§ 97.2. =The Political Importance of the Superior Clergy= (§ 84)

reached its highest point during this period. This was carried

furthest in Germany, especially under the Saxon imperial dynasty.

On more than one occasion did the wise and firm policy of the

German clergy, splendidly organized under the leadership of

the primate of Mainz, save the German nation from overthrow

or dismemberment threatened by ambitious princes. This power

consisted not merely in influence over men’s minds, but also

in their position as members of the states of the empire and

territorial lords. Whether or not a warlike expedition was to

be undertaken depended often only on the consent or refusal of

the league of lords spiritual. It was the policy of the clergy to

secure a united, strong, well-organized Germany. The surrounding

countries wished to be included in the German league of churches

and states; not, however, as the emperor wished, as crown lands,

but as portions of the empire. Against expeditions to Rome, which

took the attention of German princes away from German affairs

and ruined Germany, the German clergy protested in the most

decided manner. They wished the chair of St. Peter to be free

and independent as a European, not a German, institution, with

the emperor as its supporter not its oppressor, but they manfully

resisted all the assumptions and encroachments of the popes.

One of the most celebrated of the German dignitaries of any age

was Bruno the Great, brother of the Emperor Otto I., equally

distinguished as a statesman and as a reformer of the church,

and the unwearied promoter of liberal studies. Chancellor under

his imperial brother from A.D. 940, he was his most trusted

counsellor, and was appointed by him in A.D. 953 Archbishop of

Cologne, and was soon after made Duke of Lorraine. He died in

A.D. 965. Another example of a German prelate of the true sort

is seen in Willigis of Mainz, who died in A.D. 1011, under the

two last Ottos and Henry II., whom he raised to the throne. The

good understanding that was brought about between this monarch

and the clergy of Germany was in great measure owing to the

wise policy of this prelate. Under Henry IV. the German clergy

got split up into three parties,--the papal party of Clugny

under Gebhard [Gebhardt] of Salzburg, including almost all

the Saxon bishops; an imperial party under Adalbert of Bremen,

who endeavoured with the emperor’s help to found a northern

patriarchate, which undoubtedly tended to become a northern

papacy; and an independent German party under St. Anno II.

of Cologne (§ 96, 6), in which notwithstanding much violence,

ambition, and self-seeking, there still survived much of the

spirit that had characterized the policy of the old German

bishops. Henry V., too, as well as the first Hohenstaufens,

had sturdy supporters in the German clergy; but Frederick II.

by his ill treatment of the bishops alienated their clergy from

the interest of the crown. The rise of the imperial dignitaries

after the time of Otto I., and the transference to them under

Otto IV. of the election of emperor raised the archbishops of

Mainz, Treves, and Cologne to the rank of spiritual electoral

princes as arch-chaplains or archchancellors. The Golden Bull

of Charles IV., in A.D. 1356 (§ 110, 4), confirmed and tabulated

their rights and duties.

§ 97.3. =The Bishops and the Cathedral Chapter.=--The

bishops exercised jurisdiction over all the clergy of their

diocese, and punished by deprivation of office and imprisonment

in monasteries. Especially questions of marriage, wills,

oaths, were brought before their tribunal. The German synodal

judicatures soon gave way before the Roman judiciary system. The

archdeacons emancipated themselves more and more from episcopal

authority and abused their power in so arbitrary a way that

in the 12th century the entire institution was set aside. For

the discharge of business episcopal officials and vicars were

then introduced. The _Chorepiscopi_ (§ 84) had passed out of

view in the 10th century. But during the crusades many Catholic

bishoprics had been founded in the East. The occupants of these

when driven away clung to their titles in hopes of better times,

and found employment as assistants or suffragans of Western

bishops. Thus arose the order of _Episcopi in partibus (sc.

infidelium)_ which has continued to this day, as a witness of

inalienable rights, and as affording a constant opportunity to

the popes of showing favour and giving rewards. For the exercise

of the archiepiscopal office, the Fourth Lateran Council of

A.D. 1215 made the receiving from the pope the pallium (§ 59, 7)

an absolutely essential condition, and those elected were obliged

to pay to the curia an arbitrary tax of a large amount called the

pallium fee. The canonical life (§ 84, 4) from the 10th century

began more and more to lose its moral weight and importance. Out

of attempts at reform in the 11th century arose the distinction

of _Canonici seculares_ and _regulares_. The latter lived in

cloisters according to monkish rules, and were zealous for the

good old discipline and order, but sooner or later gave way to

worldliness. The rich revenues of cathedral chapters made the

reversion of prebendal stalls the almost exclusive privilege of

the higher nobility, notwithstanding the earnest opposition of

the popes. In the course of the 13th century the cathedral clergy,

with the help of the popes, arrogated to themselves the sole

right of episcopal elections, ignoring altogether the claims

of the diocesan clergy and the people or nobles. The cathedral

clergy also made themselves independent of episcopal control.

