slow to turn to good account. Early appreciating that the most efficient means of rising in public favor was to gain distinction in scientific pursuits and secure professors' chairs in the universities, the Dominicans applied for positions in the University of Paris, in 1230, and, through the good offices of the bishop and chancellor, obtained the chairs of theology heretofore occupied by secular priests. The first two who taught here were Roland and John of St. Giles.

1

The Franciscans made similar applications, and their great theologian, Alexander of Hales, was also provided with a chair in the university. In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the members of the Mendicant Friars were in the foremost rank of theologians. St. Thomas, among the Dominicans, and St. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus, among the Franciscans († A. D. 1308), were the glory of their respective Orders and the light and strength of the Church.

The Dominicans were also distinguished by their love and cultivation of the fine arts, and the unprecedented zeal put forth by them in missionary labors. Members of their Order might be found in every country of Europe and in Asia and Africa. The first European vessel that touched the shores of Greenland brought a number of Friars preachers, and at the opening of the seventeenth century the Dutch were not a little surprised to find there the Dominican convent mentioned by Captain Nicholas Hane in 1280.

While purity of life, disinterested zeal, and single-minded earnestness were securing to the Mendicant Friars an almost exclusive control of spiritual affairs and opening a wide field for their eminent talents, they excited the envy and hostility of secular priests, who forfeited by neglecting the privileges they might have retained; of the old monastic orders, who saw themselves distanced by their younger brothers; and particularly of the arrogant men about the universities, who could not endure to see their influence and positions passing from them, and themselves outdone in their peculiar sphere by their more successful and industrious competitors. This opposition soon found expression in open and violent attacks

1

Bulaei, Hist. Univers. Parisiens., T. III., p. 838 sq., 244 sq.

1

upon the Friars; and, to make matters worse, the two Orders, while pursuing parallel lines of action, were often at variance with each other on points of scholastic theology and others of a trivial character. Of all the assailants of the Mendicant Orders, William of St. Amour, who likened them to Pharisees,2 was the most violent and dangerous. His attacks were repelled by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure, who made noble defenses of their respective Orders,3 totally routing William. The Friars reaped the fruits of the victory gained by their champions.

§ 249. Divisions among the Franciscans.

When Francis was about to set out on his second voyage to Syria and Egypt, he intrusted the government of his Order to his vicar, Elias of Cortona, who, being little inclined to austerity, had already become the representative of a party desiring a mitigation of the Rule. Francis treated him with considerable kindness, thus preventing an open rupture. After the death of Francis, Elias was elected General, and successfully carried out his plans.

A second party, represented by Anthony of Padua, favored a strict adherence to primitive severity. Anthony appealed to Pope Gregory IX., had Elias deposed, and, being himself appointed General, ruled the Order in the spirit of its founder.

The issue between the two parties turned upon the interpretation of the vow of poverty. The more rigid held that the

1 Matth. Paris., ad an. 1239, gives us an account of the animated discussion between the two Orders on the question of precedence.

2 Guilielmus, de periculis novissimorum temporum, 1256 (Opp. Constant. 1632, 4to); better, the Paris edition, by J. Alethophilus (Cordesius). Cf. Natal. Alexander, Hist. Eccles. saec. XIII., c. 3, art. 7. Richard Simon, a rather slashing critic, calls William's book "a tissue of false and malicious torturing of the Scriptures against the Mendicant Orders.

3 S. Thomas, Contra retrahentes a religionis ingressu; contra impugnantes Dei cultum (Opp. ed., Paris, T. XX.) — Bonaventura, lib. apolog. in eos, qui ordini Minor. adversantur; de paupertate Chr. ctr. Guil.; expositio in regulam fratrum minor. (Opp. Lugd. 1668, T. VII.) Cf. Raumer, Hist. of the Hohenstaufens, Vol. III., p. 615 sq. Cf. Coll. cath. contra pericula imminentia ecclesiae per hypocritas etc. (du Pin, Bibl. des auteurs eccles., T. X.)

VOL. II-46

members, neither individually nor as a community, should hold property, and that neither their estates, their monasteries, nor even their churches, should be held by them in feesimple. In order to overcome this difficulty, a distinction was made between right of property and the simple use of it; and it was said the right might be vested in the Pope, while the members of the Order would enjoy its fruits. Anthony held that anything short of an absolute renunciation of the world was perilous. He died in 1231. There is a magnificent church erected to his memory in Padua, after the design of Niccolò of Pisa. In architectural beauty, it rivals the Church of St. Francis, at Assisi, and his tomb, in artistic decoration, that of St. Dominic, at Bologna. It is yearly visited by troops of pilgrims.

