Sources

FOOTNOTES:

[476:1] Gilman, The Saracens; Ameer Ali, Life and Teachings of Mohammed and A Short History of the Saracens; Muir, Life of Mohammed and Annals of the Early Caliphate; Lane-Poole, Speeches and Table Talk of the Prophet Mohammed; Gibbon, v., ch. 50, 51; various eds. of the Koran.

[477:1] Among these sects were Arians, Sabellians, Ebionites, Nestorians, Eutychians, Monophysites, Marianites, and Collyridians.

[477:2] The Bible had probably been translated into Arabic before the Koran appeared. Gibbon, ch. 50.

[478:1] Muir, ii., 18, 35; Burckhardt, Travels, 136.

[480:1] Koran, Sura ii., 189, 214; xvii., 4-7.

[481:1] Ockley, Hist. of the Saracens; Bahador, Essays on the Life of Mohammed; Prideaux, Life of Mahomet; Bush, Life of Mohammed; Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism; Bate, Studies in Islam; Stobart, Islam and its Founder; Rodwell, The Koran; Palmer, The Koran; Sale, The Koran; etc.

[481:2] Quarterly Review, Oct., 1869.

[483:1] Gibbon, ch. 50.

[485:1] Robinson, Readings, i., 336.

[486:1] Robinson, Readings, i., 337-340.

[486:2] Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages; Milman, bk. vii., 224.

[486:3] Indulgences for fighting heathen had been offered long before this time. See Thatcher and McNeal, No. 276, 277.

[487:1] Cunningham, Western Civilisation, ii., 108.

[487:2] See Thatcher and McNeal, No. 274, 275.

[487:3] Lecky, Hist. of European Morals, ii., 248; Oman, The Art of War in the Middle Ages.

[488:1] Revue de l'orient Latin, 1897, 6-21.

[488:2] Burr, The Year One Thousand and the Antecedents of the Crusades, Am. Hist. Rev., vol. vi.

[488:3] Duchesne, iii., 28th letter; Bouquet, ex 426; Muratori, iii., 400.

[488:4] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 278.

[488:5] Lib., i., 49; ii., 31-37; Jaffé, Man. Greg., i., 18, 46, 49; ii., 3, 31, 37.

[489:1] Mansi, 801-815; Muratori, iii., 353; Mon. Ger., v., 161; xii., 394; Jaffé, Reg., i., 677.

[489:2] Mansi, xx., 815-919; Jaffé, Reg., i., 681. Three versions of the speech may be found in U. of P. Transl. and Reprints, ii., No. 2, 4-5; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 279, 280; Robinson, Readings, vol. i., 312.

[490:1] Hist. Occid., iv., 16; Sybel, 228.

[490:2] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 281.

[491:1] Potthast, Bib. Hist., ii., 550.

[491:2] Hist. Occid., iv., 12, 13, 135; Mon. Ger., v., 161; xx., 248; xxi., 56.

[492:1] Major Crusades:

(1) 1096-1099—led by knights of France and the Normans.

(2) 1147-1149—led by kings of France and Germany.

(3) 1189-1192—led by kings of France, England, and Germany.

(4) 1202-1204—led by French nobles and the Doge of Venice.

[492:2] Minor Crusades:

(1) 1216-1220.

(2) 1228-1229.

(3) 1248-1254.

(4) 1270-1272.

[492:3] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 282, 283; Robinson, Readings, i., 316; Ogg, § 52.

[493:1] Ogg, § 52.

[493:2] Giesebrecht, iii., 656.

[494:1] Gibbon, ch. 58.

[496:1] Ders, Med. Topog. of Palestine; Condor, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. See letters of Crusaders in Robinson, Readings, i., 321; Transl. and Reprints, i., No. iv.; Ogg, § 53.

[496:2] Robinson, Readings, i., 330; Mabillon, Life and Letters of St. Bernard.

[496:3] Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux; Morison, The Life and Times of St. Bernard; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 284; Robinson, Readings, i., 337.

[497:1] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 285.

[497:2] Henderson, Hist. Docs. of the Mid. Ages, 135.

[497:3] Richard had a very romantic adventure in returning to England. For his prowess see Colby, Source Book, 68-70.

[498:1] Henderson, Hist. Docs. of the Mid. Ages, 337; Transl. and Rep., iii., No. 1.

[498:2] Transl. and Rep., iii., No. 1, pp. 6-17.

[498:3] Pears, The Fall of Constantinople; Oman, Byzantine Empire; Finlay, Hist. of Greece; Gibbon, ch. 60; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 286, 287, 288; Robinson, Readings, i., 338.

[498:4] Perry, St. Louis; Davis, The Invasion of Egypt in A. D. 1241 by Louis IX.

[500:1] Guizot, Hist. of Civ. in Europe, Lect. 8; Kitchin, Hist. of France.

[501:1] Neubauer and Stern, Hebraische Berichts über die Judenverfolgungen während des Kreuzzüge.

[502:1] The results of the Crusades ought to be viewed also from the Mohammedan side.

[503:1] Oman, Art of War in the Middle Ages.

[504:1] Stubbs, ii., 128.

[504:2] Prutz, Kulturgesch. der Kreuzzüge; Draper, Intel. Develop. of Europe, ch. 11, 13, 16.

[506:1] Lea, Hist. of the Inq., i., 269, 272.

[507:1] The results of the Crusades may with profit be classified as (1) positive and negative, (2) direct and indirect, (3) immediate and remote, and (4) permanent and transitory.