They lived mostly outside of the cathedral diocese, and had

their canonical duties performed by vicars. The chapter filled

up vacancies by co-optation.

§ 97.4. =Endeavours to Reform the Clergy.=--As a reformer of the

English clergy, who had sunk very low in ignorance, rudeness and

immorality, the most conspicuous figure during the 10th century

was =St. Dunstan=. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in A.D. 959

and died in A.D. 988. He sought at once to advance the standard

of education among the clergy and to inspire the Church with a

higher moral and religious spirit. For these ends he laboured on

with an energy and force of will and an inflexible consistency

and strictness in the pursuit of his hierarchical ideals, which

mark him out as a Hildebrand before Hildebrand. Even as abbot

of the monastery of Glastonbury he had given a forecast of

his life work by restoring and making more severe the rule of

St. Benedict, and forming a brotherhood thoroughly disciplined

in science and in ascetical exercises, from the membership

of which, after he had become bishop of Worcester, then of

London, and finally primate of England and the most influential

councillor of four successive kings, he could fill the places of

the secular priests and canons whom he expelled from their cures.

As the primary condition of all clerical reformation he insisted

upon the unrelentingly consistent putting down of marriage

and concubinage among the priests.[281]--In the 11th century

=St. Peter Damiani= distinguished himself as a zealous supporter

of the reform party of Clugny in the struggle against simony,

clerical immorality, and the marriage of priests. This obtained

for him not only his position as cardinal-bishop of Ostia,

but also his frequent employment, as papal legate in serious

negotiations. In A.D. 1061 he resigned his bishopric and

retired into a monastery, where he died in A.D. 1072. His

friend Hildebrand, who repeatedly called him forth from his

retreat to occupy a conspicuous place among the contenders for

his hierarchical ideal, was therefore called by him his “holy

Satan.” He had indeed little interest in pressing hierarchical

and political claims, and was inclined rather to urge moral

reforms within the church itself. In his _Liber Gomorrhianus_

he drew a fearful picture of the clerical depravity of his

times, and that with a nakedness of detail which gave to

Pope Alexander II. a colourable excuse for the suppression

of the book. For himself, however, Damiani sought no other

pleasure than that of scourging himself till the blood flowed

in his lonely cell (§ 106, 4). His collected works, consisting

of epistles, addresses, tracts and monkish biographies,

were published at Rome in A.D. 1602 in 4 vols. by Cardinal

Cajetan.--In the 12th century St. Hildegard (§ 107, 1) and

the abbot Joachim of Floris, (§ 108, 5) raised their voices

against the moral degradation of the clergy, and among the men

who contributed largely to the restoring of clerical discipline,

the noble provost Geroch of Reichersberg in Bavaria, who died

in A.D. 1169 (§ 102, 5) and the canon Norbert, subsequently

archbishop of Magdeburg (§ 98, 2), are deserving of special

mention.--In the 13th century in England =Robert Grosseteste=

distinguished himself as a prelate of great nobility and

force of character. After being chancellor of Oxford he became

bishop of Lincoln, energetically reforming many abuses in his

diocese, and persistently contending against any form of papal

encroachment. He died in A.D. 1253.[282]

§ 97.5. =The Pataria of Milan.=--Nowhere during the 11th century

were simony, concubinage and priests’ marriages more general

than among the Lombard clergy, and in no other place was such

determined opposition offered to Hildebrand’s reforms. At the

head of this opposition stood Guido, archbishop of Milan, whom

Henry III. deposed in A.D. 1046. Against the papal demands,

he pressed the old claims of his chair to autonomy (§ 46, 1)

and renounced allegiance to Rome. The nobles and the clergy

supported Guido. But two deacons, Ariald and Landulf, about

A.D. 1057 formed a conspiracy among the common people, against

“the Nicolaitan sect” (§ 27, 8). To this party its opponents

gave the opprobrious name of Pataria, Paterini, from patalia,

meaning rabble, riffraff, or from Pattarea, a back street

of ill fame in Milan, the quarter of the rabble, where the

Arialdists held their secret meetings. They took the name

given in reproach as a title of honour, and after receiving

military organization from Erlembald, Landulf’s brother, they

opened a campaign against the married priests. For thirty years

this struggle continued to deluge city and country with blood.

