thus the Dominicans, even earlier than the
Franciscans, whose rule then permitted begging only in case of
need, constituted themselves into a regular mendicant order.
Dominic, however, chose voluntary poverty for himself and
his disciples, not like St. Francis simply for the purpose of
securing personal holiness, but rather only to obtain a perfectly
free course for his work in the salvation of others. The official
designation, “=Ordo fratrum Prædicatum=,” was also fixed at this
chapter.[286] At the second general chapter, in A.D. 1221, there
were already representatives from sixty cloisters out of eight
provinces. Dominic died soon after, at Bologna, on 6th August,
1221, uttering anathemas against any one who should corrupt his
order by bestowing earthly goods upon it. He was canonized by
Gregory IX. in A.D. 1233. His immediate successor, Jordanus,
wrote his first biography, adorned, as we might expect, with
endless miracles.

§ 98.8. According to the constitutional rules of the order,
collected and revised by the third general of the order,
Raimund de Pennaforte, about A.D. 1238, the general who stands
at the head of the whole order, residing at Rome, _magister
generalis_, is elected to office for life at the general chapter
held annually at Pentecost, and he nominates his own _socii_ as
advisory assistants. The government of the provinces is conducted
by a provincial chosen every four years by the provincial chapter,
assisted by four advisory _definitores_, and each cloister elects
its own prior. The mode of life was determined by strict rules,
severe fasts were enjoined, involving strict abstinence from
the use of flesh, and during particular hours of the day absolute
silence had to be observed. In the matter of clothing, only
woollen garments were allowed. The dress consisted of a white
frock with white scapular and a small peaked capouch; but outside
of the cloister a black cloak with capouch was worn over it. From
the favourite play upon the name Dominican, _Domini canes_, in
contrast to the dumb dogs of Isaiah lvi. 10, the order adopted
as its coat of arms a dog with the torch of truth in its mouth.
The special vocation of the order as preachers and opponents of
heresy required a thorough scientific training. Every province
of the order was therefore expected to have a seminary capable
of giving a superior theological education to the members of
the order, to which they gave the name of a _studium generale_,
borrowed from the universities, although the predicate was
here used in a sense much more restricted (comp. § 99, 3).
But ambitious desires for scientific reputation incited them
to obtain authority for instituting theological chairs in the
University of Paris, the most celebrated theological seminary
of that age. The endeavour was favoured by a conflict of Queen
Blanca with the Parisian doctors, in consequence of which they
left the city and for a time gathered their students around
them partly at Rheims, partly at Angers, while the Dominicans,
encouraged by the bishop, established their first chair in the
vacant places in A.D. 1230. The Franciscans too accomplished
the same end about this time. The old professors on their return
used every means in their power to drive out the intruders, but
were completely beaten after almost thirty years of passionate
conflict, and the nurture of scholastic theology was henceforth
all but a monopoly of the two mendicant orders (§ 103, 3).
The art of ecclesiastical architecture and painting, which
during this age reached a hitherto unattained degree of
perfection, found many of its most distinguished ornaments
and masters in the preaching order. And in zeal for missions
to the Mohammedans and the heathen the Franciscans alone could
be compared with them. But the order reached the very climax
of its reputation, influence, and power when Gregory IX., in
A.D. 1232, assigned to it exclusive control of the inquisition
of heretics (§ 109, 2).--The veneration of the devout masses of
the people, who preferred to confide their secret confessions to
the itinerant monks, roused against both orders the hatred of the
secular clergy, the preference shown them by the popes awakened
the envy of the other orders, and their success in scientific
pursuits brought down upon them the ill-will of the learned.
Circumstances thus rendered it necessary for a long time that
the two orders should stand well together for united combat and
defence. But after all those hindrances had been successfully
overcome, the rivalry that had been suppressed owing to temporary
community of interests broke out all the more bitterly in the
endeavour to secure world-wide influence, intensified by opposing
philosophico-dogmatic theories (§ 113, 2), as well as by the
difference in the interpretation and explanation of the doctrine
of poverty, in regard to which they strove with one another
in the most violent and passionate manner (§ 112, 2). From
having in their hands the administration of the Inquisition
the preaching order obtained an important advantage over the
Minorites; while these, on the other hand, were far more popular
among the common people than the proud, ambitious Dominicans,
who occupied themselves with high civil and ecclesiastical
politics as counsellors and confessors of the princes and the
nobles.--Continuation, § 112, 4.