CHAPTER XXI
RISE OF THE MENDICANT ORDERS IN THE CHURCH

Outline: I.—Monasticism before the Crusades. II.—Effect of the Crusades on monasticism. III.—Origin of the begging orders. IV.—Rise and influence of the Dominicans. V.—Origin and power of the Franciscans. VI.—Wide-spread results of mediæval monasticism. VII.—Sources.

The rise of monasticism[510:1] and the monastic reformation[510:2] have already been considered. The spirit of the Clugniac and Hildebrandine reformation was projected into the twelfth and thirteenth centuries through new monastic orders.

1. The order of Grammont, founded by Stephen of Tigerno in 1073 with the sanction of Gregory VII., spread rapidly over France as a reform society. The order lived under an oral rule until 1143, when it was written out by Stephen of Lisiac. Revised under Innocent III., the rule lasted until the seventeenth century. The order included more lay than spiritual brethren, also had three women's cloisters, and was generally recognised as a reform organisation.[510:3]

2. The Carthusians, founded at Chartreuse near Grenoble in 1084 by Bruno of Cologne, were peculiarly ascetic. They still boast that their order is the only one never reformed.

3. The order of Fontevraud, founded for both monks and nuns in 1093 by Robert of Arbrissel in Poitou, sent its members through the country preaching penance and practising rigidly ascetic lives.

4. The Cistercians, founded at Citeaux near Dijon in Burgundy in 1098 by Robert of Molesme, a Benedictine abbot, who, despairing of reforming the loose and frivolous life of the old order, resolved to found a new one for the purpose of leading a life of austere asceticism. The order spread rapidly and reached its culmination in the thirteenth century, when its cloisters numbered eight hundred.[511:1] In opposition to the wealthy monasteries about them, the Cistercians had unpretentious buildings, simple furniture, plain clothing, no pictures, images, or decorations, and a brief, unpretentious ritual. The greatest man in the order was St. Bernard[511:2] and under his leadership heretics like Abélard, Arnold of Brescia, and the Cathari were crushed, and the Second Crusade was preached.[511:3]

5. The order of Prémontré founded by St. Norbert in 1121—the only German originator of a monastic order after Bruno and who was converted from a rich worldly canon to a pious monk,—combined the life of monk and canon, soon spread through all countries, and had at one time a thousand abbeys for males and five hundred for females. The rules were those of Augustine, the religious practices were as severe, flesh was altogether forbidden as food, and fasts and scourgings were frequent. Norbert dressed himself in plain sheep skins and walked about barefooted

among the poor people preaching and teaching. In 1126 he was appointed Archbishop of Magdeburg, where he carried on the reforms so dear to his heart.

6. The Gilbertines, an order originated in 1148 by Gilbert, an English ecclesiastic of noble origin, and intended at first for women only but later opened to men, planted many cloisters throughout England with poorhouses, hospitals, and orphanages attached.[512:1]

7. The Celestines, founded by Pope Celestine V. in 1294, spread over Italy, France, and the Netherlands.

8. The Humiliati, founded by John Oldratus, a nobleman of Milan (died 1159), included men and women in the same house. This order was the outgrowth of the pietistic-socialistic movement in northern Italy and was a pronounced forerunner of the begging orders.

9. The Serviten, founded in 1233 at Florence by seven devotees who consecrated themselves to the Virgin Mary, spread to France, the Netherlands, and Germany and in 1424 was given the privileges of a begging order.

The Crusades produced two new forms of monasticism—the military orders and the convents of women established on the basis of useful activity and not idle contemplation. The military orders were a peculiar union of monk and knight whose purpose was, through charity and war, to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, to care for the sick and to feed and house the tired and hungry.

1. The order of St. John had its origin in a hospital founded in 1065 at Jerusalem for sick pilgrims of both sexes by Maurus, a rich man of Amalfi. A master and lay brethren conducted it. In 1099, after the victory of

the First Crusade, many knights joined it, hence to the hospital duties was now added armed protection for pilgrims. Soon a new and larger hospital was built near the church of St. John the Baptist from which the order was named. In 1121 Raymond de Puy gave the brotherhood a fixed rule which required the vows of monasticism, ascetic practices, and the duty of armed protection.[513:1] The order had two thousand members by 1160 and had received great wealth from Popes, princes, and private persons. Soon many affiliated branches were planted on land and on islands of the sea. In the thirteenth century the total income of the order was eighteen times as great as that of the King of France. After 1187 the order withdrew to Ptolemais and kept up the contest with the Saracens for a century when in 1291 it again withdrew first to the Isle of Cyprus, then in 1309 to the Isle of Rhodes, and, finally, in 1350 to the Isle of Malta where it remained until disbanded in 1797 by Napoleon.

2. Two companions of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1118 united with seven other knights to protect and guide pilgrims to the Holy Land. To the three monastic vows which they took was added a fourth, namely, to fight the "infidels." King Baldwin II. gave them a residence in the Temple of Solomon, hence the order came to be called the Templars.[513:2] The membership soon increased and a rule was drawn up. St. Bernard championed the order and Pope Honorius II. favoured it. Burghers soon joined the knights, but the hospital duties were obscured by the feats of arms. They withdrew in 1291 to Cypress and then to France where

through royal and papal favours they soon numbered twenty thousand knights and possessed vast wealth. Under Philip IV. of France they were disbanded and robbed in 1307.

