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