He

Meantime, the contest between the two parties went on. Elias was once more elected General, and again deposed. died April 22, 1253. So violent was the opposition of the rigorists that they broke completely with the Pope and allied themselves to his enemy, Frederic II. St. Bonaventura, while siding with those of the "stricter observance," shunned their excesses, and, by his prudent conduct and the influence of his great name, secured the triumph of his party for years after his death. Popes Innocent IV. and Nicholas III. approved his moderation; and the latter, by the bull "Exiit qui seminat,"2 issued in 1277, put a milder interpretation upon the primitive Rule, substantially following the distinction given above. The defeated party, carried away by unseemly passion, assailed the Pontiff and the Roman Church, and, after the manner of the sects, contrasted the wealth and magnificence of the Church then with the poverty and simplicity of the apostolic age. They foretold that a new order of things would be presently inaugurated, and made special reference to the prophecy of the abbot Joachim of Floris, in Calabria († 1202), concerning the three ages of the world. The same idea was further developed by the two Franciscan rigorists, Gerard, in his "Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel"" (c. A. D.

6

1 Roderici, Collectio nova privilegior. apost. Regularïum mendicantium et non mendicantium, Antverp, 1623, fol. p. 8 sq.

2Cf. Wadding, 1. c., T. V., p. 73.

1254), and Peter John Oliva († 1297), both of whom said that the age of the Holy Spirit was to be established through the labors of St. Francis and his true disciples.1

The favor shown to the rigorists by Pope Celestine V., who affiliated them to the community of Celestines, put a period to the quarrel, but after his resignation it broke out afresh. Boniface VIII.2 treated the incorrigible faction with considerable severity and dissolved their community (1302). A complete separation of the two parties was now effected, and each went under a distinct name. The less rigid called themselves "Fratres de Communitate," or Conventuals," while those of the stricter observance called themselves "Observantists," or "Spiritualists," and were styled by their opponents “Zealots” (Zelatores), and treated as sectaries.

§ 250. Other Orders and Confraternities.

In the year 1233, Bonfiglio Monaldi, by his powerful exhortations, prevailed upon a number of Florentine merchants to give up the world and dedicate themselves to a religious life. This they bound themselves to do, by solemn vow, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Renouncing all earthly possessions, they retired to Monte Senario and embraced a mortified life. Here they built a church, and by the side of it a number of cells, where they dwelt and spent their time in performing devotions in honor of the suf ferings of the Queen of Heaven, whence they were called Servites of the Blessed Virgin (Servi B. M. V., Servitae). Their habit consisted of a black tunic, over which they wore a scapular. Alexander IV. confirmed the Order in 1255, and Martin V. was among its most generous benefactors. They also devoted themselves to the cultivation of science, and thereby secured a wide influence. Among their members were Paolo Sarpi († 1623), the intemperate historian of the Council of Trent, and the celebrated archeologist, Ferrari3 († 1626).

1 Cf. Wadding, 1. c., T. V., pp. 314, 338.

2 Ibid. ad an. 1302, nros. 7, 8; an. 1307, nro. 2 sq.

3 Cf. Pauli Florent. Dialog. de orig. Ord. Serv. (Lamii Delic. eruditor., T. I.)

In the years 1244 and 1252, Innocent IV. brought together into one community all those persons who, scattered here and there in various countries, but notably in Italy, had been leading solitary and eremitical lives. This manner of life had been steadily increasing in popularity since the opening of the eleventh century. He commanded them to adopt the Rule of St. Augustine.' Thereupon, Alexander IV., acting on the suggestion of the superiors of all the Augustinian convents then holding a conference in Rome, placed the various congregations of Augustinians under one head.

Lanfranco Septala of Milan became the first General of the Augustinian Hermits. Subsequent Popes granted them many privileges, one of which was the office of papal sacristan, to be held perpetually. Pius V. named them the Fourth Order of Mendicants, the Carmelites being the third.

The prevailing tendency to interior life, and, in part also, the false pietistic notions of religious life, and, finally, the desire to provide for young females and widows left defenseless by the Crusades, inspired a number of pious ladies in the Netherlands and Germany, at the beginning of the twelfth century, to form associations for the double object of stimulating devotion and performing works of charity. The members of these associations did not take monastic vows, and led a life midway between the world and the cloister. Their cause was advanced chiefly by Lambert le Begues, a priest of Liége, who spent a considerable fortune in founding houses where virtuous widows and unprotected maidens might lead a religious life. According to one interpretation, they were called after him, Beguines, or Beghines; but, according to another, their name is derived from the Low German word beghen, signifying to beg or to pray. They devoted themselves chiefly to works of charity, served the sick, comforted the suffering, and led exemplary lives. But these houses, having neither constitution nor rule, soon became the centers of indiscreet zeal and fanaticism. They were often the objects of persecution, and eventually affiliated to the Third Order of St. Francis.

1 Bullar. Rom., T. I., p. 100. Cf. Bolland. m. Febr., T. II., p. 744. HenrionFehr, Vol. I., p. 379 sq.