The moderate party was by far the largest, and embraced nearly all the friars of France, England and Germany. It was the Moderates and not the Zealots that brought about Elias’s deposition, and the next general ministers belonged to this party. Further relaxations of the law of poverty, however, caused a reaction, and John of Parma, one of the Zealots, became minister-general, 1247-1257. Under him the more extreme of the Zealots took up and exaggerated the theories of the Eternal Gospel of the Calabrian Cistercian abbot Joachim of Fiore (Floris); some of their writings were condemned as heretical, and John of Parma, who was implicated in these apocalyptic tendencies, had to resign. He was succeeded by St Bonaventura (1257-1274), one of the best type of the middle party. He was a man of high character, a theologian, a mystic, a holy man and a strong ruler. He set himself with determination to effect a working compromise, and proceeded with firmness against the extremists on both sides. But controversy and recrimination and persecution had stiffened the more ardent among the Zealots into obstinate fanatics—some of them threw themselves into a movement that may best be briefly described as a recrudescence of Montanism (see Émile Gebhart’s Italie mystique, 1899, cc. v. and vi.), and developed into a number of sects, some on the fringe of Catholic Christianity and others beyond its pale. But the majority of the Zealot party, or Spirituals, did not go so far, and adopted as the principle of Franciscan poverty the formula “a poor and scanty use” (usus pauper et tenuis) of earthly goods, as opposed to the “moderate use” advocated by the less strict party. The question thus posed came before the Council of Vienne, 1312, and was determined, on the whole, decidedly in favour of the stricter view. Some of the French Zealots were not satisfied and formed a semi-schismatical body in Provence; twenty-five of them were tried before the Inquisition, and four were burned alive at Marseilles as obstinate heretics, 1318. After this the schism in the Order subsided. But the disintegrating forces produced by the Great Schism and by the other disorders of the 14th century caused among the Franciscans the same relaxations and corruptions, and also the same reactions and reform movements, as among the other orders.
The chief of these reforms was that of the Observants, which began at Foligno about 1370. The Observant reform was on the basis of the “poor and scanty use” of worldly goods, but it was organized as an order and its members freely pursued theological studies; thus it did not represent the position of the original Zealot party, nor was it the continuation of it. The Observant reform spread widely throughout Italy and into France, Spain and Germany. The great promoters of the movement were St Bernardine of Siena and St John Capistran. The council of Constance, 1415, allowed the French Observant friaries to be ruled by a vicar of their own, under the minister-general, and the same privilege was soon accorded to other countries. By the end of the middle ages the Observants had some 1400 houses divided into 50 provinces. This movement produced a “half-reform” among the Conventuals or friars of the mitigated observance; it also called forth a number of lesser imitations or congregations of strict observance.
After many attempts had been made to bring about a working union among the many observances, in 1517 Leo X. divided the Franciscan order into two distinct and independent bodies, each with its own minister-general, its own provinces and provincials and its own general chapter: (1) The Conventuals, who were authorized to use the various papal dispensations in regard to the observance of poverty, and were allowed to possess property and fixed income, corporately, like the monastic orders; (2) The Observants, who were bound to as close an observance of St Francis’s Rule in regard to poverty and all else as was practically possible.
At this time a great number of the Conventuals went over to the Observants, who have ever since been by far the more numerous and influential branch of the order. Among the Observants in the course of the sixteenth century arose various reforms, each striving to approach more and more nearly to St Francis’s ideal; the chief of these reforms were the Alcantarines in Spain (St Peter of Alcantara, St Teresa’s friend, d. 1562), the Riformati in Italy and the Recollects in France: all of these were semi-independent congregations. The Capuchins (q.v.), established c. 1525, who claim to be the reform which approaches nearest in its conception to the original type, became a distinct order of Franciscans in 1619. Finally Leo XIII. grouped the Franciscans into three bodies or orders—the Conventuals; the Observants, embracing all branches of the strict observance, except the Capuchins; and the Capuchins—which together constitute the “First Order.” For the “Second Order,” or the nuns, see [Clara, St], and [Clares, Poor]; and for the “Third Order” see [Tertiaries]. Many of the Tertiaries live a fully monastic life in community under the usual vows, and are formed into Congregations of Regular Tertiaries, both men and women. They have been and are still very numerous, and give themselves up to education, to the care of the sick and of orphans and to good works of all kinds.