§ 98.9. To each of the =two mendicant orders= there was at an
early date attached a female branch, which was furnished by the
saint who founded the original order with a rule adapting his
order’s ideal of poverty to the female vocation, and therefore
designated and regarded as his “second order.”

1. The female conventual asylum, founded in A.D. 1206 at
Prouille, may be considered the first cloister of =Dominican
nuns=. The principal cloister and another institution,
however, was the convent of _San Sisto_ in Rome, given
to St. Dominic for this purpose by Honorius III. In all
parts of Christendom where the preaching order settled
there now appeared female cloisters under the supervision
and jurisdiction of its provincial superior, with seclusion,
strict asceticism, passing their time in contemplation, and
conforming as closely as possible to the mode of life and
style of clothing prescribed for the male cloisters. This
institution was presided over by a prioress.

2. The order of the =Nuns of St. Clara=, as “_the second
order of St. Francis_,” was founded by =St. Clara of
Assisi=. Born of a distinguished family, endowed with
great physical beauty, and destined to an early marriage,
in her eighteenth year, in A.D. 1212, she was powerfully
impressed by the teaching of St. Francis, so that she
resolved completely to abandon the world and its vanities.
She proved the earnestness of her resolve by obeying the
trying requirement of the saint to go through the streets
of the city clad in a penitent’s cloak, begging alms for
the poor. On Palm Sunday at the Portiuncula chapel she took
at the hand of her chosen spiritual father the three vows.
Her younger sister Agnes, along with other maidens, followed
her example. Francis assigned to this union of “poor women”
as a conventual residence the church of St. Damiani restored
by him, from which they were sometimes called the _Nuns
of St. Damiani_. When in A.D. 1219 St. Francis undertook
his journey to the east, he commended them to the care
of Cardinal Ugolino, who prescribed for them the rule of
the Benedictine nuns; but after the saint’s return they so
incessantly entreated him to draw up a rule for themselves,
that he at last, in A.D. 1224, prepared one for them and
obtained for it the approval of the pope. Clara died in
A.D. 1253, and was canonized by Innocent IV. in A.D. 1255.
Her order spread very widely in more than 2,000 cloisters,
and can boast not only of having received 150 daughters of
kings and princes, but also of having enriched heaven with
an immense number of beatified and canonized virgins.

§ 98.10. =The other Mendicant Orders.=--The brilliant success
of the Franciscans and Dominicans led other societies, either
previously existing, or only now called into being, to adopt the
character of mendicants. Only three of them succeeded, though in
a much less degree than their models, in gaining position, name
and extension throughout the West. The first of these was the
=Carmelite Order=. It owed its origin to the crusader Berthold,
Count of Limoges, who in A.D. 1156 founded a monastery at
the brook of Elias on Mount Carmel, to which in A.D. 1209
the patriarch of Jerusalem prescribed the rule of St. Basil
(§ 44, 3). Hard pressed by the Saracens, the Carmelites
emigrated in A.D. 1238 to the West, where as a mendicant
order, under the name of _Frates Mariæ de Monte Carmelo_, with
unexampled hardihood they repudiated their founder Berthold, and
maintained that the prophet Elias had been himself their founder,
and that the Virgin Mary had been a sister of their order. What
they most prided themselves on was the sacred scapular which the
Mother of God herself had bestowed upon Simon Stock, the general
of the order in A.D. 1251, with the promise that whosoever should
die wearing it should be sure of eternal blessedness. Seventy
years later, according to the legends of the order, the Virgin
appeared to Pope John XXII. and told him she descended every
Saturday into purgatory, in order to take such souls to herself
into heaven. In the 17th century, when violent controversies
on this point had arisen, Paul V. authenticated the miraculous
qualities of this scapular, always supposing that the prescribed
fasts and prayers were not neglected. Among the Carmelites,
just as among the Franciscans, laxer principles soon became
current, causing controversies and splits which continued down
to the 16th century (§ 149, 6).--=The Order of Augustinians=
arose out of the combination of several Italian monkish societies.
Innocent IV. in A.D. 1243 prescribed to them the rule of
St. Augustine (§ 45, 1) as the directory of their common life.
It was only under Alexander IV. in A.D. 1256 that they were
welded together into one order as _Ordo Fratrum Eremitarum
S. Augustini_, with the duties and privileges of mendicant
monks. Their order spread over the whole West, and enjoyed
the special favour of the papal chair, which conferred
upon its members the permanent distinction of the office
of sacristan to the papal chapel and of chaplain to the Holy
Father (Continuation, § 112, 5).--Finally, as the fifth in the
series of mendicant orders, we meet with the =Order of Servites=,
_Servi b. Virg._, devoted to the Virgin, and founded in A.D. 1233
by seven pious Florentines. It was, however, first recognised as
a mendicant order by Martin V., and had equal rank with the four
others granted it only in A.D. 1567 by Pius V.