3. The Teutonic Knights date from the Third Crusade and derived their name from a German hospital founded in 1128 at Jerusalem, which fell in 1187. The intense sufferings at the siege of Acre in 1190 led some of the German merchants to revive the work of the hospital by making tents out of the sails of their ships and caring for the sick. In 1200 these hospital attendants organised themselves as a military order, adopted monastic vows, promised to help the sick and wounded, bound themselves to fight the Mohammedans and pagans, and were soon favoured by the Pope and Emperor. At first the members were all Germans of honourable birth but later priests and burghers were admitted. The order became powerful and wealthy and in 1237 absorbed the order of Brothers of the Sword. The order removed first to Venice in 1291, and then to Marienburg in 1309 to wage a crusade against the pagan Prussians. Napoleon in 1809 suppressed the order. In Spain to fight the Moors were organised the order of Calatrava, the order of Aleontera, and the order of Montesta. In Portugal appeared the order of Christ and the order of Avis.

The hospital orders without military service arose in the West and were brotherhoods of common people patterned after the order of St. John and patronised by Popes:

1. The order of Cross Bearers arose in 1160 at Bologna and in 1238 in Bohemia.

2. The order of Anthony was endowed by a French noble and authorised by Urban II. in 1095 at Clermont.

3. The order of the Holy Ghost was founded at Montpellier in 1170 and regularly organised by Innocent III. in 1198.

4. The order of St. Lazarus probably began in the Holy Land and in the twelfth century spread over the West.

5. The order of the Trinity was created by a priest and a hermit and chartered in 1198 by Innocent III.

6. The order of Knights of Emancipation was formed in 1228 to free Christian slaves.

7. The Bridge Brothers were pledged to build and protect bridges for pilgrims as well as to care for the sick.

8. Various associations of women were attached to both classes of orders to serve in poorhouses and hospitals as nurses and assistants of all kinds.

This rapid multiplication of orders and their marvellous increase of wealth was followed by equally rapid degeneration and decay, so that the original purpose of the monastic organisation was lost after a few generations. The Popes granted them many exemptions. The members of these various orders became more estranged from the humbler classes and were in consequence unpopular, suspected, and hated. The vows of poverty were eluded; the narrow cell became a grand cloister; the deserts became parks, and the hermits, princely abbots; and the inmates of the monastery changed into a worldly aristocracy under a religious name. The promise of chastity was forgotten, the abbeys became centres of corruption and the nunneries almost houses of prostitution.[515:1] Monasticism resembled feudalism in which the abbot and his monks lived riotously and waged war upon their

neighbours. Such men as Gilbert, the Abbot of Gemblours, confessed with shame that monachism had become an oppression and a scandal—a hissing and a reproach to all men.[516:1] St. Bernard said in 1147 of the region of the Count of Toulouse.

The churches are without people, the people are without priests, the priests without the reverence due them, and the Christians without Christ. The churches are regarded as synagogues, the sanctuary of the Lord is no longer holy; the sacraments are no longer held sacred; feast days are without solemnity; men die in their sins and their souls are hurried to the dread tribunal, neither reconciled by penance nor fortified by the holy communion.[516:2]

Furthermore the state and the nobility stepped in and attempted to control the monastic system and particularly the appointment of abbots.[516:3] The obligation of obedience to superior authority seemed to be utterly disregarded.

The old form of monasticism, at its best, thought only of the salvation of its own members and not of the world. Here, then, was an opportunity for a great revolution and also a crying need for it. Everywhere monasteries were rapidly obtaining exemptions from the bishops and subjecting themselves to the successor of St. Peter. While this strengthened the Pope, it stimulated conventual degeneracy, relaxed monastic discipline, denationalised monasticism, aroused popular hostility, and spread the report that a little gold would purchase any privilege.[516:4] Under these conditions it was perhaps natural that the inmates of monasteries

were frequently recruited from the worst and most vicious classes. Such motives as sickness, poverty, crime, mortal danger, dread of hell, and desire of heaven would not furnish the best class of devotees.[517:1] In one French cloister the inmates were all professional highway robbers. Furthermore, the name monk was rendered still more despicable by the crowds of tramps palming themselves off as monks. Bearded, tonsured, and dressed in the religious habit, they swarmed throughout all parts of Christendom, begging, stealing, deceiving, and peddling false relics, and were often taken in crime and slain without mercy.[517:2] The secular priests hated the monks and the people mistrusted and despised both.[517:3] The intense speculative spirit of the age tended to create disbelief in the Church and to produce new sects which the Papacy tried in vain to suppress by force. The secular clergy were also in bad condition—the upper clergy wealthy, powerful, immoral, and worldly; the lower clergy characterised by sloth and incapacity. The need of reformation was generally recognised, but who would do it? "The Church had made no real effort at internal reform; it was still grasping, licentious, covetous, and a strange desire for something—they knew not exactly what—began to take possession of men's hearts and spread like an epidemic from village to village and from land to land."[517:4] Heresy, likewise, was making rapid strides and was propagated by sects whose austere lives and serviceable conduct were popular because in such a striking contrast to those of the monks and clergy.

The general purpose of the begging orders, which grew out of these conditions, was (1) to reform the Church from within and not by revolution; (2) to avoid the evils and corruptions of wealth by making poverty an object of admiration and sanctification; (3) to send their members out to save the Church and the world instead of shutting them up in monasteries for the selfish purpose of saving their own souls; (4) to supervise the whole system and to keep the order in a harmonious working condition by a rigidly organised monarchial government; and (5) to set on foot a great reformatory home movement which would win the Church away from the corrupting idols back to a purer and more primitive Christianity.[518:1] The two prominent begging orders were both Romanic in origin and not Germanic.

