Fig. 257.—Carved Ivory Chaplet of Beads and Girdle of an Abbess (Sixteenth Century). Collection of M. Achille Jubinal.
Following her example, many women of equal endowments sought in mental labour and in devotional exercises an aliment for their moral activity; and, when the great St. Dominic commenced his apostleship (1170–1221), he found them ready to receive his teaching. He accordingly created, under the St. Augustine rule, in unison with the preaching brothers, afterwards called Dominicans (Fig. 258), a congregation of preaching sisters known by the same title, namely, Dominicaines.
Fig. 258.—The most famous Members of the Dominican Order.—1. Hugh de St. Cher, Cardinal of St. Sabine, the most learned theologian of his time, who died March 19, 1263. 2. St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, 1389–1459. 3. John Dominicus (the blessed), Cardinal of Ragusa, 1360–1419. 4. Pope Innocent V., born in Savoy, died June 22, 1276. 5. St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers (1170–1221). 6. Pope St. Benedict XI., born at Treviso (1240–1304).—From a Fresco of the Crucifixion, by Fra Angelico, in the Convent of St. Mark at Florence (Fifteenth Century).—From a copy belonging to M. H. Delaborde.
The vulgar tongue was absolutely prohibited in the Dominican houses, Latin alone being used for conversation. The principal European languages were, however, taught for preaching purposes: including the southern idioms, familiar to St. Dominic and St. Raymond, whose eloquence had so deep an effect in Languedoc and Provence, as well as in a part of Spain (1175–1275); and the northern idioms of the Sclaves and the Tartars, which a preaching brother of Breslau, St. Hyacinthus (1183–1257), used to some purpose in a successful mission that ended in the establishment of two monasteries, at Cracow and at Kiew. In these still barbarous regions, St. Hedwige, the wife of a duke of Poland, who died in 1243, founded at Trebnitz a convent of the Cistercian order, and at about the same period a queen of Castille created one at Valladolid (Fig. 259). At this epoch, also, the Sisterhood of St. Clare, founded in 1218 by St. Clare, at the suggestion of St. Francis of Assisi, failed in its attempts to extend the order beyond Italy.
Fig. 259.—Maria de Molina, Queen of Castille (1284–1321), handing to the Cistercian Nuns the Charter of Foundation for their convent.—Bas-relief from her Tomb at Valladolid.—From an Engraving in the “Iconografia Española” of M. Carderera.
Fig. 260.—St. Thomas in a Council of Prelates and Doctors held at Anagni in 1256, and presided over by Pope Alexander IV., defending the attack made upon the monastic orders by the University of Paris, and successfully refuting the assertions of William of St. Amour. The saint, of whom the back only is seen, is in the foreground, with St. Bonaventura at his right. Near the Pope are seated the Cardinals Hugh de Saint-Cher and Jean des Ursins, and next to them the Bishop of Messina, the famous Albert the Great, the heads of orders, the deputies of King Louis IX., &c.—From a Painting in the Louvre, by Benozzo Gozzoli (Fourteenth Century), termed the “Triumph of St. Thomas of Aquinas.”
The poor and docile religious militia organized by St. Francis of Assisi under the name of Minors or Franciscans (1208), at that time set the world an edifying example of Christian humility and self-denial. The chief characteristic of the Franciscans was their complete renunciation of all worldly goods. This mendicant order increased so rapidly that their saintly founder was able to gather round him, in his monastery of Assisi, five thousand delegates from religious houses which had been built in nine years from the founding of the order. There were occasionally some unfortunate quarrels between the secular clergy and the monastic orders. One of the most notorious was that which broke out between the University of Paris and the mendicant orders. The university was in the habit of suspending its lectures when it had any dispute with the government. The Dominicans and the Franciscans having refused to submit to this practice, their priests were deprived of their professorial chairs, and all their monks excluded from the university. A doctor, William of St. Amour, published a violent diatribe against the mendicant orders. The quarrel lasted a long time, and Popes Innocent IV. and Alexander IV. supported the cause of the monks in several bulls issued upon this subject (Fig. 260). The university, in the end, consented to reopen its doors to them, but only on the condition that they should always occupy the lowest rank, and in the public disputations not urge their views until the other doctors had had their say. It may be imagined how this petty restriction was put up with by these humble monks, when we remember that among those whom the doctors treated with so much contumely were such men as Roger Bauer, Duns Scotus, and St. Bonaventura among the Franciscans; and Albert the Great, Vincent of Beauvais, and St. Thomas of Aquinas among the Dominicans. It was the last-mentioned of these who defended the mendicant orders from the attacks of William of St. Amour.