§ 98.11. =Penitential Brotherhoods and Tertiaries of the
Mendicant Orders.=--Carl Müller was the first to throw light
upon this obscure period in the history of the Franciscans. The
results of his investigations are essentially the following: In
consequence of the appearance of St. Francis as a preacher of
repentance and of the kingdom of God there arose a religious
movement which, not merely had as its result the securing of
numerous adherents to the association of Minor Brethren directed
by himself, as well as to the society of “_poor women_” attaching
itself to St. Clara, but also awakened in many, who by marriage
and family duties were debarred from entering these orders, the
desire to lead a life of penitence and asceticism removed from
the noisy turmoil of the world in the quiet of their own homes
while continuing their industrial employments and the discharge
of civil duties. As originating in the movement inaugurated by
St. Francis, these “_Fratres pœnitentiæ_” designated themselves
“_the third order of St. Francis_,” and as such made the claim
that they should not be disturbed in their retired penitential
life to engage upon services for the State, military duty, and
so forth. In this way they frequently came into conflict with
the civil courts. Although in this direction powerfully supported
by the papal curia, the brotherhoods were just so much the less
able to press their claim to immunity in proportion as they
spread and became more numerous throughout the cities of Italy,
and the greater the rush into their ranks became from day to
day from all classes, men and women, married and unmarried.
The right of spiritual direction and visitation of them was
assigned in A.D. 1234 by Gregory IX. to the bishops; but in
A.D. 1247 Innocent IV., at the request of the Minorites, issued
an ordinance according to which this right was to be given to
them, but they were not able in any case to carry it out. Not
only the secular clergy were opposed, but they were vigorously
aided in their resistance by the Dominicans.--In A.D. 1209, at
the beginning of the Albigensian crusade, St. Dominic had founded,
at Toulouse, an association of married men and women under the
name of _Militia Christi_, which, recognisable by the wearing
of a common style of dress, undertook to vindicate the faith
of the church against heretics, to restore again any goods that
had wrongfully been appropriated by them, to protect widows
and orphans, etc. This _Militia_ migrated from France to Italy.
Although originally founded for quite different purposes than
the Penitential brotherhoods, it had the same privileges as these
enjoyed conferred upon it by the popes, and assimilated itself
largely to these in respect of mode of life and ascetic practices,
and practically became amalgamated with them. But still the
Penitential brotherhoods always formed a neutral territory, upon
which, according to circumstances, sometimes the secular clergy,
and sometimes one or other of the two mendicant orders, but much
more frequently the Minorite clergy, exercised visitation rights.
The first attempt at effecting a definite separation arose
from the Dominicans, whose seventh general, Murione de Zamorra,
prescribed a rule to those Penitential brotherhoods which were
more closely related to his order. Upon their adopting it they
were loosed from the general society as “_Fratres de Pœnitentia_”
=S. Dominici=, and described as exclusively attached to the
preaching order. In A.D. 1288, however, Jerome of Arcoli, the
former general of the Franciscans, ascended the papal throne as
Nicholas IV., and now used all means in his power to secure to
his own order the supremacy in every department. In the following
year, A.D. 1289, he issued the bill _Supra montem_, in which he
prescribed (_statuimus_) a rule of his own for all Penitential
brotherhoods; and then, since on this point, out of regard
for the powerful Dominican order, he did not venture to do
more than simply recommend, added the advice (_consulimus_),
that the visitation and instruction of these should be assigned
to the Minorite superiors, giving as a reason that all these
institutions owed their origin to St. Francis. Against both
the prescription and the advice, however, the bishops, as well
in the interest of their own prerogatives as for the protection
of their clergy, threatened in vocation and income, raised
a vigorous and persistent protest, which at last, however,
succumbed before the supreme power of the pope and the marked
preference on the part of the people for the clergy of the
orders. Those brotherhoods which adopted the rule thus obtruded
on them stood now in the position of rivals, alongside of those
of St. Dominic, as “_Fratres de pœnitentia_” =S. Francisci=.
The Dominican Penitentials afterwards adopted the name and
character of a “_third order of St. Dominic_” or “_Tertiaries_.”
In the Franciscan legends, however, the rule drawn up by
Nicholas IV. soon came to be represented as the one prescribed
to the Penitentials on their first appearance in A.D. 1221 by
St. Francis himself, only ratified anew by the pope, and has
been generally regarded as such down to our own day.--The rapid
growth in power and influence which the two older mendicant
orders owe to the Tertiary Societies, induced also the later
mendicant orders to produce an imitation of them within the range
of their activity. Crossing the Alps the Penitential brotherhoods
found among these orders, on this side, an open door,--the
Franciscan brothers being especially numerous,--and entered
into peculiarly intimate relations with the Beghard societies
which had sprung up there, forming, like them, associations of
a monastic type.