§ 98. MONASTIC ORDERS AND INSTITUTIONS.

In spite of the great and constantly increasing corruption the

monastic idea during this period had a wonderfully rapid development,

and more persistently and successfully than ever before or since

the monks urged their claims to be regarded as “the knighthood of

asceticism.” A vast number of monkish orders arose, taking the place

for the most part of existing orders which had relaxed their rules.

These were partly reformed off-shoots of the Benedictine order, partly

new organizations reared on an independent basis. New monasteries

were being built almost every day, often even within the cities.

The reformed Benedictine monasteries clustered in a group around the

parent monastery whose reformed rule they adopted, forming an organized

society with a common centre. These groups were therefore called

Congregations. The oldest and, for two centuries, the most important,

of these congregations was that of the Brethren of Clugny, whose

ardent zeal for reform in the hierarchical direction was mainly

instrumental in raising again the church and the papacy out of that

degradation and corruption into which they had fallen during the

10th and 11th centuries. The otherwise less important order of the

Camaldolites was also a vigorous promoter of these movements. But

Clugny had in Clairvaux a rival which shared with it on almost equal

terms the respect and reverence of that age. The unreformed monasteries

of the Benedictines, on the other hand, still continued their easy,

luxurious style of living. They were commonly called the Black Monks

to distinguish them from the Cistercians who were known as the White

Monks. In order to prevent a constant splitting up of the monkish

fraternities, Innocent III. at the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215 forbade

the founding of new orders. Yet he himself took part in the formation

of the two great mendicant orders, and also the following popes issued

no prohibition.--The papacy had in the monkish orders its standing army.

It was to them, in a special manner, that Gregory’s system owed its

success. But they were also by far the most important promoters and

fosterers of learning, science, and art. The pope in various ways

favoured the emancipation of the monasteries from episcopal control,

their so-called _Exemption_; and conferred upon the abbots of famous

monasteries what was practically episcopal rank, with liberty to wear

the bishop’s mitre, so that they were called _Mitred Abbots_ (§ 84, 1).

The princes too classed the abbots in respect of dignity and order

next to the bishops; and the people, who saw the popular idea of the

church more and more represented in the monasteries, honoured them

with unmeasured reverence. From the 10th century the monks came to

be considered a distinct religious order (_Ordo religiosorum_). Lay

brethren, _Fratres conversi_, were now taken in to discharge the

worldly business of the monastery. They were designated _Fratres_,

while the others who received clerical ordination were addressed

as _Patres_. The monks rarely lived on good terms with the secular

clergy; for the former as confessors and mass priests often seriously

interfered with the rights and revenues of the latter.--Besides the

many monkish orders, with their strict seclusion, perpetual vows and

ecclesiastically sanctioned rule, we meet with organizations of a freer

type such as the Humiliati of Milan, consisting of whole families.

Of a similar type were the Beguines and Beghards of the Netherlands,

the former composed of women, the latter of men. These people abandoned

their handicraft and their domestic and civic duties for a monastic-like

mode of life retired from the world. The crusading enthusiasm also

occasioned a combination of the monastic idea with that of knighthood,

and led to the formation of the so-called Orders of Knights, which

with a Grandmaster and several Commanders, were divided into Knights,

Priests, and Serving Brethren.--Continuation, § 112.

§ 98.1. =Offshoots of the Benedictines.=

1. =The Brethren of Clugny.= Among the Benedictines, since

their reformation by the second Benedict (§ 85, 2) many

serious abuses had crept in. After the Burgundian Count

Berno, who died in A.D. 927, had done useful service by

restoring discipline and order in two monasteries of which

he was abbot, the Duke William of Aquitaine founded for him

a new institution. Thus arose in A.D. 910 the celebrated

monastery of Clugny, _Cluniacum_, in Burgundy, which the

founder placed under immediate papal control. Berno’s

successor Odo, who died in A.D. 942, abandoning the life

of a courtier on his recovery from a severe illness, made

it the head and heart of a separate Clugny-Congregation

as a branch of the Benedictine order. Strict asceticism,

a beautiful and artistic service, zealous prosecution of

science and the education of the young, with yet greater

energy in the promotion of a hierarchical reform of the

church as a whole, as well as an entire series of able

abbots, among whom Odilo († A.D. 1048), the friend of

Hildebrand, and Peter the Venerable († A.D. 1156) are

specially prominent, gave to this congregation, which

in the 12th century had 2,000 monasteries in France, an

influence quite unparalleled in this whole period. The

abbot of Clugny stood at the head, and appointed the priors

for all the other monasteries. Under the licentious Abbot

Pontius, who on account of his base conduct was deposed in

A.D. 1122, the order fell into decay, but rose again under

Peter the Venerable. Continuation, § 164, 2.