No order has had so stormy an internal history as the Franciscans; yet in spite of all the troubles and dissensions and strivings that have marred Franciscan history, the Friars Minor of every kind have in each age faithfully and zealously carried on St Francis’s great work of ministering to the spiritual needs of the poor. Always recruited in large measure from among the poor, they have ever been the order of the poor, and in their preaching and missions and ministrations they have ever laid themselves out to meet the needs of the poor. Another great work of the Franciscans throughout the whole course of their history has been their missions to the Mahommedans, both in western Asia and in North Africa, and to the heathens in China, Japan and India, and North and South America; a great number of the friars were martyred. The news of the martyrdom of five of his friars in Morocco was one of the joys of St Francis’s closing years. Many of these missions exist to this day. In the Universities, too, the Franciscans made themselves felt alongside of the Dominicans, and created a rival school of theology, wherein, as contrasted with the Aristotelianism of the Dominican school, the Platonism of the early Christian doctors has been perpetuated.
The Franciscans came to England in 1224 and immediately made foundations in Canterbury, London and Oxford; by the middle of the century there were fifty friaries and over 1200 friars in England; at the Dissolution there were some 66 Franciscan friaries, whereof some six belonged to the Observants (for list see Catholic Dictionary and F. A. Gasquet’s English Monastic Life, 1904). Though nearly all the English houses belonged to what has been called the “middle party,” as a matter of fact they practised great poverty, and the commissioners of Henry VIII. often remark that the Franciscan Friary was the poorest of the religious houses of a town. The English province was one of the most remarkable in the order, especially in intellectual achievement; it produced Friar Roger Bacon, and, with the single exception of St Bonaventure, all the greatest doctors of the Franciscan theological school—Alexander Hales, Duns Scotus and Occam.
The Franciscans have always been the most numerous by far of the religious orders; it is estimated that about the period of the Reformation the Friars Minor must have numbered nearly 100,000. At the present day the statistics are roughly (including lay-brothers): Observants, 15,000, Conventuals, 1500; to these should be added 9500 Capuchins, making the total number of Franciscan friars about 26,000. There are various houses of Observants and Capuchins in England and Ireland; and the old Irish Conventuals survived the penal times and still exist.
There have been four Franciscan popes: Nicholas IV. (1288-1292), Sixtus IV. (1471-1484), Sixtus V. (1585-1590), Clement XIV. (1769-1774); the three last were Conventuals.
The great source for Franciscan history is Wadding’s Annales; it has been many times continued, and now extends in 25 vols. fol. to the year 1622. The story is also told by Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1714), vol. vii. Abridgments, with references to recent literature, will be found in Max Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1896), i. §§ 37-51; in Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexicon (2nd ed.), articles “Armut (III.),” “Franciscaner orden” (this article contains the best account of the inner history and the polity of the order up to 1886); in Herzog, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed.), articles “Franz von Assisi” (fullest references to literature up to 1899), “Fraticellen.” Of modern critical studies on Franciscan origins, K. Müller’s Anfänge des Minoritenordens und der Bussbruderschaften (1885), and various articles by F. Ehrle in Archiv für Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters and Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, deserve special mention. Eccleston’s charming chronicle of “The Coming of the Friars Minor into England” has been translated into English by the Capuchin Fr. Cuthbert, who has prefixed an Introductory Essay giving by far the best account in English of “the Spirit and Genius of the Franciscan Friars” (The Friars and how they came to England, 1903). Fuller information on the English Franciscans will be found in A. G. Little’s Grey Friars in Oxford (Oxford Hist. Soc., 1892).
(E. C. B.)