The way for the begging orders was partially prepared by antecedent reformers and orders. Conspicuous among the individuals who were forerunners of St. Francis and St. Dominic was (1) St. Bernard (1091-1153) who advocated poverty and denounced the abuses of his day. (2) Arnold of Brescia (c. 1100-1155), a priest and follower of Abélard, assailed the Pope's temporal power, attacked the wealth of the clergy, urged the secularisation of ecclesiastical property, and led a popular revolt in Rome for a republic. He was hanged, burned, and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber.[518:2] (3) Gerach of Reichersberg (1093-1169), a German monk and canon of Augsburg, left his position disgusted at the irregularity of the lives of the canons, went to Rome in 1125, and was officially appointed

by Honorius II. to reform the canonry. As the head of the canonry of Reichersberg (1132) he became an active and rigorous reformer.[519:1] (4) Foulques de Neuilly (died 1202), an obscure, ignorant priest, whose mighty conviction of the sins of the world and the Church made him a great preacher, was licensed by Innocent III. as a missionary. He converted thousands from wayward lives, reclaimed lost women and founded a convent for them at Paris, denounced the clergy without mercy, and struck at every evil in the Church. His reformation, however, was lost in the crusading zeal and he himself helped to preach the Fourth Crusade.[519:2]

Among the movements laying the foundations for the begging orders were (1) the "Poor Men," or Arnoldists, who were founded in Italy after the death of Arnold of Brescia[519:3]; (2) the "Poor Men of Lyons"[519:4]; and (3) the "Poor Catholics," who were founded by Duran de Husce, a Spaniard and disciple of St. Dominic. These "Poor Catholics" based their organisation on poverty and self-abnegation, sought to convert heretics, and were approved by Innocent III. although fought by the clergy. They appear to have been lost in the forcible effort to exterminate heresy.[519:5] (4) The Beghards and Beguins were founded in the Netherlands about 1180. At first companies of women were formed in the Belgian cities to care for the sick, to perform other acts of charity, and to aid the widows and orphans of the Crusaders. They lived together in a common house, led a pious life according to a few

simple rules, but took no vows. They were called Beguins. Early in the thirteenth century similar companies of men were formed and called Beghards. Members could leave the order at will, marry or enter any occupation after leaving. These orders had their own little houses, each one distinct in its organisation, which were frequently endowed by rich burghers. The inmates were also given to hand labour and did not neglect education, although their chief work was soul saving and charity. They spread rapidly from the Netherlands to Germany, to France, to Italy, and to Bohemia and Poland. As these associations increased, their members began to wander through the countries, begging and performing acts of mercy. After the middle of the thirteenth century, charges of heresy were made against them and they were persecuted by the Church.[520:1] (5) The Carmelites, one of the mendicant orders, according to its legendary history was founded by Elijah on Mount Carmel. The first disciples were Jonah, Micah, and Obadiah; and the wife of Obadiah was the first abbess. Even Pythagoras, Mary, and Jesus were considered members. The real origin, however, seems to lie in the fact that Phocas, a Greek monk from Patmos, in 1185 saw the ruins of a monastery on Mount Carmel and there an association of hermits was formed. The Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1209 gave the association a rule and in 1224 this rule was confirmed by Honorius III. The order played an active part during the Crusades until 1238, when it was removed to Sicily and later to England and France, where it followed the custom and became a mendicant order in 1247.

The founder of the Dominicans, or Black Friars, was Dominic de Guzman, born in 1170 in old Castile of noble ancestry. Many miraculous tales were told about his mother and his infancy.[521:1] At the age of seven he was given over to his uncle, who was archpresbyter at Gumyel de Ycan. At the age of fourteen he entered the University of Palencia,[521:2] where he remained ten years as a "laborious, devout, abstemious" student. Theology was his chief subject and he became a distinguished theologian. While a student, it was said that he sold his clothes to feed the poor in a time of famine, and on another occasion he offered to redeem a sad woman's brother from slavery by taking his place. At the age of twenty-four (1194), after having studied ten years at the University, he became a canon of the Bishop of Osma, where he helped to introduce the rules of St. Augustine. Soon he was made sub-prior of the chapter, became very active in ecclesiastical affairs, excelled in asceticism, which was inspired no doubt by reading Cassian's famous work on monasticism, and became a zealous and eloquent missionary among the Mohammedans and Jews of the neighbourhood.

In 1203 he went with the Bishop of Osma to southern France to secure a bride for the King's son. In this diplomatic venture they were successful, but the bride died before she could go to Spain. Here it was that Dominic got his first view of the aggressive Albigensian heretics.[521:3] From southern France he

accompanied the Bishop of Osma to Rome, where the bishop begged Innocent III. to permit him to go as a missionary to the Huns, or the Saracens, but the request was refused. The task of converting the heretics of southern France had been intrusted to the Cistercians, but they had utterly failed to accomplish it. As Dominic and the bishop were returning to France, they met at Montpellier three of these Cistercian abbots, who had been sent out by the Pope to superintend the duties intrusted to their order. The pomp and splendour of the abbots called forth this bold rebuke from Dominic: "It is not by the display of pomp and power, cavalcades of retainers and richly houseled palfreys, nor by gorgeous apparel, that the heretics win proselytes; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity and seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth."[522:1] The abbots were advised to send out for the great work men who were imbued with apostolic poverty and zeal. The abbots accepted the advice and joined Dominic and his companion in their new conception of missionary work, but apparently their labours were checked in 1208 by the crusade waged against the Albigenses.