§ 98.12. =Working Guilds of a Monkish Order.=--(1) During the
11th century, midway between the strictly monastic and secular
modes of life, a number of pious artisan families in Milan,
mostly weavers, under the name of =Humiliati=, adopted a communal
life with spiritual exercises, and community of handicraft and
of goods. Whatever profit came from their work was devoted to
the poor. The married continued their marriage relations after
entering the community. In the 12th century, however, a party
arose among them who bound themselves by vows of celibacy, and
to them were afterwards attached a congregation of priests. Their
society was first acknowledged by Innocent III. in A.D. 1021.
But meanwhile many of them had come under the influence of
Arnold (§ 108, 6), and so had become estranged from the Catholic
church. At a later period these formed a connection with the
French Waldensians, the _Pauperes de Lugduno_, adopted their
characteristic views, and for the sake of distinction took the
name of _Pauperes Italici_ (§ 108, 12).--Related in every respect
to the Lombard Humiliati, but distinguished from them by the
separation of the sexes and a universal obligation of celibacy,
were the communities of the =Beguines= and =Beghards=. Priority
of origin belongs to the Beguines. They took the three monkish
vows, but only for so long as they belonged to the society. Hence
they could at any time withdraw, and enter upon marriage and
other relations of social life. They lived under the direction
of a lady superior and a priest in a so-called Beguine-house,
_Curtis Beguinarum_, which generally consisted of a number of
small houses connected together by one surrounding wall. Each
had her own household, although on entrance she had surrendered
her goods over to the community and on withdrawing she received
them back. They busied themselves with handiwork and the
education of girls, the spiritual training of females, and
sewing, washing and nursing the poor in the houses of the city.
The surplus of income over expenditure was applied to works of
benevolence. Every Beguine house had its own costume and colour.
These institutions soon spread over all Belgium, Germany, and
France. The first Beguine house known to us was founded about
1180 at Liège, by the famous priest and popular preacher, Lambert
la Bèghe, _i.e._ the Stammerer. Hallmann thinks that the name
of the society may have been derived from that of the preacher.
Earlier writers, without anything to support them but a vague
similarity of sound, were wont to derive it from Begga, daughter
of Pepin of Landen in the 7th century. Most likely of all,
however, is Mosheim’s derivation of it from “beggan,” which means
not to pray, “beten,” a praying sister, but to beg, as the modern
English, and so proves that the institute originally consisted
of a collection of poor helpless women. We may compare with this
the designation “Lollards,” § 116, 3.--After the pattern of the
Beguine communities there soon arose communities of men, Beghards,
with similar tendencies. They supported themselves by handicraft,
mostly by weaving. But even in the 13th century corruption and
immorality made their appearance in both. Brothers and sisters of
the New (§ 108, 4) and of the Free Spirit (§ 116, 5), Fratricelli
(§ 112, 2) and other heretics, persecuted by the church, took
refuge in their unions and infected them with their heresies.
The Inquisition (§ 109, 2) kept a sharp eye on them, and many
were executed, especially in France. The 15th General Council
at Vienna, in A.D. 1312, condemned eight of their positions
as heretical. There was now a multitude of Beguine and Beghard
houses overthrown. Others maintained their existence only by
passing over to the Tertiaries of the Franciscans. Later popes
took the communities that were free from suspicion under their
protection. But even among these many forms of immorality broke
out, concubinage between Beguines and Beghards, and worldliness,
thus obliging the civil and ecclesiastical authorities again
to step in. The unions still remaining in the time of the
Reformation were mostly secularized. Only in Belgium have
a few Beguine houses continued to exist to the present day
as institutions for the maintenance of unmarried women of the
citizen class.[287]

§ 98.13. =The Spiritual Order of Knights.=--The peculiarity of
the Order of Knights consists in the combination of the three
monkish vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience with the vow
to maintain a constant struggle with the infidels. The most
important of these orders were the following.