2. =The Congregation of the Camaldolites= was founded in

A.D. 1018 by the Benedictine Romuald, descended from the

Duke of Ravenna, at Camaldoli (_Campus Maldoli_), a wild

district in the Apennines. In A.D. 1086 a nunnery was placed

alongside of the monastery. The president of the parent

monastery at Camaldoli stood at the head of the whole order

as Major. The order carried out enthusiastically the high

church ideal of Clugny, and won great influence in its

time, although it by no means attained the importance of

the French order.

3. Twenty years later, in A.D. 1038, the Florentine Gualbertus

founded the =Order of Vallombrosa=, in a romantically

situated shady valley of the Apennines (_Vallis umbrosa_),

according to the rule of Benedict. This was the first of

all the orders to appoint lay brethren for the management

of worldly business, in order that the monks might observe

their vow of silence and strict seclusion. The parent

monastery attained to great wealth and reputation, but it

never had a great number of affiliated institutions.

4. =The Cistercians.= In A.D. 1098 the Benedictine abbot Robert

founded the monastery of Citeaux (_Cistercium_) near Dijon,

which as the parent monastery of the Congregation of the

Cistercians became the most formidable rival of Clugny. The

Cistercians were distinguished from the Brethren of Clugny

by voluntary submission to the jurisdiction of the bishops,

avoidance of all interference with the pastorates of others,

and the banishing of all ornaments from their churches

and monasteries. The order continued obscure for a while,

till St. Bernard (§ 102, 3), from A.D. 1115 abbot of the

monastery of Clairvaux (Claravallis), an offshoot of Citeaux,

by his ability and spirituality raised it far above all

other orders in the esteem of the age. In honour of him

the French Cistercians took the name of =Bernardines=.

The hostility between them and the Brethren of Clugny

was overcome by the personal friendship of Bernard and

Peter the Venerable. By the statutory constitution, the

so-called _Charta charitatis_, drawn up in A.D. 1119,

the administration of all the affairs of the order

was assigned to a general of the order, appointed by

the abbot of Citeaux, the abbots of the four chief

affiliated monasteries, and twenty other elected

representatives forming a high council. This council,

however, was answerable to the general assembly of all the

abbots and priors, which met at first yearly, but afterwards

every third year. The affiliated monasteries had a yearly

visitation of the abbot of Citeaux, but Citeaux itself was

to be visited by the four abbots just referred to. In the

13th century this order had 2,000 monasteries and 6,000

nunneries.

5. =The Congregation of Scottish Monasteries= in Germany

owed its origin to the persistent love of travel on the part

of Irish and Scottish monks, which during the 10th century

received a new impulse from the Danish invasions (§ 93, 1).

The first monastery erected in Germany for the reception

exclusively of Irish monks was that of St. Martin at Cologne,

built in the 10th century. Much more important, however, was

the Scottish monastery of St. James at Regensburg, founded

in A.D. 1067 by Marianus Scotus and two companions. It was

the parent monastery of eleven other Scottish cloisters in

South Germany. Old Celtic sympathies (§ 77, 8), which may have

originally bound them together, could not assert themselves

in the new home during this period as they did in earlier days;

and when Innocent III., at the Lateran Council of A.D. 1215,

sanctioned them as a separate congregation bound by the

Benedictine rule, there certainly remained no longer any

trace of Celtic peculiarities. They were distinguished at

first for strict asceticism, severe discipline and scientific

activity, but subsequently they fell lower than all the rest

in immorality and self-indulgence (§ 112).

§ 98.2. =New Monkish Orders.=--Reserving the great mendicant

orders, the following are the most celebrated among the vast

array of new orders, not bound by the Benedictine rule:

1. =The Order of Grammont= in France, founded by Stephen of

Ligerno in A.D. 1070. It took simply the gospel as its rule,

cultivated a quiet, humble and peaceable temper, and so by

the 12th century it had its very life crushed out of it by

the bold assumptions of its lay brethren.