During the efforts to exterminate these revolters against the faith and authority of Rome, there are two accounts of the activity of Dominic,—first, that that he was a fiery leader of the crusading parties, and, secondly, that he strongly denounced the war. The probability seems to be that he lived quietly in his monastery at Prouille endeavouring to convert the

heretics without taking part in the war.[523:1] Whatever the fact may have been however, so far as the historical sources go, for the next eight years his life is a blank. No doubt he was wisely planning for the future. In 1206 the Bishop of Toulouse presented "to Dominic of Osma the church of St. Mary's of Prouille and the adjacent land to the extent of thirty feet" for the use of his women converts, who at first were nine noble ladies for whom he drew up a monastic rule. The convent soon became wealthy and influential. At the close of the war in 1214 Dominic, now forty-four years old, had made but little progress. His converts were few, his influence small, but the seeds were being sowed which would return a rich harvest. His character at this time reveals a man of earnest, resolute purpose; of deep, unalterable conviction; full of burning faith; kind of heart and ever cheerful; of winning manner and charitable beyond reason; yet given to scourgings and vigils till nature was nearly exhausted.[523:2]

Through the gift of Peter Cella, a rich man of Toulouse, Dominic founded in 1214 the monastery of St. Rouen near Toulouse which was the home of the Inquisition for over a hundred years. There he gathered some devout souls about him and they began to live like monks. The Bishop of Toulouse gave them one sixth of the tithes for their work. This was the beginning of the great Dominican order. The next step was to get papal sanction for the new organisation and for this purpose Dominic went with the Bishop of Toulouse to Rome. Innocent III., won through a

dream,[524:1] consented to sanction the order provided some known rule should be adopted. Consequently Dominic organised his monks according to the canons regular of St. Augustine, which was Dominic's own order. That rule, however, was almost immediately modified to meet the boundless plans and scope of the work which held Dominic captive. A grand master was put at the head of the order as absolute ruler and under him were provincial priors, elected during good behaviour. The friars were held to implicit obedience, as soldiers of Christ, but poverty was not at first a part of the rule. It was adopted only after the Franciscans had made it so attractive (1220). At stated times general and provincial assemblies were to be held to further the prosperity of the order.

Dominic now wisely took up his residence at Rome, where he was made court preacher, lived in the papal palace, and guided the activities of his new order. Honorius III. in 1216 sanctioned the needed changes in the rule, authorised the monks to preach and hear confessions everywhere, and took the order under his special protection.[524:2] Dominic's little band of sixteen followers—among whom were an Englishman, a German, and some Spaniards—were sent out into the world to begin the strenuous life of service. Laymen and ecclesiastics of all ranks hastened to join the order. When the second general assembly was held at Bologna in 1221 there were present representatives from sixty convents and eight provinces, representing Spain, France, England, Hungary, Poland, and Italy. This same year a secular organisation for both men and

women called "The Soldiers of Jesus Christ" was organised to convert the laymen, to fight heretics, and to win unbelievers. The members had a distinct dress and special rites and services.[525:1] Dominic died in a monastery at Bologna in 1221 and twelve years later was canonised.

A new constitution was adopted by the Dominicans in 1228 and revised and completed in 1241 and 1252. Members of the order devoted themselves exclusively to preaching, soul saving, fighting heresy, and in educating the people in the true faith. From the schools founded by the order came most of their recruits. They were the model preachers of the Middle Ages and the keenest theologians of the day, producing such men as Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. Among their numbers were found popes, cardinals, and famous doctors. The first Dominican to wear the papal tiara was Innocent V. in 1276, and he was succeeded by three others. The first cardinal to be chosen from their ranks was Hugh of Vienne in 1243, and he was followed by fifty-nine more. Among the famous doctors of the order were Albertus Magnus, Meister Echart, Johan Tauler, Henry Suso, Savonarola, Las Casas, and Vincent Ferrier. The Dominicans could boast of more than eight hundred bishops, one hundred and fifty archbishops, and the number of martyrs belonging to their order between 1234 and 1334 was thirteen thousand three hundred and seventy. So influential did they become and so dangerous to the prerogatives of the clergy[525:2] that Innocent IV. (1254), Boniface VIII.

(1300), and Clement VIII. (1311) were forced to curtail their privileges. In 1228 the first Dominican monk occupied a chair in the University of Paris and in 1230 another was added and from this time on they attempted to monopolise learning in the University. Scholasticism was largely the product of their minds. They were very active in missionary work and in 1245 they were sent to the Tartars by Innocent IV.; in 1249 to Persia by Louis IX.; in 1272 to China by Gregory X.; and they laboured among the Jews and Saracens in Spain, and in Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. They built monasteries and churches; and art and architecture are deeply indebted to them for many of the finest specimens produced in Europe.[526:1] The history of theology, philosophy, and science until the Renaissance and Reformation is little more than a petty controversial rivalry between them and the Franciscans.