1. =The Templars=, founded in A.D. 1118 by Hugo de Payens
and Godfrey de St. Omer for the protection of pilgrims in
the Holy Land. The costume of the order was a white mantle
with a red cross. Its rule was drawn up by St. Bernard,
whose warm interest in the order secured for it papal
patronage and the unanimous approbation of the whole West.
When Acre fell in A.D. 1291 the Templars settled in Cyprus,
but soon most of them returned to the West, making France
their headquarters. They had their name probably from a
palace built on the site of Solomon’s temple, which king
Baldwin II. of Jerusalem assigned them as their first
residence.[288]--Continuation, § 112, 7.

2. =The Knights of St. John= or Hospitallers, founded by
merchants from Amalfi as early as the middle of the
11th century, residing at first in a cloister at the
Holy Sepulchre, were engaged in showing hospitality to
the pilgrims and nursing the sick. The head of the order
Raimund du Puy, who occupied this position from A.D. 1118,
added to these duties, in imitation of the Templars, that
of fighting against the infidels. They carried a white cross
on their breast, and a red cross on their standard. Driven
out by the Saracens, they settled in Rhodes in A.D. 1310,
and in A.D. 1530 took possession of Malta.[289]

3. =The Order of Teutonic Knights= had its origin from a
hospital founded by citizens of Bremen and Lübeck during
the siege of Acre in A.D. 1120. The costume of the knights
was a white mantle with a black cross. Subsequently the
order settled in Prussia (§ 93, 13), and in A.D. 1237
united with the order of the Brothers of the Sword, which
had been founded in Livonia in A.D. 1202 (§ 93, 12). Under
its fourth Grandmaster, the prudent as well as vigorous
Hermann v. Salza, A.D. 1210-1239, it reached the summit
of its power and influence.

4. =The Knights of the Cross= arose originally in Palestine
under the name of the Order of Bethlehem, but at a later
period settled in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Poland.
There they adopted the life of regular canons (§ 97, 5)
and devoted themselves to hospital work and pastoral duties.
They are still to be found in Bohemia as holders of valuable
livings, with the badge of a cross of red satin.

In =Spain=, too, various orders of spiritual knights arose under
vows to fight with the Moors (§ 95, 2). The two most important
were the =Order of Calatrava=, founded in A.D. 1158 by the
Cistercian monk Velasquez for the defence of the frontier city
Calatrava, and the =Order of Alcantara=, founded in A.D. 1156 for
a similar purpose. Both orders were confirmed by Alexander III.
and gained great fame and still greater wealth in the wars
against the Moors. Under Ferdinand the Catholic the rank of
Grandmaster of both orders passed over to the crown. Paul III.
in A.D. 1540 released the knights from the vow of celibacy, but
obliged them to become champions of the Immaculate Conception of
the Virgin. Both orders still exist, but only as military orders
of merit.

§ 98.14. =Bridge-Brothers and Mercedarians.=--The name of
Bridge Brothers, _Frères Pontifex_, _Fratres Pontifices_, was
given to a union founded under Clement III., in Southern France,
in A.D. 1189, for the building of hospices and bridges at points
where pilgrims crossed the large rivers, or for the ferrying
of pilgrims over the streams. As a badge they wore a pick upon
their breast. Their constitution was modelled upon that of
the Knights of St. John, and upon their gradual dissolution
in the 13th century most of their number went over to that
order.--Petrus [Peter] Nolescens, born in Languedoc, of noble
parents and military tutor of a Spanish prince, moved by what
he had seen of the sufferings of Christian slaves at the hand
of their Moorish masters, and strengthened in his resolve by
an appearance of the Queen of Heaven, founded in A.D. 1228 the
knightly order of the =Mercedarians=, _Mariæ Virg. de mercede
pro redemptione Captivorum_. They devoted all their property
to the purchase of Christian captives, and where such a one was
in danger of apostatising to Islam and the money for redemption
was not procurable, they would even give themselves into slavery
in his place. When in A.D. 1317 the Grand Commandership passed
over into the hands of the priests, the order was gradually
transformed into a monkish order. After A.D. 1600, in consequence
of a reform after the pattern of the rule of the Barefoots,
it became a mendicant order, receiving the privileges of other
begging fraternities from Benedict XIII. in A.D. 1725. The order
proved a useful institution of its time in Spain, France and
Italy, and at a later period also in Spanish America.