2. =The Order of St. Anthony=, founded in A.D. 1095 by a

French nobleman of Dauphiny [Dauphiné], called Guaston,

in gratitude for the recovery of his son Guérin from the

so-called St. Anthony’s fire on his invoking St. Anthony.

He expended his whole property upon the restoring of a

hospital beside the church of St. Didier la Mothe, in a

chapel of which it was supposed the bones of Anthony lay,

and devoted himself, together with his son and some other

companions, to the nursing of the sick. At first merely a

lay fraternity, the members took in A.D. 1218 the monk’s

vow. Boniface VIII. made them canons under the rule of

St. Augustine (§ 45, 1). They were now called Antonians,

and devoted themselves to contemplation. The order spread

greatly, especially in France. They wore a black cloak with

a T-formed cross of blue upon the breast (Ezek. ix. 9) and a

little bell round the neck while engaged in collecting alms.

3. =The Order of Fontevraux= was founded in A.D. 1094 by

Robert of Arbrissel in Fontevraux (_Fons Ebraldi_) in

Poitou. Preaching repentance, he went through the country,

and founded convents for virgins, widows and fallen women.

Their abbesses, as representatives of the Mother of God, to

whom the order was dedicated, were set over the priests who

did their bidding.

4. =The Order of the Gilbertines= had its name from its

founder Gilbert, an English priest of noble birth. Here

too the women formed the main stem of the order. They were

the owners of the cloister property, and the men were only

its administrators. The monasteries of this order were

mostly both for men and women. It did not spread much

beyond England, and had at the time of the suppression

of the monasteries twenty-one well endowed convents, with

orphanages and houses for the poor and sick.

5. =The Carthusian Order= was founded in A.D. 1086 by Bruno

of Cologne, rector of the High School at Rheims. Disgusted

with the immoral conduct of Archbishop Manasseh, he retired

with several companions into a wild mountain gorge near

Grenoble, called Chartreuse. He enjoined upon his monks

strict asceticism, rigid silence, earnest study, prayer, and

a contemplative life, clothed them in a great coarse cowl,

and allowed them for their support only vegetables and bran

bread. Written statutes, _Consuetudines Cartusiæ_, which

soon spread over several houses of the Carthusians, were

first given them in A.D. 1134 by Guido, the fifth prior

of the parent monastery. A steward had management of the

affairs of the convent. Each ate in his own cell; only on

feast days had they a common meal. At least once a week they

fasted on salt, water and bread. Breaking silence, permitted

only on high festivals, and for two hours on Thursdays, was

punished with severe flagellation. Even the lay brethren

were treated with great severity, and were not allowed

either to sit or to cover their heads in the presence of

the brothers of the order. Carthusian nuns were added to

the order in the 13th century with a modified rule.

6. =The Premonstratensian Order= was founded in A.D. 1121

by Norbert, the only German founder of orders besides and

after Bruno. A rich, worldly-minded canon of Xanthen in

the diocese of Cologne, he was brought to another mind by

the fall of a thunderbolt beside him. He retired along with

several other like-minded companions into the rough valley

of Prémontré in the bishopric of Laon (_Præmonstratum_,

because pointed out to him in a vision). In his rule he

joined together the canonical duties with an extremely

strict monastic life. He appeared in A.D. 1126 as a preacher

of repentance at the Diet of Spires, was there elected

archbishop of Magdeburg, and made a most impressive entrance

into his metropolis dressed in his mendicant garb. His order

spread and established many convents both for monks and for

nuns.

7. =The Trinitarian Order=, _ordo s. Trinitatis de redemptione

captivorum_, was called into existence by Innocent III., and

had for its work the redemption of Christian captives.

8. =The Cœlestine Order= was founded by Peter of Murrone,

afterwards Pope Cœlestine V. (§ 96, 22). Living in a

cave of Mount Murrone in Apulia, under strict penitential

discipline and engaged in mystic contemplation, the fame

of his sanctity attracted to him many companions, with

whom in A.D. 1254 he established a monastery on Mount

Majella. Gregory X., in whose presence Peter, according

to his biographer, hung up his monkish cowl in empty space,

upon a sunbeam which he took for a cord stretching across,

instituted the order as Brethren of the Holy Spirit. But

when in A.D. 1294 their founder ascended the papal throne,

they took his papal name. This order, which gave itself up

entirely to extravagant mystic contemplation, spread over

Italy, France and the Netherlands.

§ 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.

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.