§ 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.”
- 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.
- 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.
- 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].
- 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]
- 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.
- 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.