III. Theological Science and its Controversies.

§ 99. SCHOLASTICISM IN GENERAL.[290]

The scientific activity of the Middle Ages received the name of =Scholasticism= from the cathedral and cloister schools in which it originated (§ 90, 8). The Schoolmen, with their enthusiasm and devotion, their fidelity and perseverance, their courage and love of combat, may be called the knights of theology. Instead of sword and spear they used logic, dialectic and speculation; and profound scholarship was their breastplate and helmet. Ecclesiastical orthodoxy was their glory and pride. Aristotle, and also to some extent Plato, afforded them their philosophical basis and method. The Fathers in their utterances, _sententiæ_, the Councils in their dogmas and canons, the popes in their decretals, yielded to this Dialectic Scholasticism theological material which it could use for the systematising, demonstrating, and illustrating of the Church doctrine. If we follow another intellectual current, we find the Mystical Scholasticism taking up, as the highest task of theology, the investigating and describing of the hidden life of the pious thinker in and with God according to its nature, course, and results by means of spiritual contemplation on the basis of one’s individual experience. Dogmatics (including Ethics) and the Canon Law constituted the peculiar field of the Dialectic Theology of the Schoolmen. The standard of dogmatic theology during the 12th century was the Book of the Sentences of the Lombard (§ 102, 5); that of the Canon Law the Decree of Gratian. Biblical Exegesis as an independent department of scientific study stood, indeed, far behind these two, but was diligently prosecuted by the leading representatives of Scholasticism. The examination of the simple literal sense, however, was always regarded as a secondary consideration; while it was esteemed of primary importance to determine the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical signification of the text (§ 90, 9).

§ 99.1. =Dialectic and Mysticism.=--With the exception
of the speculative Scotus Erigena, the Schoolmen of the
Carlovingian Age were of a practical turn. This was changed
on the introduction of Dialectic in the 11th century. Practical
interests gave way to pure love of science, and it was now the
aim of scholars to give scientific shape and perfect logical form
to the doctrines of the church. The method of this =Dialectic
Scholasticism= consisted in resolving all church doctrines into
their elementary ideas, in the arranging and demonstrating of
them under all possible categories and in the repelling of all
possible objections of the sceptical reason. The end aimed at was
the proof of the reasonableness of the doctrine. This Dialectic,
therefore, was not concerned with exegetical investigations
or Scripture proof, but rather with rational demonstration.
Generally speaking, theological Dialectic attached itself to
the ecclesiastical system of the day as positivism or dogmatism;
for, appropriating Augustine’s _Credo ut intelligam_, it made
faith the principal starting point of its theological thinking
and the raising of faith to knowledge the end toward which it
laboured. On the other hand, however, scepticism often made its
appearance, taking not faith but doubt as the starting point
for its inquiries, with the avowed intention, indeed, of raising
faith to knowledge, but only acknowledging as worthy of belief
what survived the purifying fire of doubt.--Alongside of this
double-edged Dialectic, sometimes in conflict, sometimes in
alliance with it, we meet with the =Mystical Scholasticism=,
which appealed not to the reason but to the heart, and sought
by spiritual contemplation rather than by Dialectic to advance
at once theological science and the Christian life. Its object
is not Dogmatics as such, not the development of _Fides quæ
creditur_, but life in fellowship with God, the development of
_Fides qua creditur_. By contemplative absorption of the soul
into the depth of the Divine life it seeks an immediate vision,
experience and enjoyment of the Divine, and as an indispensable
condition thereto requires purity of heart, the love of God
in the soul and thorough abnegation of self. What is gained
by contemplation is made the subject of scientific statement,
and thus it rises to speculative mysticism. Both contemplation
and speculative mysticism in so far as their scientific
procedure is concerned are embraced under the name of scholastic
mysticism. The practical endeavour, however, after a deepening
and enhancing of the Christian life in the direction of a
real and personal fellowship with God was found more important
and soon out-distanced the scientific attempt at tabulating
and formulating the facts of inner experience. Practical
mysticism thus gained the ascendency during the 12th, 13th
and 14th centuries, and formed the favourite pursuit of the
numerous inmates of the nunneries (§ 107).

