Chapter IV: Theology and Its Battles (6)

§ 98.3. =The Beginnings of the Franciscan Order down to
A.D. 1219.=--The founder of this order was =St. Francis=, born
in A.D. 1182, son of a rich merchant of Assisi in Umbria. His
proper name was Giovanni Bernardone. The name of Francis is said
to have been given him on account of his early proficiency in the
French language; “Francesco”--the little Frenchman. As a wealthy
merchant’s son, he gave himself to worldly pleasures, but was
withdrawn from these, in A.D. 1207, by means of a severe illness.
A dream, in which he saw a multitude with the sign of the cross,
bearing weapons designed for him and his companions, led him to
resolve upon a military career. But a new vision taught him that
he was called to build up the fallen house of God. He understood
this of a ruined chapel of St. Damiani at Assisi, and began to
apply the proceeds of valuable cloth fabrics from his father’s
factory to its restoration. Banished for such conduct from his
father’s house, he lived for a time as a hermit, until the gospel
passage read in church of the sending forth of the disciples
without gold or silver, without staff or scrip (Matt. x.), fell
upon his soul like a thunderbolt. Divesting himself of all his
property, supplying the necessaries of life by the meanest forms
of labour, even begging when need be, he went about the country
from A.D. 1209, sneered at by some as an imbecile, revered
by others as a saint, preaching repentance and peace. In the
unexampled power of his self-denial and renunciation of the world,
in the pure simplicity of his heart, in the warmth of his love
to God and man, in the blessed riches of his poverty, St. Francis
was like a heavenly stranger in a selfish world. Wonderful,
too, and powerful in its influence was the depth of his natural
feeling. With the birds of the forest, with the beasts of the
field, he held intercourse in childlike simplicity as with
brothers and sisters, exhorting them to praise their Creator.
The paradisiacal relation of man to the animal world seemed to
be restored in the presence of this saint.--Very soon he gathered
around him a number of like-minded men, who under his direction
had decided to devote themselves to a similar vocation. For the
society of “_Viri pœnitentiales de civitate Assisii oriundi_”
thus formed Francis issued, in A.D. 1209, a rule, at the basis
of which lay a literal acceptance of the precepts of Christ to
His disciples, sent forth to preach the kingdom of God (Matt. x.;
Luke x.), along with similar gospel injunctions (Matt. xix. 21,
29; Luke vi. 29; ix. 23; xiv. 26), and then he went to Rome
to get for it the papal confirmation. The pope was, indeed,
unwilling; but through the pious man’s simplicity and humility
he was prevailed upon to grant his request. In later times this
incident was in popular tradition transformed into a legend,
representing the pope as at first bidding him go to attend the
swine, which the holy man literally obeyed. =Innocent III.= was
the more inclined to yield, owing to the painful experiences
through which the church had passed in consequence of its unwise
treatment of similar proposals made by the Waldensians thirty
years before. He therefore gave at least verbal permission to
Francis and his companions to live and teach according to this
rule. At the same time also Francis heartily responded to the
demand to place at the head of his rule the obligation to obey
and reverence the pope, and to conclude with a vow of the most
rigid avoidance of every kind of addition, abatement, or change.
There was no thought of founding a new monkish order, but only
of a free union and a wandering life, amid apostolic poverty,
for preaching repentance and salvation by word and example. On
entering the society the brothers were required to distribute all
their possessions among the poor, and dress in the poor clothing
of the order, consisting of a coarse cloak bound with a cord and
a capouch, to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God wherever
their master sent them, and to earn their livelihood by their
usual occupation, or any other servile work. In case of need they
were even to beg the necessaries of life. Thus mendicancy, though
only allowed in case of necessity, soon came to be transformed
by the lustre of the example of the poverty of Jesus and His
disciples and mother, who all had lived upon alms, and by the
idea of a twofold merit attaching to self-abnegation, inasmuch
as not only the receiver, by voluntarily submitting to the
disgrace which it involved in the eyes of the world, but also
the giver of alms, obtained before the judgment seat of God a
great reward. But neither as wages for work nor as alms were the
brothers permitted to accept money, but only the indispensable
means of life, while that which remained after their own wants
had been supplied was divided among the poor. From time to time
they withdrew, either singly or in little groups, for prayer,
contemplation, and spiritual exercises into deserts, caves,
or deserted huts; and annually at Pentecost they assembled for
mutual edification and counsel in the small chapel at Assisi,
dedicated to “Mary of the Angel,” given to St. Francis by the
Benedictines. This church, under the name of the _Portiuncula_,
became the main centre of the order, and all who visited it on
the day of its consecration received from the pope a plenary
indulgence. The number of the brothers meanwhile increased from
day to day. When representatives of all ranks in society and
of all the various degrees of culture sought admission, it soon
became evident that the obligation to preach, hitherto enjoined
upon all the members of the order, should be restricted to
those who were specially qualified for the work, and that the
rest should take care to carry out in their personal lives the
ideal of poverty, joined with loving service in institutions
for the poor, the sick, and the lepers. A further move in the
development of the order, tending to secure for it an independent
ecclesiastical position, was the admission into it of ordained
priests. Their missionary activity among Christian people was
restricted at first to Umbria and the neighbouring districts
of central Italy. But soon the thought of a missionary vocation
among the unbelievers got possession of the mind of the founder.
Even in A.D. 1212 he himself undertook for this purpose a journey
to the East, to Syria, and afterwards to Morocco; in neither case,
however, were his efforts attended with any very signal success.
In A.D. 1218, Elias of Cortona, with some companions, again took
up the mission to Syria, with equally little success; and in
A.D. 1219 five brethren were again sent to Morocco, and there
won the crown of martyrdom. In that same year, A.D. 1219, the
Pentecost assembly at Assisi passed the resolution to include
within the range of their call as itinerants the sending of
missions, with a “_minister_” at the head of each, into all
the Christian countries of Europe. They began immediately,
privileged with a papal letter of recommendation to the higher
secular clergy and heads of orders in France, to carry out the
resolution in France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany; while at the
same time Francis himself, accompanied by twelve brethren, again
turned his steps toward the East.