The founder of the Franciscans, or Minorites, or Grey Friars, was Francis of Assisi. He was born in 1182 at Assisi of a rich mercantile family. He received a little learning from the parish priest, but manifested no love for school instruction. He knew Latin and learned some French while with his father on business in France. It was early determined that he should be educated for business. Reports concerning his early character show that he was cheerful and kind-hearted, careless and indifferent to work, vain and fond of fine clothes, prone to join comrades in dissipating carousals, and too fond of squandering his father's money in banquets for his friends.[526:2]

At the age of twenty Francis joined a war party against Perugia. He was taken captive and held for a year in prison and this seemed to sober him somewhat. Two serious illnesses led him to change his life and a series of visions determined his conduct (1208). He boldly and suddenly deserted his worldly companions and started out passionately on the path of self-denial. He was now twenty-six years of age. He declared that poverty should be his bride, and resolved to go to Rome to throw all his possessions on the altar of St. Peter. Upon his return journey he joined a gang of beggars and exchanged his clothes for the filthiest rags among them. Next he appropriated a quantity of his father's goods and sold them, together with the horse, to restore the church of St. Damiani. Then he hid a month in a cave and when he returned looking wild and haggard he was hooted and stoned in the streets. His father, alarmed and angered at his acts called him before the Bishop to force him to give up his patrimony. Francis stripped off all his clothing but his hair shirt and the Bishop covered him with an old cloak. Surrendering his inheritance and even his very clothing to his father he exclaimed: "Peter Bernardone was my father; I now have but one father, He that is in heaven." This was the keynote of his whole life.[527:1] From now henceforth he was consecrated to mendicancy, wandered about in a hermit's attire, devoted himself to the lepers, helped restore with his own hands four ruined churches, and resolved to work out his own salvation in loving service for the weak and needy—an evidence of his genuine conversion and a thing radically different from the Christianity of that period. One day in

February, 1209, the text rang in his ears: "Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, neither scrip for your journey, neither two coats nor shoes nor staff, for the labourer is worthy of his hire."[528:1] These strong words, coming from the priest who was celebrating mass in one of the little churches which Francis had helped to rebuild, pierced him like a revelation. "This is what I want," he cried; "this is what I was seeking; from this day forth I shall set myself with all my strength to put it in practice." Accordingly he threw away his wallet, staff, and shoes, and put on a rough grey tunic of coarse woollen cloth, girt by a hempen cord, and went barefooted through the land preaching repentance.[528:2] He lived now as a follower of the living Jesus,—"like the birds of the air,"—and his childish simplicity and radiating face made him beloved by the poor and a comfort to the troubled and sick.[528:3]

Francis did not have in mind at first the institution of a brotherhood; his ideal was rather the solitary ascetic preaching repentance to a world of sin, and his strange, fervoured piety soon made him famous in the neighbourhood of Assisi. Gradually kindred spirits joined him and begged to share his mission. Bernard of Quintavalle was the first to ask to be associated with him, and in order to learn God's will Francis opened the Bible at random and read Matthew xix., 21; vi., 8; xvi., 24. Others came until his disciples numbered eight. He received them and put them under vows of poverty and preaching. The time had now come to evangelise the world. These disciples were sent out in pairs to the four points of the compass, with these words:

Go and preach two by two. Preach peace and patience; tend the wounded and relieve the distressed; reclaim the erring; bless them which persecute you and pray for them that despitefully use you. Fear not because you are small and seem foolish. Have confidence in the Lord who has vanquished the world. Some will receive you and many proud will resist you. Bear all with sweetness and patience. Soon the wise and noble will be with us. The Lord hath given me to see this—I have in my ears the sounds of the languages of all peoples who will come to us—French, Spanish, German and English. The Lord will make us a great people even to the end of the earth.

Upon their reuniting, four more were added to their number and Francis gave them a rule of which poverty was the basic principle and chastity and obedience were necessary requirements.

Papal confirmation was the next step. This Francis sought in 1210 from Innocent III. in a friendly interview at Rome.[529:1] The Pope in doubt submitted the question to the cardinals and it was carried in favour of Francis. His rule was approved orally and the members thus came under the spiritual authority of Rome and were authorised to receive the tonsure and to preach the word of God. A second rule less severe than the first was drawn up and approved by Honorius III. in 1223, and it remained the unaltered constitution of the Franciscan order.[529:2] The organisation according to this rule provided for a General Minister at the head, provincial ministers, and brethren, or minorities. Applicants were required to sell all their possessions for the poor, to promise to live according to the gospel, and to take the absolute vows of chastity, obedience,

and poverty. Each monk was to have two gowns of vile cloth which were to be patched as long as possible. No shoes were to be worn except when absolutely necessary. All but the sick had to walk. No money could be received save for the poor and the needy. All who were able were compelled to labour and thus earn their food and clothing. "Brethren," said Francis, "know that poverty is the special path of salvation, the inciter to humility, and the root of perfection."[530:1] A very simple ritual with one daily mass and but little music was instituted.

Francis sent his disciples out over the whole world to preach his gospel, while he continued the simplicity of his earlier life, living in a little hut with a ground floor, preaching to and converting whole multitudes who came to hear and to see him, and continuing his acts of mercy and love. He founded a convent of women called the "Clarisses" or "Poor Clares," who became almost as famous as the "Poor Brothers."[530:2] In 1221 he established the "Brothers and Sisters of Penitence," a lay order whose members, though living under a rule, retained their social position and employments, but bound themselves to abstain from all worldly dissipations like dancing, theatre-going, and secular festivals, and to live godly lives.[530:3] This was a very sensible arrangement because by it Francis enlisted all classes in sympathetic co-operation.[530:4] Impelled by missionary zeal Francis journeyed not only throughout Italy but to Illyria, Spain, and with twelve brethren even went to the distant Holy Land,

where he not only converted thousands to Christianity, but even attempted to win the Sultan himself. Failing in this he returned to Italy.[531:1] In his relations with Rome Francis was the truest son of the Church and formed an army trained in piety and absolute obedience which the Pope used later to great advantage. For himself, however, he demanded freedom to live and to act after his own heart. His life was spared to see his order cover the world, but at length worn out by his labours and consuming zeal he died in 1226 naked and in poverty.[531:2] After his death it is said that the five wounds of the Saviour, called the "stigmata," were found on his body.[531:3] He was canonised in 1228 by Gregory IX.