§ 99.2. =The Philosophical Basis of Dialectic Scholasticism= was
obtained mainly from the Aristotelian philosophy, which, down to
the end of the 12th century, was known at first only from Latin
renderings of Arabic and even Hebrew translations, and afterwards
from Latin renderings of the Greek originals (§ 103, 1).
Besides Aristotle, however, Plato also had his enthusiastic
admirers during the Middle Ages. The study of the writings of
Augustine and the Areopagite (§ 90, 7) led back again to him,
and the speculative mystics vigorously opposed the supremacy
of Aristotle.--At the outset of the philosophical career of
scholasticism in the 11th century we meet with the controversy
of Anselm and Roscellinus [Roscelin] about the relations of
thinking and being or of the idea and the substance of things
(§ 101, 3). =The Nominalists=, following the principles of the
Stoics, maintained that General Notions, _Universalia_, are mere
abstractions of the understanding, _Nomina_, which as such have
no reality outside the human mind, _Universalia =post= res_.
=The Realists=, on the contrary, affirmed the reality of General
Notions, regarding them as objective existences before and
apart from human thinking. But there were two kinds of realism.
The one, based on the Platonic doctrine of ideas, taught that
General Notions are really existent before the origin of the
several things as archetypes in the Divine reason, and then
also in the human mind before the contemplation of the things
empirically given, _Universalia =ante= res_. The other, resting
on Aristotle’s doctrine, considered them as lying in the things
themselves and as first getting entrance into the human mind
through experience, _Universalia =in= rebus_. The Platonic
Realism thought to reach a knowledge of things by pure thought
from the ideas latent in the human mind; the Aristotelian, on the
other hand, thought to gain a knowledge of things only through
experience and thinking upon the things themselves.--Continuation,
§ 103, 1.

§ 99.3. =The Nurseries of Scholasticism.=--The work previously
done in cathedrals and cloister schools was, from about the
12th century, taken up in a more comprehensive and thorough
way by the =Universities=. They were, as to their origin,
independent of church and state, emperor and pope. Here and
there famous teachers arose in the larger cities or in connection
with some celebrated cloister or cathedral school. Youths from
all countries gathered around them. Around the teacher who first
attracted attention others gradually grouped themselves. Teachers
and scholars organized themselves into a corporation, and thus
arose the University. By this, however, we are to understand
nothing less than a _Universitas litterarum_, where attention
was given to the whole circle of the sciences. For a long time
there was no thought of a distribution into faculties. When the
multitude of teachers and students demanded a distribution into
several corporations, this was done according to nations. The
name signifies the _Universitas magistrorum et scholarium_
rather than an articulated whole. The study here pursued was
called _Studium generale_ or _universale_, because the entrance
thereto stood open to every one. At first each university
pursued exclusively and in later times chiefly some special
department of science. Thus, _e.g._ theology was prosecuted in
Paris and Oxford and subsequently also in Cologne, jurisprudence
in Bologna, Medicine in Salerno. The first university that
expressly made provision for teaching all sciences was founded
at Naples in A.D. 1224 with imperial munificence by Frederick II.
The earliest attempt at a distribution of the sciences among
distinct faculties was occasioned by the struggle between the
university of Paris and the mendicant monks (§ 103, 1), who
separated themselves from the other theological teachers and
as members of a guild formed themselves in A.D. 1259 into a
theological faculty. The number of the students, among whom
were many of ripe years, was immensely great, and in some of
the most celebrated universities reached often to ten or even
twenty thousand. There was a ten years’ course prescribed for
the training of the monks of Clugny: two years’ _Logicalia_,
three years’ _Literæ naturales et philosophicæ_, and five
years’ Theology. The Council at Tours in A.D. 1236 insisted
that every priest should have passed through a five years’
course of study.[291]

§ 99.4. =The Epochs of Scholasticism.=--The intellectual work
of the theologians of the Middle Ages during our period ran its
course in four epochs, the boundaries of which nearly coincide
with the boundaries of the four centuries which make up that
period.

1. From the 10th century, almost completely destitute of any
scientific movement, the so-called _Sæculum obscurum_, there
sprang forth the first buds of scholarship, without, however,
any distinct impress upon them of scholasticism.

2. In the 11th century scholasticism began to show itself, and
that in the form of dialectic, both sceptical and dogmatic.