§ 98.4. =The Franciscans from A.D. 1219 to A.D. 1223.=--Soon
after the departure of St. Francis the report of his death
spread through Italy, and loosened the bonds which, by reason
of the obligation to render him obedience hitherto operative,
had secured harmony among the brethren. Francis had, on the
basis of Luke x. 7, 8, laid upon his companions only the commonly
accepted rules of fasting, but the observance of a more rigorous
fast required his own special permission. Now, however, some
rigorists, at a convention of the elders, gave expression to
the opinion, that the brethren should be enjoined to fast not
as hitherto, like all the rest of Christendom, only on two, but
on four, days of the week, a resolution which not only removed
the rule altogether from its basis in Luke x. 7, 8, but also
broke the solemn promise to observe the wish of Innocent III.,
incorporated in it, that in no particular should it be altered.
And while the rule forbade any intercourse with women, brother
Philip obtained a papal bull which appointed him representative
of the order of “poor women,” afterwards the Nuns of St. Clara,
founded in A.D. 1212 on the model of the Franciscan ideal
of poverty. Another brother, John of Capella, sought to put
himself at the head of an independent order of poor men and women.
Many such projects were being planned. So soon as news reached
Francis of these vagaries, he returned to Italy, accompanied
by his favourite pupil, the energetic, wise, and politic Elias
of Cortona, whose organizing and governing talent was kept
within bounds down to the founder’s death. Perceiving that all
these confusions had arisen from the want of a strictly defined
organization, legitimized by the pope and under papal protection,
Francis now endeavoured to secure such privileges for his order.
He therefore entreated Honorius III. to appoint Cardinal Ugolino
of Ostia, afterwards Pope Gregory IX., previously a zealous
promoter of his endeavours, as protector and governor of his
brotherhood; and he soon with a strong hand put a stop to all
secessionist movements in the community. A vigorous effort was
now made by the brotherhood, suggested and encouraged by the
papal chair, to carry out a scheme of transformation, by means
of which the order, which had hitherto confined itself to simple
religious and ascetic duties, should become an independent and
powerful monkish order, to place it “with the whole force of its
religious enthusiasm, with its extraordinary flexibility and its
mighty influences over the masses, at the service of the papacy,
and to turn it into a standing army of the pope, ever ready
to obey his will in the great movements convulsing the church
and the world of that time.” Honorius III. took the first step
in this direction by a bull addressed, in Sept., A.D. 1220, to
Francis himself and the superiors of his order, there styled
“_Ordo fratrum minorum_,” by which a novitiate of one year and
an irrevocable vow of admission were prescribed, the wearing of
the official dress made its exclusive privilege, and jurisdiction
given to its own tribunal to deal with all its members. Francis
was now also obliged, willing or unwilling, to agree to a revision
of his rule. This new rule was probably confirmed or at least
approved at the famous Pentecost chapter held at the Portiuncula
chapel in A.D. 1221, called the “_Mat Chapter_” (_C. storearum_),
because the brethren assembled there lived in tents made of
rush-mats.[283] It is, as Carl Müller has incontestably proved,
this same rule which was formerly regarded by all as the first
rule composed in A.D. 1209. The older rule, however, formed in
every particular its basis, and the enlargements and modifications
rendered necessary by the adoption of the new ideas appear so
evidently as additions, that the two different constituents
can even yet with tolerable certainty be distinguished from one
another, and so the older rule can be reconstructed. But the
development and modification of the order necessarily proceeding
in the direction indicated soon led to a gradual reformation
of the rule, which in this new form was solemnly and formally
ratified by Honorius III. in November, A.D. 1223, as possessing
henceforth definite validity. In it the requirement of the literal
acceptance of the commands of Jesus on sending out His disciples
in Matthew x. and Luke x. is no longer made the basis and pattern,
as in the two earlier rules, but all the stress is laid rather
upon the imitation of the lives of poverty led by Jesus and His
apostles; as an offset to the renunciation of all property, the
obligation to earn their own support by work was now set aside,
and the practice of mendicancy was made their proper object in
life, came indeed to be regarded as constituting the special
ideal and sanctity of the order, which in consequence was
now for the first time entitled to be called a =mendicant or
begging order=. At its head stood a _general-minister_, and all
communications between the order and the holy see were conducted
through a _cardinal-protector_. The mission field of the order,
comprising the whole world, was divided into _provinces_ with
a _provincial-minister_, and the provinces into _custodies_
with a _custos_ at its head.--Every third year at Pentecost
the general called together the provincials and custodes to
a general chapter, and the custodes assembled the brethren of
their dioceses as required in provincial and custodial chapters.
The dress of the order remained the same. The usual requirement
to go barefoot, however, was modified by the permission in cases
of necessity, on journeys and in cold climates, to wear shoes or
sandals.

§ 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.