Few persons in the world's history have stamped their character and influence upon their age in a more marked manner than did St. Francis. His life is hallowed by countless miracles and it is not always easy to separate myth from truth. But a careful study of his career reveals the fact that he felt the unity of the universe in God and preached it to man in love and charity as a genuine religious philosopher. With an unparalleled ardour and spiritual industry, he taught every one that the salvation of a human soul comes through self-sacrifice. He and his followers aimed to realise the simplicity of Christ and his apostles. "No human creature since Christ has more fully incarnated the ideal of Christianity than Francis."[531:4] His chief happiness was in ministering to the needs of

his fellow creatures. "The perfection of gladness," he said "consists not in working miracles, in curing the sick, expelling devils, or raising the dead; nor in learning and knowledge of all things; nor in eloquence to convert the world, but in bearing all ills and injuries and injustices and despiteful treatment with patience and humility." Through his insane, extravagant asceticism there shines forth a patience, humility, and depth of love necessary to oppose the pride and cruelty of his age. He inculcated the gospel of cheerfulness and declared that gloom and sadness were the deadly weapons of Satan. He had a poetic soul, was passionately fond of animals and flowers—called them his brothers and sisters—and preached some beautiful sermons to the trees, the fish in the streams, the birds,[532:1] and the posies. He wrote some rugged and touching verse—"The first broken utterances of a new voice which was soon to fill the world."[532:2] "Of all saints St. Francis was the most blameless and gentle. Francis was emphatically the saint of the people, of a poetic people, like the Italians."[532:3] In many ways he was the forerunner of Dante. In prayer, in picture, and in song, the worship of St. Francis vied with that of Jesus. In story and legend he soon outstripped Christ.

It was in 1219 that St. Francis sent his disciples out to evangelise the world. Those who went to Germany and Hungary were regarded as heretics and roughly treated. In France at first they were mistaken for Cathari and an appeal was made to the Pope concerning them. Five suffered martyrdom in Morocco. They soon spread to all parts of the

world and many of them perished as martyrs in the cause they had espoused. When St. Francis held his first chapter in 1221 three thousand members[533:1] were present and Provincial Masters had been appointed in all European countries. In 1260 there were thirty-three provinces, one hundred eighty-two guardianships, eight thousand monasteries and two hundred thousand friars. The order has produced five Popes and many cardinals, bishops, theologians, writers, and poets.

A comparison of the two founders and their orders reveals some interesting facts. Both leaders were born about the same time, St. Dominic being the older by twelve years. Both were of Romance origin—one of noble, the other of ignoble birth. The early life of each was wholly dissimilar in disposition, education, and relation to the Church. The causes operating to make them reformers were very different. St. Dominic dreamed of an aggressive, skilfully-trained body of preachers of simple life to convert the heretics and to instruct the orthodox, thus keeping them firm. St. Francis on the other hand made poverty the first Christian grace and sought to lead all men back to Jesus as the great model. One laboured for doctrinal orthodoxy, the other for personal piety. Both applied to Innocent III. about the same time for a permit to found a new order and both were successful. Each order in its purpose was reformatory and in the monastic world revolutionary.[533:2] In organisation the two orders were essentially the same: each had a governor-general at Rome, provincial governors in the provinces, priors or guardians over single cloisters, which were simply "homes" and not convents in the old sense and

demanded a certain type of life for the members. The vows were essentially the same, although the Franciscans originated and the Dominicans adopted that of poverty. Both orders devoted themselves to preaching and to saving souls.

Education, art, morality, and religion of the later Middle Ages were in a large measure moulded by the influence of these two organisations. Both had great scholars, preachers, teachers, higher clergy, and popes.

Whenever in the thirteenth century we find a man towering above his fellows, we are almost sure to trace him to one of the mendicant orders. Raymond of Pennaforte, Alexander Hales, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus are names which show how irresistibly the men of highest gifts were glad to seek among the Dominicans or Franciscans their ideal life.[534:1]

The Franciscans were realists and Scottists; the Dominicans, nominalists and Thomists. The Franciscans believed in the immaculate conception; the Dominicans denied it. Both came into conflict with the secular clergy. They could not say mass, but were very popular confessors and thus tended to deprive the clergy of support and revenues and even threatened to supersede the old ecclesiastical system. Women and the pious as a rule upheld the begging orders, while the state, the soldiers, and the men took the part of the clergy. In both, the individual was compelled to remain poor, while the society became dangerously rich. The Dominicans were aristocratic; the Franciscans democratic.

Each order borrowed something from the other: St. Francis took St. Dominic's idea of itinerant preachers; St. Dominic adopted St. Francis's plan of poverty. Both became quickly popular and both had exemptions and privileges showered upon them by Rome.[535:1] Their members could not be excommunicated by any bishop and were exempt from all local jurisdiction save that of their own order.[535:2] They had a right to live freely in excommunicated lands. Being directly responsible to the Pope alone, they were used by him to raise money, to preach crusades, to sell indulgences, to execute excommunications, to serve as spies and secret police, and to act as papal legates on all kinds of missions. In addition to practically usurping and monopolising the functions of preaching and confession and granting absolution, they were finally permitted to celebrate mass on portable altars.[535:3] In return for these privileges each order gave the Pope a vast army which overran Europe in his name. Both orders helped to carry on the work of the Inquisition.[535:4] Both laboured incessantly in the missionary field and from the thirteenth century onward they were the great missionary pioneers in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Both had a tertiary order of laymen which went far to remove the barrier between the ecclesiastic and the people. From this comparison it will be seen that the Franciscans and Dominicans were much more alike than unlike in their origin, leaders, aims, methods, and results. After the thirteenth century both departed from their original ideals, became corrupt, worldly, and very unpopular.

A third begging order was created in 1243, when Pope Innocent IV. authorised the organisation of a band of Italian monks under the rule of St. Augustine. Lanfranc Septala of Milan was made general of the order and provincial rulers were appointed for Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. Under Alexander IV. in 1256 they assumed the rights and duties of a mendicant order and in 1287 they were taken under the particular protection of the Pope. They soon spread rapidly over western Europe and by the fifteenth century covered forty-two provinces, had two thousand monasteries, and thirty thousand monks. It was this order which young Martin Luther entered in 1505 at Erfurt.

No better summary of the general results of the begging orders has ever been made than that of Lea when he says:

The Mendicants came upon Christendom like a revelation—men who had abandoned all that was enticing in life to imitate the Apostles, to convert the sinner and unbeliever, to arouse the slumbering sense of mankind, to instruct the ignorant, to offer salvation to all; in short to do what the Church was paid so enormously in wealth and privileges and power for neglecting. Wandering on foot over the face of Europe, under burning suns or chilling blasts, rejecting alms in money but receiving thankfully whatever coarse food might be set before the wayfarer, or enduring hunger in silent resignation, taking no thought for the morrow, but busied eternally in the work of snatching souls from Satan, and lifting men up from the sordid cares of daily life, of ministering to their infirmities and of bringing to their darkened souls a glimpse of heavenly light—such was the aspect in which the earliest Dominicans and Franciscans presented themselves to the eyes of men

who had been accustomed to see in the ecclesiastic only the sensual worldling intent solely upon the indulgence of his appetites.[537:1]

In the busy world of the 13th century there was then no agency more active than that of the Mendicant Orders, for good and for evil. On the whole perhaps the good preponderated, for they undoubtedly aided in postponing a revolution for which the world was not yet ready. Though the self-abnegation of their earlier days was a quality too rare and perishable to be long preserved, and though they soon sank to the level of the social order around them, yet their work had not been altogether lost.[537:2]

The degeneration which soon crept into both orders was not allowed to increase without efforts of reformation. Within fifty years after the death of St. Francis, Bonaventura, the governor-general who succeeded him, complained that the vow of poverty had broken down, that the Franciscans were more entangled in money matters than the older orders and that vast sums were lavished on costly buildings. He declared that the friars were idle, lazy beggars given to vice and so brazen that they were feared as much as highway robbers. He said further that they made undesirable acquaintances and thus gave rise to grave scandals, and that they were too greedy of burial and legacy fees and thus encroached upon the parochial clergy. St. Francis himself had been compelled to resign his generalship on account of the abuses and offered to resume it only on condition of reformation.[537:3] The second general, Elias, the shrewdest politician in Italy, was removed by Pope Gregory IX. It was high time

therefore that a high-minded reformer like Bonaventura appeared, for by a series of steps the Franciscans changed from a body of pietists to a band of the boldest swindlers. As preaching and soul-saving died out, the begging propensities were developed. As early as 1233 Gregory IX. told the Dominicans that their poverty should be genuine and not hypocritical.[538:1] The wide use of the friars by the Pope for political purposes still further diverted them from their spiritual functions and tended to make them worldly.

As a result the Franciscans soon broke into two parties: (1) The liberals who were not averse to dropping the vow of poverty and imitating the older monastic orders were very strong. (2) The reform party who desired to adhere rigidly to the preaching and practice of St. Francis were probably a minority and were weakened by subdivisions. One faction of the strict party was called Spirituales,[538:2] and in turn was represented by the Cæsarins who revolted against the public activity of Elias and were punished as rebels; the Celestines who were permitted to exist as a separate order by Pope Celestine V. in 1294, and were later denounced as heretics; the congregation of Narbonne which was formed in 1282; the Clarenins who were accused of heresy in 1318; and the congregation of Philip of Nyarca which was formed in 1308. A second reform element within the rigid party were the Fratricelli, authorised by Celestine V., who became revolutionists, repudiated the Papacy, left the Church, joined the Beghards, thought that they were possessed with the Holy Spirit and were exempt from sin, and

repudiated the sacraments of the Church. They were condemned as heretics and the Inquisition was turned against them in Italy, Sicily, and southern France, but they lasted until the Reformation. Later reform factions among the Franciscans were the Capuchins (1526), Minims (1453), Observants (1415), and Recollects. These internal reformers failed to change the order because the rule of St. Francis was utterly incompatible with social life in any form.

For three centuries the Franciscans and Dominicans practically ruled the Church and state. They filled the highest civil ecclesiastical positions; they taught authoritatively in the universities and churches; they maintained the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiffs against kings, bishops, and heretics; and they were to the Church before the Reformation what the Jesuits were after the Reformation. The Mendicants increased so rapidly however that they soon became a burden to the Church and the people. Hence in 1272 Gregory X. in the Council of Lyons suppressed the "extravagant multitude" by reducing them to four orders: the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, and the Augustinians.